Comment by mindwok
8 hours ago
Would you be bothered if a stranger struck up a nice conversation with you? Most people like it! And even if they don’t, that’s ok, trust people to tell you their boundaries and respect them when they do. Nothing wrong with bothering someone if they tell you or send a strong signal and you respect it.
See my answer to that question is “er, yes, obviously??!” and so I assume, apparently incorrectly, that everyone is like me.
If it's obvious to you that everyone should be bothered by people being friendly then there's an error in your reasoning process.
I'm guessing you're either from the midwest US, or not from the US. Am I right?
1 reply →
Different experiences. Few people are friendly for frienliness' sake. The first step is to get your guard down.
Good point, maybe things would be more friendly if the prevailing reasoning were not as isolating.
I think the default is sociability too, but for reasons it does seem to be on the retreat.
> Would you be bothered
>basically anywhere there are other people,
Seems like a perfectly legitimate prerogative to me anyway. Actually more "popular" than ever from some of the comments.
>They just can't understand that people wouldn't want to talk to them.
This however does not follow completely logically.
More like "They just can't realize that of all the people who would want to talk to them, you aren't one of them."
No harm done regardless.
I have a hard time imagining this. What kind of scenario are you imagining?
> Would you be bothered if a stranger struck up a nice conversation with you?
Yes. If I am basically anywhere there are other people, I am there for a specific reason, and anyone trying to talk to me for anything else is bothering me. I've found that most people that try to start conversations with strangers are really poor at reading signals that their actions are unwanted and they only stop when you say something so out of their comfort zone they have no idea how to handle it. They just can't understand that people wouldn't want to talk to them.
And after this article and thread, we can add I don't want to be your practice dummy to the reasons you're bothering me.
The example in the article is a waiting room. Or you could be waiting to catch the subway, or in line at the grocery store. In those situations how is somebody trying to talk to you preventing you from completing your task? Otherwise you're probably just scrolling your phone; sometimes I fill these gaps with things like podcasts, but even then it's not like what I'm doing is urgent.
I prefer to be left alone with my thoughts.
Yes, 100%. I don’t want to have a surface-level conversation with a stranger.
I’m also never going to be rude about it — unless you are first. Just pick up on the obvious hints that I’m not super into talking.