5 ms·

Lots of people don't want to talk to strangers. It is socially unacceptable to wear a T-shirt saying "please don't talk to me" - but headphones are socially acc

by edent 1y ago

Lots of people don't want to talk to strangers. It is socially unacceptable to wear a T-shirt saying "please don't talk to me" - but headphones are socially acceptable. And yet still, plenty of women report persistent men telling them to remove their headphones so they can engage in unwanted conversation. The alienation was already there; the headphone just made it more acceptable to signal.

II2II 1y ago
There will always be some people who don't want to talk to strangers, but how much of what we experience is due to social conditioning? As for women who don't want to be approached, harassment is an entirely different issue. Just because talking to strangers and harassing women were more acceptable in the past doesn't mean that one follows from the other.
- brookst 1y ago
  There are just a lot more people now. It would be exhausting to try to talk to everyone one runs across in a day. 100 years ago, that was not true.
  - adrianN 1y ago
    Two hundred years ago London already had 1.4M inhabitants.
- t-3 1y ago
  > As for women who don't want to be approached, harassment is an entirely different issue. Just because talking to strangers and harassing women were more acceptable in the past doesn't mean that one follows from the other. Unwanted advances, whether sexual, social, or commercial in nature, are all harassment. They all make the recipient uncomfortable, and others should be able to identify and respect anti-openness signaling like wearing earbuds or not sustaining eye contact.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Unwanted advances, whether sexual, social, or commercial in nature, are all harassment. I'll be sure to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses and floozies that they have selling solar that they're harassing me. When everything is "harassment" nothing is.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      > I'll be sure to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses and floozies that they have selling solar that they're harassing me. Well, I absolutely 100% consider these types harrassing yes. The indicative parts is that they are 100% selfish in their reasons to contact (the jehovah's want to make themselves feel good by spreading their religion, the sellers want income). There's zero in it for me, there is zero consideration for me. I'm just a target for their gratification. And they have no interest in my objections. I don't even open the door anymore to people I don't know because it's always bad news.
    - mystified5016 1y ago
      The shitty salesman who won't leave your stoop is harassment. Religious evangalists who keep coming to your door after you tell them to stop is harassment. When someone tells you to stop and go away and you refuse, that is harassment.
- tomjen3 1y ago
  There are strangers I would like to talk to. It is just that most strangers are not someone I would like to talk to - if I wanted to talk to somebody I could just remove my airpods. This isn't part of the social conditioning, it is because most people are not very interesting.
ivape 1y ago
I think scale is the issue here. Our communities got too big and too virtual. In an intimate village, no one has the privilege to say "well I just don't want to interact with anyone outside" - this is uncompromising. Our society, via scale, affords you the ability to not be a part of. It's very self-reinforcing because the larger and robust you make the society, the more people want to secure privacy. The argument that a species that evolved and survived largely in part due to being highly social would suddenly seek privacy indicates something else is wrong in the environment imho (and it's really not hard to do evidence discovery here at all, you can find them via observation or following the money).
slater 1y ago
> It is socially unacceptable to wear a T-shirt saying "please don't talk to me" since when?
1718627440 1y ago
But it creates social problems when people aren't talking among opposed "parties". That's why we now have social isolation and radicalization issues across the world.
tkj922 1y ago
Why is wearing a tshirt that says "please do not talk to me" socially unacceptable, whereas using headphones is fine? I am genuinely curious

by edent 1y ago

II2II 1y ago

There will always be some people who don't want to talk to strangers, but how much of what we experience is due to social conditioning? As for women who don't want to be approached, harassment is an entirely different issue. Just because talking to strangers and harassing women were more acceptable in the past doesn't mean that one follows from the other.

brookst 1y ago
There are just a lot more people now. It would be exhausting to try to talk to everyone one runs across in a day. 100 years ago, that was not true.
- adrianN 1y ago
  Two hundred years ago London already had 1.4M inhabitants.
t-3 1y ago
> As for women who don't want to be approached, harassment is an entirely different issue. Just because talking to strangers and harassing women were more acceptable in the past doesn't mean that one follows from the other. Unwanted advances, whether sexual, social, or commercial in nature, are all harassment. They all make the recipient uncomfortable, and others should be able to identify and respect anti-openness signaling like wearing earbuds or not sustaining eye contact.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Unwanted advances, whether sexual, social, or commercial in nature, are all harassment. I'll be sure to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses and floozies that they have selling solar that they're harassing me. When everything is "harassment" nothing is.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    > I'll be sure to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses and floozies that they have selling solar that they're harassing me. Well, I absolutely 100% consider these types harrassing yes. The indicative parts is that they are 100% selfish in their reasons to contact (the jehovah's want to make themselves feel good by spreading their religion, the sellers want income). There's zero in it for me, there is zero consideration for me. I'm just a target for their gratification. And they have no interest in my objections. I don't even open the door anymore to people I don't know because it's always bad news.
  - mystified5016 1y ago
    The shitty salesman who won't leave your stoop is harassment. Religious evangalists who keep coming to your door after you tell them to stop is harassment. When someone tells you to stop and go away and you refuse, that is harassment.
tomjen3 1y ago
There are strangers I would like to talk to. It is just that most strangers are not someone I would like to talk to - if I wanted to talk to somebody I could just remove my airpods. This isn't part of the social conditioning, it is because most people are not very interesting.

ivape 1y ago

I think scale is the issue here. Our communities got too big and too virtual. In an intimate village, no one has the privilege to say "well I just don't want to interact with anyone outside" - this is uncompromising. Our society, via scale, affords you the ability to not be a part of. It's very self-reinforcing because the larger and robust you make the society, the more people want to secure privacy. The argument that a species that evolved and survived largely in part due to being highly social would suddenly seek privacy indicates something else is wrong in the environment imho (and it's really not hard to do evidence discovery here at all, you can find them via observation or following the money).

slater 1y ago

> It is socially unacceptable to wear a T-shirt saying "please don't talk to me" since when?

1718627440 1y ago

But it creates social problems when people aren't talking among opposed "parties". That's why we now have social isolation and radicalization issues across the world.

tkj922 1y ago

Why is wearing a tshirt that says "please do not talk to me" socially unacceptable, whereas using headphones is fine? I am genuinely curious