I’m on a business trip in Yemen with a team of four other people. We are all staying in the same hotel and we only get one day off a week (Friday). This morning, I was at breakfast by myself in the hotel. I was sitting at a two seat table reading a book.
One of the other team members came over with his plate, said good morning and sat down at my table. I said good morning back and then said, “I hope you don’t mind but, I’m going to keep reading,” and I did.
I could tell it bugged him that I didn’t close my book and engage in BS work chit chat, but WTF? Who looks over and sees a person reading a book and says the themselves, “that guy needs company?” Like I said, I get one crappy day off a week (and I’m going to have to work today 3-4 hours), every other day the team eats breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner together and it is all work talk.
He is not a good friend. We met on this trip and will probably never see each other again after the trip. We have engaged in the usual friendly small talk and work talk. We are exactly the same level on the team and very similar duties. I ended up cutting my breakfast short and going back to my room because he was sitting at my table watching me read, so he got to eat breakfast by himself, but I had to come back to my room to vent.
Perhaps he thought instead “I’m rather lonely; it’d be nice to have a breakfast buddy. Hey, there’s someone I know; maybe they’d be willing to spend some time with me”. Alright, they misjudged, but it’s not necessarily a malicious act…
I would have realized that it would seem rude and put the book down and been sociable for the ten or fifteen minutes it would have taken to finish the meal and be on my way. The guy probably thought you were reading merely to fend off boredom or to pass the time and had no idea you were trying to use the restaurant as a library. And then once he’d committed to sitting with you and having been told you were going to keep reading, he was probably too embarrassed to get up and move to another table as it would look like he’d been told to get lost, and he was probably offended that even though it turned out you really did want to keep reading your book, you chose to ignore convention and chose to let him sit there embarrassed and ignored while you went on reading your book. I’d have been bugged myself.
In other words, I think your ire at his not realizing you didn’t want to be bothered is unwarranted and that you were rude to ignore him and keep on reading. There are times in life where we have to forego for a little while what we would really prefer to do in order to keep the wheels of commonly accepted sociability sufficiently oiled, and in my opinion this was one of those times.
You were sitting by yourself, reading, at breakfast. Did he even ask if it was OK to sit down? Some people just aren’t sociable in the morning, and even those who ARE sociable might be happier to read quietly while they wake up. Some people NEED some alone time each day, and the amount varies. Some people seem to be perfectly content to hang out with a group all day, every day.
Some people hate to eat alone, and are desperate for company. Perhaps he’s like that. But that’s not your problem, is it? He sat down with someone who was reading, which is interrupting YOUR preferred activity. Yeah, you were a little rude, maybe, but he was trying to interrupt your reading, which is ruder. You are not obliged to entertain someone just because he’s bored or lonely.
I would have continued reading, and I wouldn’t have cut my breakfast short. If he wants to chat, let him find someone else who needs to chat.
I WILL put my reading material aside for some people, for instance my family or close friends. But this guy is almost a stranger to you, and you have very little in the way of social obligations towards him.
And the whole thing could have been avoided if he’d had the courtesy to ASK if he could sit down, or if the OP wanted some quiet time with his book.
Missed the edit window. I meant to say “…you chose to ignore convention and allow him to sit there embarrassed and ignored while you went on reading your book.”
He did not ask if he could sit down. In fact, I had glimpsed him earlier in the room and put my head further down in the book.
In my industry, you spend a lot of times with colleagues in hotels and guest houses around the world; you kind of learn to respect each other’s space even when you are forced into close proximity. This is especially true when you are working a six day work week and eating a minimum of 12 meals a week together. Some of you might not spend a lot of time traveling for work, but there comes a time when you really want to be outside of your room, but don’t really want to spend time with people from work, in those cases, reading in the cafe, or lobby are about all that’s available to you.
I don’t understand why his chosen activity: talking to me, trumps my chosen activity: reading a book.
ETA: I think there are some people who see a person reading and think, “poor guy, he is stuck having to read a book,” they don’t understand that reading a book can be a great pleasure for us.
Okay, let me back off a little then and say that I can see a little bit better how you might come to find yourself in the situation you were in and determined to enjoy your book without interruption.
Still, if it were me, I’d have put my book aside for the brief time it would have taken to finish his meal for the reasons I’ve mentioned (i.e., realizing that continuing to read would put him in an awkward and embarrassing situation), and then if he’d continued to sit there and tried to engage me in further conversation, I would have politely told him that I’d been waiting all week to finish my book (or something along that line) and that I hoped he’d understand if I got back to it. Then, having finished his meal he’d be free to get up and leave without it looking like he’d been told to get lost.
And in my opinion you’re looking at it the wrong way when you ask why his “chosen activity” should trump yours. It would be different if he had known beforehand that you just wanted to read uninterrupted somewhere other than in your room and the deliberately tried to force his company upon you, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that it simply never occurred to him that you just absolutely didn’t want to be bothered. So in effect (and again this is just my opinion), you’re setting up a false contest of wills when you look at it as though he was deliberately trying to make you do what he wanted rather than allowing you to do what you wanted.
What I would have done in your situation: eat quick, leave, go back to the room (or a public place outside where I know I wouldn’t meet them) and then read. Since I smoke, I get a lot of alone time from 95% of my coworkers.
Btw, what kind of job is that? It sounds horrible.
I do think he should have asked you if it was all right to join you though. It was boorish of him to come up and just plop himself down without asking permission first. Hell, I was at a bar the other night and asked an old buddy if it was all right for me to join him even though it was clear from his expression upon seeing me that it was. I asked because it was the polite thing to do, and because it would have given him an opportunity to tell me to get lost had he been there with a date who’d gone to the bathroom or something.
I think the other guy was out of line. Unless the dining room was packed and this was the only spot he could find. And it’s not like the OP sat there grunting responses or pretending to be deaf. He stated his preference, and the other guy should have accepted that. I don’t think not wanting to talk is rude in and of itself.
This guy hasn’t learned to ask if he can join someone at a table. And he hasn’t learned that someone who is reading might be doing so out of pleasure, rather than out of loneliness. Since his parents didn’t teach him manners, who should? And WHY should a relative stranger be forced to entertain him?
I’d say that anyone who is obviously engrossed in a book has already indicated to anyone with even a little awareness that s/he doesn’t want to be bothered. I’d also say that a person’s right to be left alone trumps someone else’s desire for chatter.
How is this guy supposed to learn to leave people alone when they’re reading, if they reward his interruptions with polite small talk? I’d suggest that the OP drop a little note to either this guy or his superior, saying that the OP does not wish to offend, but he cherishes his reading/alone time when he’s got a little time to himself, and would prefer to be left alone if he’s got his nose in a book.
I used to work with a guy who was famous in his directness. I once saw him tell a guy at breakfast “I don’t like you much during the day and I sure as shit don’t like you in the morning, sit somewhere else.” He was on his third marriage last time I checked on him (go figure).
Now, I’m kind of hiding in my room. I’d like to take my book outside have a coffee, but I’m worried about being ambushed.
Go outside, have a coffee, and if this guy heads towards you again, give him the Evil Eye. If he sits down at your table again, tell him that you would prefer to be left alone. Don’t worry about embarrassing him.
I’ve finally pinpointed what bothers me about this. It’s boundary issues again. This guy doesn’t respect your boundaries. He doesn’t even acknowledge that you HAVE boundaries, or that he needs your permission to cross them.
Take your book wherever it is you want to be. Your ‘altercation’ this morning would have already done the rounds and there ain’t nobody gonna disturb you now… Besides, everyone else is probably off doing their own thing by now. Breakfast is a dangerous time to want to be incognito.
