I burst into tears when the guy in front of me took the last package of chicken fingers. He felt bad and gave me his digits.
“Hi. My name is Sundial, I think you’re African-American. Would you like to go for a cup of coffee sometime?”
Did you think this through?
It did take me a while. I was going to make the joke about digits and chicken feet, but then I realized feet included more than just the digits. So I changed it to chicken fingers, because fingers are digits.
Mmmm. You might want to think a bit more about a man giving you digits…
A number of years ago, I worked at a call center. Polling, market research, that kind of thing. For a while there, I was talking to people on the phone for several hours every day. It went against every single instinct of my body and my brain. I have social phobias. As in severe, talking to a medical professional about it level social phobias.
It did strange things to my mind. One effect of it was that, for a while, I could approach and talk to anyone. In stores, on the street. Like it wasn’t no thing. I just engaged autopilot. It was super weird.
I remember this one particular time. I was buying some pants. I was a looking at a pair, and wondering if they might suit me. There was this young woman there. Not an employee, she was just shopping. I just turned to her. “Hi! I’m thinking about buying these. What do you think?” Like I was polling her. She approved of the choice. There were smiles, a little bit of conversation. That was it. Then I purchased the pants.
A friend of mine was there. He was super impressed. “Wow, you just talk to girls like it’s nothing.” Yeah. Because this job has turned me into bizarro-me. It won’t last.
And it sure didn’t. That superpower went away. I miss it now, though. God, I do. I can’t see to remember how it worked. I want it back so badly these days. But anyway, it backfired a bit. After that job, I had a long time when I couldn’t stand talking to people at all. I was super tired of it. I became a recluse. Not just because of that job, though, but a bunch of things.
I never got any dates that way. Didn’t really try, though. It didn’t really occur to me. My romantic interest was directed elsewhere at the time. Someone gave me their phone number once, but nothing came of it. That was the extent of it.
Anyway, not sure what the moral of that story was. Oh, yeah: Yes, you can talk to people at random. It’s fine. You won’t be arrested. You can do it even if you’re naturally shy and awkward. I have proof of concept. Doesn’t mean it’s easy. It may take months of call center work to get there. But it’s doable.
Depends
If you ask a militant feminist, they will tell you it is a form of rape because you have not been invited and given permission to speak to the girl.
Which makes me wonder how any of those people ever even get married?
My FiL is like this. Just talks to everyone. If he is staying with us, within a day he knows more of the neighbourhood gossip than I do.
You almost had me convinced, until that last line.
If I have to work months at a call center, I think I’ll just stay single.
My dad is that way, too. Just strikes up conversations left, right and center. He doesn’t do it all the time. But if he feels like it, he can just do it, with anyone.
As for my lost superpower, I do still have moments when I’m chatty and charming with strangers like that. But these days it’s super rare. Like, so rare it’s noteworthy when it happens. I can’t really force it at all. A big part of it, for me at least, seems to be to have a prop. Or something like it. Like those pants I mentioned.
A while ago, I was at my local pharmacy. They had renovated the place. The door was in a different place now, and all the shelves were moved. I couldn’t find anything, and I was super confused. It was this bizarre situation of being in a familiar location that had suddenly become completely unfamiliar. Anyway, there was this young lady working there, at the counter. And somehow, totally inadvertently, I found myself having turned this sudden weirdness of the location into a kind of silent movie style comedy routine, which then turned into a very funny conversation with this lady. Maybe I could have asked for her phone number. It felt a bit like it. When I left, she had this strange look on her face. Big smile. And an expression like, “Where are you going? There should be more.”
I was there again later, and thought that maybe I could talk to her again. But I couldn’t actually remember exactly what she looked like. It sounds weird, but there are several young ladies working there, and some of them look a bit the same. I couldn’t remember which one she was. I hadn’t actually been paying that much attention the first time. I tried scanning for looks of recognition, but all the ladies seemed to recognize me. I’ve been there a bunch of times. So it didn’t help at all. And no one said hi, or anything. I had to stop that before it got too strange.
And, well, that moment was gone, and I couldn’t get it back. If I walked in there now, I wouldn’t have a clue how to start a conversation with any of them.
To clarify: I don’t mean “I was totally chatting up that girl, yo”. I wasn’t even really noticing her, and such a thing wasn’t on my mind at all. I mean just thinking back at it now, in the context of phone number exchanges and such. It at least seems that it was a situation where I could have done something. If nothing else, at least talked to her for a moment or two longer, without any cops being called.
So, you know. It happens. At least that much happens.
Remember to put them down if asked.
You’d probably regret it if you had talked to her as well, but what’s the worst that could happen?
I mean, you’ll probably be rejected and publicly humiliated, but you never know.
I agree, remember to offer her money for her companionship.
Don’t do that.
Five minutes is an extremely long conversation, especially with a total stranger.
Establish a chit-chat relationship of sorts over several visits. Don’t just come blurting out with it.
And don’t plonk a massive aubergine (eggplant) on the belt and expect her to marvel at its size.
If it makes the OP feel any better:
Ending up not having a conversation with someone whose eyes you meet for an instant, before they disappear into the crowd, never to be seen again, is probably forgivable. There’s no time to think, and you just can’t spray for that kind of thing. I think most people would end up conversation-less in that scenario.
What is worse? Sitting down next to a person. Then spending an hour trying to think of the right thing to say, while you stare blankly into space. Eventually, she asks you if you want something. And you freak out, get up and run from the room.
In my defense, I was under the influence of narcotic drugs. Wait, that’s not really helping. But in my actual defense, I did end up hooking up with her anyway.
Hang on. Was this before or after I hooked up with her? I think it was before. Yeah, it was. What happened after, was that I texted her to arrange a second date, and she told me to go jump in a lake. I don’t think I ever talked to her again.
Good times. Ah, to be young again, and also a weirdo. But now I digress.
Wait. This isn’t about my rule #4 of dating from the other thread, is it? Maybe I’m just getting paranoid.
Rule #4 of dating, umptheenth formulation:
If you have a massive aubergine, feel free to plonk it down.
From the perspective of a woman who has been approached when she’s out at the store, etc.:
(1) First of all, let me say that I am different from a lot of women, at least on the Straight Dope, in that I absolutely do like to be checked out by men. If I’m blatantly stared at then it can make me uncomfortable, but I do work on my appearance and am flattered when I catch other people admiring it.
(2) I am more likely to give my phone number to a man if he engages in some small talk first. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever given my phone number to a man who just came right out and asked for my phone number first thing. But if you engage in a few minutes of conversation and then ask for my number, I feel like at least on a cursory level, you’ve acknowledged my social skills/intelligence/sense of humor, etc. and have not been turned off by that.
(3) Please, please, please respect a woman’s body language. If she’s avoiding eye contact, or angling her body like she wants to walk away from you, don’t force it. That’s rude.
(4) Having said that, I have never had anything lasting come of a man approaching me in the grocery store, mall, gym, etc. Once we actually have to sit down and make conversation, we often don’t get along as well. Truth be told, I think the biggest problem is that I have a pretty dominant personality, and most men who approach women in supermarkets have dominant personalities as well, and those men are just too dominant for my liking.
(5) And having said THAT, I did once have a friend who was pretty but rather submissive. She was approached at a gas station by a domineering young man, and they had some lasting chemistry. So it’s possible.
This needs to be reiterated. People at work, especially those in the service industry, are paid to be nice to customers. And rejecting a customer’s advances, no matter how reasonable and acceptable it is, isn’t what you would call “nice”. Don’t put someone in the position of having to choose between honesty and doing their job.
If the employee is the one hitting on you, on the other hand, I’d say that’s fair game.
I think, by definition, if you can’t engage in 2-3 minutes of pleasant small talk with a random stranger, that IS being a “bitch”/“jerk” or “stuck up”.
Filling the relationship-hole in my heart is really a “fourth date” conversation.
If the employer’s idea of “being nice” is not having the freedom to say “No thanks” to an invitation that isn’t anything work-related, I think the employer might be in need of a little re-education. “Sorry, I’m already spoken for” (or similar) is a time-honoured get-out for employees in such a situation. Granted, “I don’t go out with ferret-faced creeps” would be a bit over the top.
I think part of the problem is when a woman is not interested in a man’s advances, she can normally avoid making eye contact or otherwise acting approachable. But when you’re trying to provide good customer service, that’s not an option.
I guess I’m one of those people who can talk with anyone at any time, and sometimes I do. I think it depends on the circumstances and what kind of mood I’m in. But it is a good skill to have, and one I think more people should work on developing.
The thing is, though, you’ve got to do it with anyone, not just those you find sexually attractive. I talk to old people, children, men, women, anybody. That way, when you do see someone you find attractive, making a bit of conversation comes naturally to you.
Just as an example, waiting at the butcher’s, the woman next to me ordered six slabs of ribs. “What time is dinner?” I asked.
She looked at me oddly and said, “Six.”
I grinned. “So, what’s your address and what can I bring?” Then she got it and laughed and we had a nice couple-of-minute conversation about her new smoker and how she’ll never prepare ribs in any other way again. Which of course made me wonder if I should think about getting an electric smoker, which I’d never realized was an available product.
I will admit that there is a circumstance in which the person I approach is nearly always a man. But that’s because men tend to be taller, and I’m vertically challenged, and grocers too often put the product I want on the top shelf so that if the first two or three items have been taken I can’t reach the ones behind. In those instances though my conversation is pretty much, “Sir, could you give me a hand? I can’t reach the cereal I want to buy… Yes, that one, two boxes, please… Thanks so much! I really appreciate it!”