Lauren Schellenberg
I spent the last few days in Toronto with my brother. Walking down Queen street to meet him at a restaurant, I was approached by two young adults with clipboards. I say approached, but really, they converged on me. I felt the familiar wince of anxiety that precedes human interaction and tried to scoot around them, but the young woman was already speaking to me. I removed an earbud.
She asked what I had been listening to. Music, I replied. She asked me what music. I asked her if she needed something.
She introduced herself and her partner as representatives for Doctors Without Borders, then asked if I had heard that malnutrition was a leading cause of death in the third world. I said no, I hadn’t.
She asked me what my name was. I said Jane.
She asked me what I was doing with my time on Earth, and I said I was late for a meeting. I had to go. I’d look them up online. What were they called again? Doctors Without Boundaries?
Once arrived at the restaurant, I recounted my little horror story to my brother and his wife. This sparked a conversation on the special brand of social malaise induced by awkward sales tactics.
We decided that not only were these two ignoring my physical signs of disinterest (headphones, sunglasses, quick pace, neutral expression), they weren’t playing by the normal rules of conversation. Our tacit social contract says that I get to be polite, and so do you. If I’m not interested in something, I am supposed to have a nice, civilized way of showing it, like giving one-word answers and speaking in monotone. You are then also supposed to be nice and let me leave. We dance our elegant little waltz and we both get to feel like Good People.
But now that you’ve ignored my pragmatics, I, too, am allowed to break the rules of conversation. I can be sarcastic. I can lie. I can cut you off in the middle of a sentence and walk away. I could even go so far as to speak the truth – I don’t want to talk to you. I want you to leave me alone. How barbaric.
Though I felt justified in breaking social convention, I really didn’t like it, and I hate being on the other side, too. Years ago, when I worked in retail, I remember being given ‘sales training’. I was told to ask about the customer’s needs, show interest in their life, tell them about all of our amazing deals, et cetera. I had to corner every customer that walked in (the management called this ‘engaging the client’ and would insist on using that precise terminology. Lauren, have you engaged that client over there?) and hold them hostage with my list of mandatory questions. I never understood how alienating the customer could be good for business, but I wanted my eight dollars an hour, so I did what they told me.
Does this intentional breach of conversation etiquette happen elsewhere? When have you felt trapped in a conversation, and how did you escape?
Oh boy, do I ever feel for you. I think in these situations it’s perfectly justified to be honest—as you were, fundamentally. Interaction is soooo difficult, even at the best of times, which that wasn’t.