# Commonplace situations in which you don't know how to act. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 16, 2011, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222 "2011-07-16T04:56:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/61 "2011-07-22T02:03:50Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > (A) I sit at a four-person table with persons A, B, and C, being person D myself. I ordered X-soup as a first course, the others something else. > Waitress comes carrying my X-soup and asks A: ‘Is the X-soup for you?’. A answers ‘No’. Waitress asks B ‘Is the X-soup for you?’. B answers ‘No’. Waitress asks C ‘Did you order the X-soup, then?’. C demurs. > Waitress leaves with the soup, because she did not ask ‘Who ordered the X-soup’; I could not answer her previous questions because they were not addressed to me, and I could not tell her that I ordered it because after talking to A, B and C she immediately left without leaving me a time window to speak up without interrupting someone. Raise your hand already! ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/62 "2011-07-22T02:50:54Z")
Awkward family encounters. My 3rd cousin was staying with us for a few days. She was in her early twenties. I got up about 2AM and went into the kitchen for a glass of milk. Ran into my cousin. She was making a sandwich. Her nightgown was full length but much sheerer than she realized. It really required a robe. I grabbed my milk and beat a hasty retreat. No way that I could have made casual conversation. I wouldn’t embarrass her by mentioning the problem. She had no way of knowing how that light reacted to her gown. ---
**Author:** ![AnalogSignal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/analogsignal/32/1085_2.png) [@AnalogSignal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnalogSignal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/63 "2011-07-22T03:25:00Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > I don’t have any trouble ordering a drink, but then what does one do in a bar? I mean, besides gradually ingesting the liquid. Setup playdates for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/64 "2011-07-22T03:49:24Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Awkward family encounters. > > My 3rd cousin was staying with us for a few days. She was in her early twenties. I got up about 2AM and went into the kitchen for a glass of milk. Ran into my cousin. She was making a sandwich. Her nightgown was full length but much sheerer than she realized. It really required a robe. > > I grabbed my milk and beat a hasty retreat. No way that I could have made casual conversation. I wouldn’t embarrass her by mentioning the problem. She had no way of knowing how that light reacted to her gown. Oh for rhe crying out loud, it is less embarrassing to be told once that your nightgown is too sheer or there’s spinach stuck in your teeth or toiletpaper hanging out of your waistband than to find it out for yourself and wonder how many people you embarrassed or made uncomfortable and no one bothered to tell you. Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/65 "2011-07-22T04:27:49Z")
> [@AnalogSignal](#): > > Setup playdates for yourself. Um, not sure what this means. **Spoons,** I have absolutely no interest in sports. As for reading the paper, why would I go to a dark, noisy bar to read the paper? Why not just have a beer at home? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/66 "2011-07-22T04:34:03Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Um, not sure what this means. Pick up chicks. Setup=Ask out playdates=one-night stands for yourself=for yourself ---
**Author:** ![AnalogSignal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/analogsignal/32/1085_2.png) [@AnalogSignal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnalogSignal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/67 "2011-07-22T04:45:44Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Pick up chicks. > > Setup=Ask out > playdates=one-night stands > for yourself=for yourself Yes. It was also a joke, a callback to an earlier post. Of course, it isn’t funny if you have to explain it. > [@Elret](#): > > Setting up playdates. My daughter seems to be at an awkward age for this. She’s just turned 5 and her kindergarten classmates are 4-6. ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/68 "2011-07-22T04:59:38Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > (A) I sit at a four-person table with persons A, B, and C, being person D myself. I ordered X-soup as a first course, the others something else. > Waitress comes carrying my X-soup and asks A: ‘Is the X-soup for you?’. A answers ‘No’. Waitress asks B ‘Is the X-soup for you?’. B answers ‘No’. Waitress asks C ‘Did you order the X-soup, then?’. C demurs. > Waitress leaves with the soup, because she did not ask ‘Who ordered the X-soup’; I could not answer her previous questions because they were not addressed to me, and I could not tell her that I ordered it because after talking to A, B and C she immediately left without leaving me a time window to speak up without interrupting someone. She left because everyone at the table was wondering why you didn’t say I ordered the soup. She then spent time looking at the ticket to find out that she didn’t address you properly for you to interact with her and say the soup is mine. Just let her know, maybe by raising your hand a bit, or saying nope not his, I ordered it. > [@mops](#): > > (B) When people stand in the way where I need to go through I just ask them to let me through. But with two people standing in the way, talking animatedly without a second’s pause, I am stumped - I’d have to be rude myself, interrupting them. Keep walking and say pardon me or excuse me as you approach. Smile when you do this. They may not recognize that they are in your way. > [@mops](#): > > (C) Something I have spent a total of some weeks of my life with: at the end of a meal in a restaurant, asking the waiter for a coffee and the bill. Coffee arrives, but no bill. I try to ask for the bill, sometimes for hours, in increasing fury, but waiters walk around the restaurant avoiding eye contact - they look everywhere but at me, and I’d feel ridiculous addressing the back of their head. Finally waiter says they close now, and they are afraid I’ll have to settle now. I pay, including a tip (conforming to social norms), and emerge from the restaurant like a cannonball in hopes of catching the last bus, or making the cinema screening I had pre-purchased a ticket for. I cannot believe that you have waited for hours for a bill. My guess is that you did not make your intentions known at all and the staff figured you were a camper. ie, you came into the restaurant to make it your destination. Servers are forbidden to make you feel uncomfortable while you are having coffee, relaxing etc. Try interacting with them at the outset, tell them you are there to have dinner, coffee and maybe dessert but that you have to catch the bus, get to the screening or whatever. They likely thought that you were just hanging out and you didn’t give them any reason to think otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/69 "2011-07-22T10:18:41Z")
For sme of us the commonplace situation of trting a conversation is hard. Or takes more time than other people give it. If I’m at a table an the waiter says _directly to each other peron_ “Did you order the soup”, then walks way _without asking me directly_ but before I can say “Uhhhh - I think that was me” then my soup ends up back in the kitchen. That hasn’t quite happened to me. I have forgotten what I’ve ordered, so often a waiter holding a plate of food in front of me while I’ve remembered, or been reminded by my companions, that I ordered the four-legged chicken. But I have waited in restaurants for the check on many ocassions. Not hours, but many crucial minutes while the point of no return for my next appointment ticked dangerously close. Not a waiter to be seen, but a line of customers out the door. I sit and stare. I wave. I call out. Nothing. Resturants have gotten better about bringing the check, and mostly better about taking the payment. Still happens ometims, and for those of us with trouble in commonplace situations it’s a nightmare. Do I walk out without paying? Do I barge into the kitchen? What? (I named-checked the thread twic - what do I win?) ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/70 "2011-07-22T16:17:44Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > … You seriously wait **hours** to get your bill? :eek: I’ll agree this can be a tricky thing, but to wait an hour or more is ridiculous! > > If I can’t find my own server, I will flag down any server passing (by raising my hand, making eye contact, and saying ‘Excuse me, could I have the bill please’). If the bill is still not forthcoming after a period of time, I will go and stand by the till if there is one and pay there. Raising my hand, making eye contact and then speaking is what I do in these cases, and it works in the vast majority of cases (of the about 3000 occasions that I have dined out in my life, by a rough estimate), but there have been numerous cases where, every time a waiter/waitress came in from the kitchen, I intently stared at them, on a hair trigger to signal them the moment they looked in my direction, only to have them leave again after a minute or so of tasks around the room looking at all of the 330 degrees of azimuth I was not in (sometimes, at all degrees of azimuth but not at my elevation). Repeat, repeat, repeat. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/71 "2011-07-22T16:22:51Z")
> [@Elret](#): > > why? What is there to be embarassed of? Because first of all you don’t typically order drinks like that in a dive bar. Secondly, people who order those types of drinks are basically saying “I am very maintenance and don’t have very good taste.” The time to order pina colodas and the like is at a beach resort or a cheesy chain restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222/72 "2011-07-22T16:24:06Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Awkward family encounters. > > My 3rd cousin was staying with us for a few days. She was in her early twenties. I got up about 2AM and went into the kitchen for a glass of milk. Ran into my cousin. She was making a sandwich. Her nightgown was full length but much sheerer than she realized. It really required a robe. > > I grabbed my milk and beat a hasty retreat. No way that I could have made casual conversation. I wouldn’t embarrass her by mentioning the problem. She had no way of knowing how that light reacted to her gown. Do you live in Victorian England? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonplace-situations-in-which-you-dont-know-how-to-act/589222.md?page=3)