Quiz: Someone is sitting off by themselves staring at a book. What should you do?

[Achren]

@MisterThyristor

I read somewhere that the average person reads about one book a year. A lot of people I talk to never read anything but magazines or newspapers, and find it hard to believe that I try to read at least a book a week.

One.Per.Year.

brain shuts down

Once, long ago, I was in my advisory/plus class (for those who don’t know, it was the short period in school - about 20 or 30 minutes long. You got your grades and got announcements then). I was in my seat, by the teacher’s desk, reading. She interrupted me not once, nor twice, but six times! (roughly six anyway)
At this time she was also my french teacher, so I didn’t want to be outright rude. I was so happy when she let me be.
(The flip side is when say, your best friend is home from college, you go over to her (parents’) house watch a movie with her sister (who’s got Netflixs, woo!), and your friend is in her room, reading, with the tv on. I know some people like having sound in the background, but I thought that maybe she was just reading during the commercials and I could say a quick hi. We also like reading similar books, so I was curious what she was reading. So I say hi and ask what’s she reading and get back, “A book” in a tone of voice that would indicate that I’ve been bothering her for hours and if I DON’T LEAVE NOW, she’ll kill me.
Yeah, that was fun.
How hard would it be to say, “I’m reading X, it’s good and I want to get back to it.” Then I could say, “Thanks, sure.” and leave.)

[Incubus]

Wow, there’s a lot of hostility around here!

Isn’t it painting people with a rather broad brush to assume that someone who talks to someone else that is reading does not read as well? Maybe they saw the book and are curious how it is. Maybe the recognized the reader from somewhere?

I am a fairly voracious reader (hell, when I’m really bored, I look up interesting words in the encylopedia/dictionary for FUN ) But I don’t have a problem with people coming up to me. I have a fairly common ritual of eating breakfast at a nearby diner, getting a newspaper and spending the next 1-2 hours reading the entire thing, ads and all, while slowly consuming my meal. If someone ran up and sat in my booth, I’d be a bit startled, but if they were curious about what I was reading, I’d probably share it. I’d probably tell them what’s on my mind- Too many kneejerk, vitriol-laden letters to the editor in the San Jose Metro, wierd letters to Dear Abby, an obituary of some professor I had in college, etc. Then again, maybe I’m just a freak, a black sheep among black sheep. If I really want to read without being disturbed, I’ll read while I’m sitting on the toilet, or in my room before I go to sleep.

I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t have a problem with this.

[OtakuLoki]

Regarding the OP, you have my sympathy. My solution at one workplace was quite literally the bathroom. No one bothers you in a bathroom stall. Sure the atmosphere might be a little close, but with a good book I can ignore that.

The worst experience I’d ever had of this nature was while I was doing travelling sales. First off, if you’ve never done travelling sales, let me say that my average day was about 10 hours, maybe 12 hours long. Secondly, driving that much really, really, really wears after a while. So, I’d make sure to take a good long lunch break when I got a little tired and stir crazy. And I’d go into a resturaunt, and read and wait til I felt like driving again. So one day I’m in the corner of a Wendy’s in Cortland, NY happily reading my book, and the poor schmuck comes out to sweep and police the customer area, and he feels it is bounded duty to converse with me. First it was “Whacha reading?” And when I tried to explain his eyes glazed over. Then it was “Whacha eating?” Then he started in about how french fries are bad for you and you really shouldn’t eat them. I took this for about 10 minutes then ran screaming out into my car to go back to work.

By the way, how many other Dopers believe they’re reading for at least 100 people a year?

[AncientHumanoid]

I think most of the interrupters probably simply think you’re lonely.

“Why, that poor dear, sitting all alone and having to read a book because no one is talking to them…” is the most likely thing going through their head, whether conciously or not. Some people just can’t fathom that one would actually choose to read when there are so many other options.

Pity them, don’t hate them. They live in a smaller world than we do.

[Lok]

@MissTake

I usually don’t have people asking me what I am reading, rather if I (Og forbid) don’t have my nose between the pages of something I get pestered. “Where’s your book?” “Library closed?” “How can you NOT have a book?” “Are you feeling okay?”

If a book I am reading is particularly engrossing, I will walk while reading back to my cubihell. That opens an entirely new line of pestering. One cow-orker will stand directly in my way hoping I’ll walk right into him. Never happens, I walk around him. EVERY damn time he laughs and says he’ll get me next time. Hunh? Get me? Other cow-orkers will stop me - one has even put her hand on the open book - only to ask how I can walk and read at the same time. I don’t reply, I just shrug and keep walking.

During lunch I have a Norm! thing at the pub next to my office. I buy a soda, smoke, and read. Every once in a while another customer will attempt to start a conversation, but the bartenders will tell him/her that I prefer to be left alone. I like that place.

I work in a factory, and while the intelligence of the people there has the same range you find in most of society, they are not a highly literate group. AFter 12 years, most of them know they will see me reading a book on break. Actually, while walking to break, during the break, and walking back to the floor.

But when we get new people, after they stop being scared of me, they invariably start asking the questions. Always the same questions. I am so tired of those questions. The easy one is “How can you walk and read at the same time?” I always answer “Practice” and keep walking. Then there is the occasional “Do you read while you’re driving?” “Not when it is dark.”

The best was a team leader from a different department I spent a couple of months in. He had asked me how much I read, how many books I owned, why did I read, all the normal ones. A couple of years later, I am going through his department and he says hi, then he asks, “Are you still into that reading thing?” I told him, yeah, it is pretty much lifelong. :rolleyes:

Did I say how much I hate the questions?

[Broomstick]

My in-laws are like this.

My in-laws, while wonderful people on many levels, are not readers. I mean, they know how to read (well, most of 'em) but it’s not something anyone does for enjoyment, it’s a tool, like a screwdriver or knowing how to change the oil in your car. It took a couple visits to figure this out - I’d be reading after breakfast and they would think I’m pissed off at them or something. These are folks who have a Bible and maybe one or two other, very very practical (like, cook books or car repair) volumes in their homes (a couple don’t even have that). I have something like 4,000 books and counting.

Because they are my in-laws, when I visit I take needlepoint or crocheting or knitting along as my hobby of choice. Apparently, off in a corner of the room by yourself snarling over dropped stitches is a social activiity, reading in the same corner is not. When in Rome…

Anyhow - anywhere else I do NOT have much tolerance for this at all. Fortunately, where I work at present leans heavily towards readers.

The last time I had a problem with the nosey busy-body effect it was on a business trip. There we are, at 35,000 feet in a 737. I’m reading a book. My seatmate is bored, looks over at me…

“Whatchya readin’?”
“Michael Crichton’s Airframe”
“Oh? What’s that about?”
“A plane crash”
Neighbor starts to look pale. “A… a… plane crash?”
“Yeah, everybody dies. It’s really fascinating, you see, they go into exactly how it happ—”
“Excuse me, I have to go powder my nose”

[Broomstick]

Although, come to think about it, the time I was in a hospital waiting room reading Terry Pratchett’s Mort was amusing, too.

“Whatchya readin’?”
“Mort”
“Oh” Blank look “What’s it about?”
“Death. It’s pretty funny.”
After that, I had half the waiting room to myself. Ah, bliss!

[Fish_Cheer]

“What’s it about?”

“Weeell… there’s Death, you see. And he takes a vacation. So his granddaughter… um, er, … nevermind.”

[WolfpackJeep]

@Greywolf73

Ever heard this variation? “You read too much” or “You have too many books!”.

I get the “too many books” thing a lot. Yet another variation of that I hear is “when are you going to read all of that?”. I have three bookcases in my apartment. One is dedicated to textbooks (I keep most of mine); the others hold my book collection. I also have textbooks stored on a shelf in one of my closets, and a few computer books in a space under the computer desk. Almost all the shelves on my other bookcases are double-stacked, with paperbacks stacked up at the back and hardbacks (or larger paperbacks) lined up across the front. I also have a bookcase and a half of books in storage at my parents’ house.

[TheFaerie]

If you are in sixth grade and you read, you get beat up. :rolleyes: I used to read all the time in school and the kids in my class would give me hell for reading during lunch and recess. I never went anywhere without a book.

I was in an Advanced Education type of class, with ‘the smart kids’. And they were the numb-nuts who would pick on me. This was 25 years ago.

I don’t read much anymore. I don’t know why. Reading takes too much time away from doing other stuff. Like posting to The Dope.

[Kaspar_Hauser]

I agree with Incubus. I’m a voracious reader myself – always carry a book with me, just in case – but being intentionally rude to people who are being UNintentionally rude seems counterproductive, and probably feeds the stereotypes about us uppity book-larnin’ folk being too big for our britches.

[Anaamika]

@Jeep's Phoenix

I get the “too many books” thing a lot. Yet another variation of that I hear is “when are you going to read all of that?”. .

This would make me crazy. I’ve read nearly all the books in my house, other than:

The bad war books that my SO owns. (“Bad” to me means absolutely no human interest).
Reference books, at least not cover to cover.
And three Robert Jordan books which I am sorry to say I have.

[HPL]

@ladybug

Yeah, it’s pretty scary when your boss, an editor, brags about not wasting money on something as useless as books.

It actually happened twice. The first time I was reading the Wolverine Origin trade paperback. The second time I was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

It’s only satanic if it’s the Necronomican

And that boss sounds like the Evil wife from the Twlight Zone episode…“Time enough at last”.

[HPL]

@NoClueBoy

I think most of the interrupters probably simply think you’re lonely.

“Why, that poor dear, sitting all alone and having to read a book because no one is talking to them…” is the most likely thing going through their head, whether conciously or not. Some people just can’t fathom that one would actually choose to read when there are so many other options.

Pity them, don’t hate them. They live in a smaller world than we do.

It makes me wonder if there’s something about certain people that attracts others to intterupt them, or just certain people who have a strange urge to but it.

[slight hijack]

I feel wierd, being a bookworm myself and to my recollection, have never been interrupted in a public place. Not on the bus, in the library, on the street. Actually, I sometimes wonder if there’s something about me that makes other people not want to talk to me in general.

[/end hijack]

Either that or I’m mercifully able to avoid people who want to be your best buddy and/or want to but in on you.

[Miller]

@Kaspar Hauser

I agree with Incubus. I’m a voracious reader myself – always carry a book with me, just in case – but being intentionally rude to people who are being UNintentionally rude seems counterproductive, and probably feeds the stereotypes about us uppity book-larnin’ folk being too big for our britches.

I live for that stereotype.

[FisherQueen]

My former roommate (may she be frequently blessed) told me that she’d quickly picked up on the cue. If she came into the room and said hi and I stuck a bookmark in my book, it meant I was open for talking. No bookmark meant that, while I’d give her a friendly greeting, I wanted to go back to my book.

[Cervaise]

@Jeep's Phoenix

I get the “too many books” thing a lot.

There is no such thing as “too many books” in exactly the same way as there is no such thing as “too much garlic.”

Years ago, I stumbled across what seemed like the perfect response to the “whatcha reading?” inquiry and subsequent undesired interrogation. It was a moment of pure snark, and I have not had the opportunity to subject the method to repeated testing to ensure its effectiveness. It was a one-time-only event, apparently, and considering I no longer eat in the break room and now do my reading in the bathroom, the circumstances are quite a bit less likely to arise. But perhaps others here can give it a shot.

Because it was many years ago, I don’t remember exactly what I was reading. But it was in a company break room, and I was surrounded by people who view books as instruments of torture and doorstoppage. I shall use one of the books I’m currently reading in place of the actual example, for illustration.

Me, at a break room table: Reading quietly.

Guy: Staring at me.

Me: Continues reading, feeling the guy staring at me.

Guy: Continues staring at me.

Me: Having trouble concentrating, trying to ignore guy.

Guy: “Hey, what’re ya readin’ there?”

Me, out loud, straight from the book, right where I was at when he asked: “—notes that there are Andean sulfur mines at fifty eight hundred meters, but that the miners prefer to descend four hundred and sixty meters each evening and climb back up the following day, rather than live continuously at that elevation.”

Guy: Staring at me.

Me, continuing to read, not expressing the snark I feel, just simple and dull, like an NPR commentator: “People who habitually live at altitude have often spent thousands of years developing disproportionately large chests and lungs, increasing their density of oxygen-bearing red blood cells by almost a third, though there are limits to how much thickening with red cells the blood supply can stand. Moreover, above fifty five hundred meters even the most well-adapted women…”

Guy: Fidgets, looks around.

Me: “If I’m boring you, I’ll stop.”

Guy: “Yeah, uh, okay… see you later.” Leaves.

Me: Goes back to reading in blissful silence and solitude.

Hey, you never know. Give it a shot.

[Scarlett67]

I’ve been following this thread with interest. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much time for pleasure reading as I used to, but I well remember the days at my “real job,” where most of my co-workers were nasty gossipy twits. I was forced to listen to their blather during work hours, but my 15-minute lunch break was a blissful respite during which I sat in my car or the break room, off by myself, nose in whatever I was reading at the time.

At one point a personal dispute with the most shrill of these knuckle-draggers came to such a head that there was a meeting between her, me, and the boss. At one point she yelled (yes, yelled) that I always took my lunch break alone, reading a book, instead of joining the airheads at the gossip table – this offered as “proof” of my intractability as a co-worker. I responded (and the boss agreed) that what I did with my 15 minutes was my own choice. I did not mention the part about blissful respite.

I mean, Jesus H. – you hate me and yet you’re pissed that I don’t eat lunch with you? (The day I quit that job was quite joyous.)

@Cervaise

There is no such thing as “too many books” in exactly the same way as there is no such thing as “too much garlic.”

Say, do you happen to have the other half of this amulet?

Years ago, I stumbled across what seemed like the perfect response to the “whatcha reading?” inquiry and subsequent undesired interrogation.

It was perfect. I’ll have to remember that one.

Scarlett, whose checks display the line “So many books, so little time”

[BiblioCat]

@HPL

[slight hijack]

I feel wierd, being a bookworm myself and to my recollection, have never been interrupted in a public place. Not on the bus, in the library, on the street. Actually, I sometimes wonder if there’s something about me that makes other people not want to talk to me in general.

[/end hijack]

I’ve never had a stranger interrupt me, but if I’m someplace where I know people, they do it all the time.
When my kids were in the church choir, I looked at their rehearsal time as an hour of reading time for me. Most of the parents that hung around and waited would gather at one end of the hallway and chat. I would go off and find a quiet corner or an unused room to sit and read. Invariably, someone would seek me out, thinking I needed someone to talk to. After all, all I was doing was reading.
I used to always get the “too many books” thing from my MIL. She was just amazed that I’d read “all those books” and couldn’t understand why I kept them. She couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would want to read a book more than once.

[Pho_King]

I almost never get people bugging me about what I am reading. It’s probably because #1 on the list that follows or I just don’t look like I’m going to be an interesting conversationalist.
Some Tips To Get People To Leave You Alone While You Are Reading*:

1. I second wearing headphones while you are reading. You might get a person who asks you how can you can listen to music and read at the same time at worst.

2. Pretend you are a stereotypical teenager and talk like one.

3. Mumble

4. As soon as you detect that this person is not going to shut up, describe the book in intimate detail. Ramble on about symbolism and literary style. Make up stuff if you have to.

5. Pretend your jaw is wired shut. This works best on either someone you have no chance of seeing again or someone you see every day.

6. Look the person in the eye and grin without blinking or shifting your gaze.

*Only to be used on those people who will not leave you alone.
Cervaise, A Short History of Nearly Everything?