Well, THERE’s your problem.
He said, “I don’t want to talk to you.”
Could have said, “I don’t want to talk. I just want to get my car repaired.”
Then I would have said, “Ok. I understand. I want to get my car repairs done too, qucickly and cheaply, sir.”
End of conversation.
He said I was “brazen”.
It’s not that he didn’t want to talk to me (or with me). It’s that he didn’t want to acknowledge that we were both in the same situation, I mean, we we both sitting in the waiting area, waiting. Hence, instead of abruptly saying “I don’t want to talk to you”, understandably saying “I don’t want to talk. I just want to get my car repaired.” Again, this would be a face-saving end to the conversation.
You are going to sit there anyway so you might as well talk.
Oakminster I respect you as a person even though I don’t necessarily agree with your views as a poster. So I ask you, Oakminster: What harm did I cause that elderly man?
Kozmik, what in the actual fuck is wrong with you?
I’m brazen. 
Is this some sort of game? This didn’t actually happen, did it?
Fuck me, that is brilliant. If I ever get the opportunity to use this line, my life will be complete.
Kosmiok, dude, you are fucking insane. I want to follow you around and make a documentary. Tell me more.
Whether you caused actual harm is not the point. He has no obligation to engage in any form of social interaction with you whatsoever. He obviously had no desire to do so, and communicated that quite clearly. You attempted to impose your will on the guy, for no good reason. Thus, you are entirely at fault, and should be ashamed of yourself.
You practically have a PhD in Linguistics, and you had to look up the definition of “brazen”.
Okay, then. Carry on. Over there. No, further. Keep going. Keep going. I’ll tell you when you’re far enough away.
This is really, really weird. You should back off when people say they do not want to talk to you. You deserve whatever you get when you start acting like a lunatic. Yes, this is what lunatics do.
Best response: Nothing
A close runner-up: A quick apology or half-apology.
Not optimum but understandable: “Oh, sorry, I’m getting an estimate and wondered if this place was reasonable.”
Your response: Creepy crazy shoehorn butterhorse.
Thank god it didn’t then go to preposterous.
Couldn’t you just, you know, tell him you were getting an estimate?
I gotta admit, The Krazy Kozmik Show does have a nice ring to it.
What? Just…what? Dude. Your reasoning is suspect, to say the very least. Do you honestly think what you did was normal? At absolute best, the vaguely-English man (VEM), was being mildly unfriendly. Still, when somebody says they don’t want to talk to you, you don’t talk to them! There is no why or brazen badgering. You’re right in that this could be a Seinfeldian moment, but I don’t think it would play out like it is in your head.
I believe that he attempted to impose his will on me when he said “I don’t want to talk to you”. Before he said this, we were having conversation. I opened the converation. I wasn’t necessarily interested in the guy, I was interested in knowing whether I was getting a fair estimate on repairs. So I ask him: “Are you getting your headlights repaired, sir?” and he answers to the effect that he couldn’t hear me. So I ask him again: “Are you getting your headlights repaired?” and he answers in the affirmative. Then I inquire as to the estimate and whether I might get a fair estimate and he calmly and abruptly says in a very condencending tone, “I don’t want to talk to you”.
He has no obligation to engage in any form of verbal interation with me whatsoever; however, he did engage in a form of verbal interaction - a conversation. I asked him: “Are you getting your headlights repaired, sir?”, he didn’t hear me, so I asked again: “Are you getting your headlights repaired?” and he answered in the affirmative. The subtext of this converation was that I am getting my headlights repaired. The conversation continues. I ask about the estimate and whether this place is reasonable. The conversation ends…
That’s what I should have said. :smack:
Sounds like verbal elder abuse to me.
Kozmik, can you picture what would have happened if you had the same interaction with a woman or a child?
I admit that what I said was wrong. What Autolycus wrote is what I should have said.
I said something wrong before that, though:
What went wrong here?
Really? You don’t get what went wrong?
For whatever reason (and it could be any one of a thousand things) he didn’t want to talk. You asked a question which required a yes/no response. He may well have thought that you were doing so as a one off, sort of an alternative to the usual “how are you doing?” So he responds, assuming that will be the end of it. But then you keep going, so rather than get stuck in a conversation he doesn’t want to have, he tells you he doesn’t want to talk.
What went wrong was that you forced him into the uncomfortable position of having to say that he wasn’t in the mood to talk, and then didn’t respect his right not to engage with you.
I’m having a really hard time believing this thread isn’t a joke.
IIRC, **Kozmik **posted about a very similar incident happening on a bus a while ago, in which he was a creeper who wouldn’t leave some woman alone, and thought *she *was the strange one for trying to ignore him.
You misrepresented my post. :mad:
(Linkto the whole thread) My mistake, it was not a woman, but an old man.
You seem to have this bizarre obsession with bothering older men in public places.
Relevant thread by MeanOldLady.
The guy in the library was a young black man. So much for your theory.
I have the social skills of a cockroach – I’m afraid that fact often shows through in my posts here. In my early 30’s I mutated from Inferiority Complex to Superiority Complex (probably two sides of the same coin) with just a few precious months of normalcy in between.
I want to extend a big Thank You to Kozmik who has brightened my day. I’ve learned that in some important ways I am not the worst of Dopers! 