“Leaning over” means going to great lengths to please someone, often requiring personal sacrifice. The origin of the idiom is debated, but it may come from acrobats seeking attention. People lean over for various reasons, hoping for some benefit in return, but there are no guarantees.
Leaning over means taking extreme measures in a situation. The idiom normally implies that a person chooses to expend unusually significant effort to please another person. At times, this act of bending over backwards can require a great deal of personal sacrifice as well, all for the benefit of a loved one. A person can choose to go all out for a variety of reasons and in a number of different contexts. While this extra effort is often appreciated, there is always the danger that the recipient will regard the extra attention and compliance as due and see no reason to acknowledge the effort as something above and beyond the norm.
The origin of this colorful idiom is unclear and continues to be debated. One school of thought holds that the saying comes from the efforts of acrobats and contortionists who writhed themselves into unusual positions to get attention and win praise from the public. In this context, the choice to bend over backwards involves the expectation of ultimately receiving some sort of reward.
People will choose to lean back for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, the activity is to comfort a loved one who is going through a difficult time. In the workplace, an employee may bend over backwards to please a difficult manager or supervisor in hopes of earning a favor or at least avoiding criticism from an overly critical boss. When pursuing a romantic interest, an individual may go to great lengths to be attractive and attentive to the object of affection. Either way, the activity requires a greater level of effort than would otherwise have been attempted.
In many cases, people who bend over backwards in any given situation are hoping to receive some kind of return for their efforts. Salespeople who go out of their way for customers expect higher volumes of business, although people who go out of their way to please a loved one hope for some kind of benefit in the future. While there are some expectations that you will get something for the extra effort, there are no guarantees that choosing to bend over backwards will produce the desired results. Depending on the circumstances, the extra effort may feel like the norm rather than something extra, which in turn could lead to great frustration for all concerned.
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