Interesting discussion

Over on ozarque's journal:
"Finally, there appears to be a sort of basic metaprinciple that goes like this:

Try hard to avoid asking for favors.
Because (a) except with people you know extremely well, there's no way you can know what meaning(s) they assign to either "courtesy" or "avoid causing the asker/askee to lose face," and (b) there's no way you can know whether they are people for whom doing favors involves keeping track of a sort of economy of favors done and favors owed, and (c) the entire process is so complicated and fraught with possible unpleasantness."