There seems to be a fine line between asking politely and being pushy. I ask a lot of questions for my job and its something I have to be careful about. No one wants to be pushed into something, but sometimes it just happens that way. Human nature is to resist the insistent but for anything to get done you have to push people into doing more than they think they can. Maybe people like to give excuses as to why they won’t/can’t do something. It’s all funny how it works like this.