I was just sitting at the mall taking a break from mall walking. A man walked over to me when I wasn’t even looking up. He said "I haven’t seen you here before. " I said I wasn’t really here to talk to people and got up and walked away. He said he would leave, he may even have said sorry. I said I was ready to leave anyway. In retrospect I think he may have just been slightly mentally challenged so I wish I had been a little softer, he did not turn out to be aggressive. Looking for suggestions on something still clear and firm but more polite? This scared me for some reason, I think how fast he walked up and sat down near me.
Editing to add a key detail, he sat down close to me which is probably what made me more nervous than I would have otherwise been. I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback I’ve gotten and interesting discussion.
I don’t know what it is but recently I’m seeing a lot of content about people “approaching” strangers and people saying it’s normal and people want to be spoken to. Some weird social media trend maybe.
Before social media this was totally normal. See someone you want to talk to? Walk up and say hi. There’s nothing odd about it
yeah im not sure how prevalent it is now but in my city in ages past it was pretty common to talk at public transit stops and grocery lines and such. I mean there is a casual way to strike up a conversation and a creepy way and movies by and large have these two. Even comedies about someone seeming creepy who did not mean to.
That depends so much on where and when you are. I’m older than social media and no, strangers didn’t walk up and say hi in my culture/s. There were plenty of places that sort of thing was acceptable but they were places with an implied invitation to socialise, not the street.
The post doesn’t mention being on the street, it mentions walking around a mall and taking a break. Malls have historically been social locations since their inception, especially among those that choose to go there without the intention of shopping at the stores located within it. Nothing wrong with wandering the mall, but other people may think you are there to socialize if you aren’t shopping… Especially if you are partaking in their favorite activity.
Oh well, it’s a marginally different situation. Might as well just discount my entire comment. It’s what I’m going to do with your forest-for-the-trees comment rather than engage any further.
Their comment directly responds to your point by claiming that the mall, where the OP’s incident took place, is a “place with an implied invitation to socialize”.
I grew up without social media and to me this is not at all normal. The only strangers who talk to you want to sell you something, or they have some mental issues.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing? Apparently America is unusually friendly compared to the rest of the world, and striking up conversations with strangers is pretty normal.
It’s more how we define being polite in social situations. In much of the world it’s considered rude to intrude on other people’s time uninvited. I think the term is “negative politeness”. How one feels about that is the cultural difference.
America is huge huge, there are several different norms across the country. The people who live in the Southern states have a wildly different approach than people who live in the Pacific Northwest, for example.
Yeah, I’ve met Americans who somehow manage to do that. As a European, it never happened to me and if I think about doing it myself it just seems creepy and weird.
That’s probably it then. I’d say it feels weirder in America if you’re completely shut off to random small talk. It varies a bit by region, and certainly by individual, but I’ve never been anywhere in America where it’s strange to strike up a conversation standing in line or waiting for a bus or something.
I’ve been to the famously rude Boston area as a European, and I found the people waay to chatty and friendly. I’m buying groceries, for fuck’s sake, don’t ask me how I am doing!
Yeah, it’s cultural. I tend to joke that if someone smiles at me in public here, I’m discreetly checking where my wallet and phone are and which direction I should best run away to.
I know I have watched videos about this also, that people say they are not approached or feel like they can’t approach others. My thing is body language and eye contact, if I’m out walking around making eye contact and we exchange a hello and see if more occurs fine. But if someone is totally closed off looking away… take the hint. And like dear lord don’t sit down without being invited to ! Chat a minute and ask first.
Sadly, some of us are unable to ‘take a hint’ as it doesn’t seem like a hint. Not everybody is wired to pick up on small contextual cues and may only notice the big ones; being in a public shopping mall (historically a pretty social location) while not shopping, implies to my brain a desire to be around people, even if you aren’t there for the buildings intended purpose. It’s definitely fine that your intention wasn’t to be social, I don’t desire to be social and try to avoid places with people like the plague.
I don’t think he did anything wrong either though; the few mall walkers I’ve known almost consider it a sport so I get why he would say those exact words (not seeing you during their usual meetup time, he was likely inviting you to walk with their group).