Now a helpful video guide!
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Not awkward at all! Good luck, fellas!
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Man, I really miss The Toast on days like this.
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I still rage over how anyone could refer to most people’s daily speech interactions as being in any way pragmatic. Pragmatism might connote something more like efficacy, than the perversely obscure which most apparently settle for. Pragmatists at the Army Core of Engineers are designing bridges with poetry!
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“But some girls are shy and will be hesitant to take off their headphones right away because they are feeling a lot of nervousness & excitement about what is happening…”
Nah, son; when some awkward rando approaches me in public trying to get my attention, the emotions that I’m feeling and the thoughts that I’m thinking are usually something more like this:
and
followed by:
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Just a few weeks ago (before this article resurfaced) my brother was telling me a story about a friend. The friend went to a train stop (not quite a train station with staffed ticket takers, etc. just a paved piece of land near tracks that a train will stop) , the only person around was a woman wearing headphones. He asked “Is this the train to Franklin?” and she waved him away muttering something he couldn’t quite hear. He looked around at the signs to try to get his bearings but was confused by them, and decided to try again: “I’m sorry to bother you, but is this the train to Franklin”. The woman ripped the earbuds from her ears and yelled “I told you before. I don’t have any money for you!” She apparently thought he was panhandling. Once the earbuds were off, he straightened out that he wasn’t asking for money, Just directions.
I can understand using headphones as a signal of “I’d prefer not to be disturbed.” I can understand how they can be helpful to counteract the type of creep who would read blogs like The Modern Man for tips on how to bother women. (Or anyone. I’m a middle-aged guy and will likely be the headphone type. My wife if she gets the right feedback to engage in conversation she will find out that her second cousin went to the same USY group as your college roommate’s sister or some similar tangential connection.) How strong of a “don’t disturb me” signal should headphones be?
I can see that between the “looking down and wearing headphones” and the “makes eye contact with you”, I’d prefer to ask directions from the latter. I can see that between a uniformed employee and a arbitrary train traveler, I should ask the employee. And I’m sure I’d try to figure out the signs before I asked anyone. But is the “wearing headphone” social signal strong enough that I should miss a train rather then breaking the social taboo of talking to someone who through the headphone signal has shown they don’t want to be talked to?
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Pretty strong Do Not Disturb. You describe an exceptional circumstance. Not an impossible one, but rare enough that my Spidey sense would be tingling.
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I’d see it as “Do not Disturb unless you really need something and there’s nobody else around”. I know people at work who put them in with no music just so that people don’t interrupt them with stupid non-work office chat chat.
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I put on headphones at work WITH MUSIC just so I don’t hear the office chit chat.
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The best of that was reading this:
This will be my daughter’s new bedtime (maybe more dragons and princesses and less graphic violence, but yeah, our princess will set aside a hoard of her own walking away doubloons.)
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Yes, it might be an edge case (maybe that’s why I bring it up, to try to gauge where the edge is) I’m thinking the guide might be how annoyed the headphone wearer will be after the interaction takes place. (whether they leave thinking “I’m glad to help a guy that was lost” or “why did that creep thought I would want to date a stranger at a train platform.” probably changes how annoyed they would be from the intrusion.) Or what would the headphone wearer want to do if the situation was reversed (If they were in a similar situation, would they be willing to interrupt another headphone wearer?) And then an added nudge towards honoring personal space for a woman alone.
The work headphones (which I’m a frequent use of) is more of a “don’t bug me unless…” and there are cues you can give to let the interrupter know how you feel about it. (taking one earbud out and bringing your hand only a ft or so away tells them that you are wishing the conversation ends soon. Taking both of them off and putting them in your pocket expresses a willingness to talk. Taking them and flinging them on the desk tells not only that person that they’ve crossed a line but probably tells everyone else nearby to steer clear.)
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[quote=“phuzz, post:61, topic:84410, full:true”]1. If it actually works, can you imagine what kind of person it would work on?
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I once read something about how email scammers will deliberately use bad spelling and grammar in their pitch email because it filters out the smart people.
Maybe it’s like that.
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You come from a place of thoughtful, good, well meaning intentions. That’s why the phrase, “this is why we can’t have nice things” pops into my head.
The scenarios you describe aren’t a problem. But my loved ones and family have never described a situation like this where there wasn’t an ulterior motive. You and I may have the best of intentions, or a real need for a helping hand, but it comes down to this–if it isn’t worth it for you to be dressed down in a humiliating fashion, respect Do Not Disturb.
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How about instead of getting people to take their headphones off, you just unplug them and connect the cable to another device, such as a small amplifier you can talk to them with? This way you can still talk without the imposition of them removing their headphones.
Everybody wins!
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I was describing something related to this to my therapist just today. The phenomenon I was talking about was “camp drop,” as it relates to a kinky camping event that was a particularly bright spot in the past two months. In my normal day to day interactions, I will often hesitate to compliment someone (especially a woman) for their hair, clothing, tattoo, whatever, because I know how often this is a prelude to the PUA type of bullshit. (Note, of course, that I present as male most of the time – adding another layer onto this interaction.) At camp, I do not feel this restriction, because if I was actually interested in more than just offering a compliment on something I genuinely like, I’d say something like “Hey, would you like to play?”
Moving from a world where I am free to offer people actual compliment because they know I’m not setting them up for something else is depressing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I know that every single one of the female presenting people in my life can tell stories that started with a compliment and quickly slid into an unwanted proposition … followed by a gendered insult when they were declined.
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I do too! And the strange thing is that I work from home with no one around but the cat and dog. Maybe I should be worried?
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This really has nothing to do with your comment (although I do like it), but I may use this as the title of my as yet unwritten autobiography.
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