I could understand if it was persistent unwanted communication, but the dude is just trying to break the ice for Odin’s sake. Just ignore him or tell him you’d rather not chit chat. How difficult is that?
Sucks to be that person. Solution! Don’t be that person!
Or, more precisely, if you are that person then do the personality development needed to remove the undesirable aspects of that social conditioning.
(You can not control others behaviour in the past. Unless they are extraordinarily good predictors, in which case by all means wreak acausal havoc upon them to prevent their to-be-counterfactual toxic training.)
I’ve been furious at the way you apparently discounted the work it takes to get over niceness conditioning, and the only reason I haven’t been on your case about it is that I was distracted by wanting to be nasty—but I lack the practice at flaming people.
Both nice and nasty are errors, although I can imagine nasty being useful as a learning exercise on the way to curing oneself of niceness.
I didn’t mean to belittle the effort (although that is a fair reading of what I wrote). Just to say that that is the task to be done, and the thing to do is to do it, whatever effort it takes. aelephant’s comment above, that’s what I would call dismissive.
I’m not sure why I found your comment that much more annoying than aelephant’s. I have a hot button about being given direct orders about my internal states, so that might be it.
It’s possible that practicing niceness could be a learning exercise on the way to curing nastiness, too, but we’re both guessing.
On the bright side, that particular kind of blathering signals someone who’s probably self-aware and open to a similarly rambling, self-referential reply. So I’d feel OK parrying pragmatist’s opener with something that’s also explicit & meta-conversational, e.g.: “Ah, we’re doing the having-a-conversation-about-having-a-conversation thing, and now I feel like I have to match your openness about your awkwardness, so I’d better do that: I find it awkward to try to manufacture conversation with somebody in a cramped, uncomfortable, noisy environment for hours. Fortunately, I mostly just want to sleep on this flight, and I brought a book in case I can’t, so you don’t have to worry about me nervously stealing quick glances at you.”
I can attest from personal experience that it’s not only women to whom people will sometimes react very negatively. This is one of the factors which has conditioned me into being less comfortable attempting to politely disengage than continuing a conversation I don’t want.
I could understand if it was persistent unwanted communication, but the dude is just trying to break the ice for Odin’s sake. Just ignore him or tell him you’d rather not chit chat. How difficult is that?
Surprisingly difficult if you’ve been trained to be “nice”.
Sucks to be that person. Solution! Don’t be that person!
Or, more precisely, if you are that person then do the personality development needed to remove the undesirable aspects of that social conditioning.
(You can not control others behaviour in the past. Unless they are extraordinarily good predictors, in which case by all means wreak acausal havoc upon them to prevent their to-be-counterfactual toxic training.)
Yes, that is precisely the meaning I intended.
I’m amazed.
I’ve been furious at the way you apparently discounted the work it takes to get over niceness conditioning, and the only reason I haven’t been on your case about it is that I was distracted by wanting to be nasty—but I lack the practice at flaming people.
Both nice and nasty are errors, although I can imagine nasty being useful as a learning exercise on the way to curing oneself of niceness.
I didn’t mean to belittle the effort (although that is a fair reading of what I wrote). Just to say that that is the task to be done, and the thing to do is to do it, whatever effort it takes. aelephant’s comment above, that’s what I would call dismissive.
Thanks for saying it was a fair reading.
I’m not sure why I found your comment that much more annoying than aelephant’s. I have a hot button about being given direct orders about my internal states, so that might be it.
It’s possible that practicing niceness could be a learning exercise on the way to curing nastiness, too, but we’re both guessing.
With three lines and a half’s worth (on my screen) of blathering before you have even said “Hi” to him.
On the bright side, that particular kind of blathering signals someone who’s probably self-aware and open to a similarly rambling, self-referential reply. So I’d feel OK parrying pragmatist’s opener with something that’s also explicit & meta-conversational, e.g.: “Ah, we’re doing the having-a-conversation-about-having-a-conversation thing, and now I feel like I have to match your openness about your awkwardness, so I’d better do that: I find it awkward to try to manufacture conversation with somebody in a cramped, uncomfortable, noisy environment for hours. Fortunately, I mostly just want to sleep on this flight, and I brought a book in case I can’t, so you don’t have to worry about me nervously stealing quick glances at you.”
I’ve heard stories of men who react very, very badly when women try this.
I can attest from personal experience that it’s not only women to whom people will sometimes react very negatively. This is one of the factors which has conditioned me into being less comfortable attempting to politely disengage than continuing a conversation I don’t want.