EntriesSo I’m not feeling all that awesome today. At the moment I seem to be having two days respite from morning sickness and today is not one of those days. I had a bunch of errands that were time specific so I’ve spent the morning trying to find a window where I thought I could, if efficient, get to Australia Post, the ATM and the shops in minimal time and get the hell out to go lie down again. I found that window just under an hour ago. I managed to get to the post office just before the queue and got in and out in no too bad time (yay for being an expert in parcels by now). I navigated Woollies and started to feel a bit faint towards the end of my list, discarded a few items, bought myself some tulips to cheer myself up and headed through self check out.
On my way out the shopping centre, focussed on getting to my car ASAP where I could sit down and maybe feel less woozy, I headed past a WWF stand. As I passed it, one of the young lads there called out to me but I shook my head and carried on walking. When I was more than 5 m past him, he called out to me, “hey, did you buy me flowers?”. To which my annoyed response was, “I DID not!” as I carried on walking.
But by the time I got to the car I was fuming. The heckle was harmless. Almost innocent. But … that kind of shit in the context of often getting singled out and heckled when out by yourself gets tiresome after a while. What does it achieve? Obviously I didn’t buy him the flowers, I wasn’t going to stop and give them to him (he WAS NOT remotely cute enough) and I was always going to keep walking. What was the point? The point was, I ignored him. And he couldn’t let that go. He *needed* me to acknowledge him so he heckled to demand my attention, even if it was negative. And for what end? My feelings towards him are unchanged but he managed to make himself exist enough in my world for me to write this post to say – you are not entitled to my attention, I get to walk past you and not notice you.
Tags: note to self
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I’ve noticed that the (usually quite young) people they have on those charity stands in shopping centres are trained to ‘flirt’ in order to get the ‘sale’. Some do it very well, being charming without being intrusive and smarmy, others…well, you know about them.
It’s like those management/sales seminars that you know people have done because they look you directly in the eye and use your name every time they open their mouths when they’re trying to sell you something. They don’t have the natural charisma to pull it off and it is so very obviously fake. I usually feel a bit sorry for them, they’ve been taught hackneyed techniques and are usually not very good at it!
I have been thinking of you, hoping you were feeling better. Remembering too well about not enjoying pregnancy and sympathising greatly.
I sympathise deeply about the morning sickness – what a misnomer that is – and the heckle. One of the things I notice now I’m older is that I’m no longer heckle worthy. While this is an advantage I’ve also become apparently become invisible. Ah well. Can’t have everything. Look after yourself and remember the morning sickness will eventually pass.
And itI also seems I can’t edit. Just mentally scratch the superfluous “become”, please.
I dunno, I kinda would like to everything. I mean, that guy who heckled me gets to have everything why shouldn’t the reason you don’t get heckled be because you’re invisible. Why not just because you’re entitled to go about your day in peace?
Well that’s disgusting! As if I would need to be flirted with be coerced into donating money to charity!
Great salespeople are something to be watching though. The best, sell you something you didn’t know you needed and then you walk off *happy* about it!
Thanks for thinking of me! I hope to be feeling better soon … Definitely feeling a bit better now I am eating better, maybe that will help.
I use to use these street sprukers to sharpen self defense awareness skills. People setting you up for a mugging often employ what’s called “The Interview” which includes distracting you, getting you to focus on them. I think most of us are polite and it takes awhile to get over the almost automatic response to be polite back. So I treat them as though they are trying to distract me and run through checking my surroundings and avenues of attack to stave off my strong compulsion to give them the time of day. Same thing if they are being a smart arse or heckling, there only tactic is to get you to stop. You could of course complain to the centre management as well.
I think that’s the bit that annoyed me the most – I was so determined to walk past them uninterrupted, I put my head down and powered past. But then my politeness got the better of me and I felt I had to reply when spoken to! And I don’t. Gah! Next time…
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