Can i buy you a coffee?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Jesus, I'll go out with you, already - enough with the avalanche of text!!

Is that all it takes?

She's pretty choosy is our Bella. You have to have some kind of genitalia and preferably a pulse.

[devogue]

Jesus, I'll go out with you, already - enough with the avalanche of text!!

Typical woman. No attention span.

[SteveB]

Jesus, I'll go out with you, already - enough with the avalanche of text!!

Is that all it takes?

She's pretty choosy is our Bella. You have to have some kind of genitalia and preferably a pulse.

I have both, but not at the same time. Will that cut it?

[hadespussercats]

I never wanted to talk to them, I never wanted to be talked to. Sometimes the driver wants to talk to me or other passengers but I have no interest in what they have to say. I don't care about their lives. I don't want to make small talk, I just want to sit and read my book for twenty goddamn minutes after working a ten hour shift. That time belongs to me - it's not my problem if someone else doesn't like reading books and has got bored sitting on the bus with nothing to do. Leave me alone.

I can't fully express how infuriating it is to me that so many people seem to assume I'm only reading because I can't find someone to talk to.

The situation you're describing-- that sort of thing has happened to me many times (usually it was spotting the cigarettes, rather than the wine, but... same deal.)

[devogue]

I never wanted to talk to them, I never wanted to be talked to. Sometimes the driver wants to talk to me or other passengers but I have no interest in what they have to say. I don't care about their lives. I don't want to make small talk, I just want to sit and read my book for twenty goddamn minutes after working a ten hour shift. That time belongs to me - it's not my problem if someone else doesn't like reading books and has got bored sitting on the bus with nothing to do. Leave me alone.

I can't fully express how infuriating it is to me that so many people seem to assume I'm only reading because I can't find someone to talk to.

The situation you're describing-- that sort of thing has happened to me many times (usually it was spotting the cigarettes, rather than the wine, but... same deal.)

But what if they are being friendly?

[hadespussercats]

I never wanted to talk to them, I never wanted to be talked to. Sometimes the driver wants to talk to me or other passengers but I have no interest in what they have to say. I don't care about their lives. I don't want to make small talk, I just want to sit and read my book for twenty goddamn minutes after working a ten hour shift. That time belongs to me - it's not my problem if someone else doesn't like reading books and has got bored sitting on the bus with nothing to do. Leave me alone.

I can't fully express how infuriating it is to me that so many people seem to assume I'm only reading because I can't find someone to talk to.

The situation you're describing-- that sort of thing has happened to me many times (usually it was spotting the cigarettes, rather than the wine, but... same deal.)

But what if they are being friendly?

It's not harassment. But it's fucking annoying.

[devogue]

I never wanted to talk to them, I never wanted to be talked to. Sometimes the driver wants to talk to me or other passengers but I have no interest in what they have to say. I don't care about their lives. I don't want to make small talk, I just want to sit and read my book for twenty goddamn minutes after working a ten hour shift. That time belongs to me - it's not my problem if someone else doesn't like reading books and has got bored sitting on the bus with nothing to do. Leave me alone.

I can't fully express how infuriating it is to me that so many people seem to assume I'm only reading because I can't find someone to talk to.

The situation you're describing-- that sort of thing has happened to me many times (usually it was spotting the cigarettes, rather than the wine, but... same deal.)

But what if they are being friendly?

It's not harassment. But it's fucking annoying.

I completely disagree that it is harassment (unless a rebuttal is ignored), but in certain situations it is rude, selfish and thoughtless.

[Audley Strange]

I agree with that. It drives me nuts when I'm sitting in a pub alone reading. I deliberately move away from the bar to a dark corner stick on headphones and read in peace and quiet. I find it questionable as to why someone would make all that effort. "Hey that guy over in the back is sitting alone reading a book, poor sod, what he needs is MEEEEEE!!" It displays a level of arrogance and ego that I find pretty sad.

However, as annoying as it can be and as odd as I find it, I accept that in social settings that people just gravitate towards me. Perhaps my height or my confidence, perhaps I just have a face like a priest (since a lot of the time it feels like I'm only a silent partner in their confessions and angst). I don't know what they are going through and thus while I don't think it ideal that they lay it on me, what is really lost but a connection with a fellow human, even if only briefly? I've spoke to guys who've just walked out of a raging fight with their partners, a women who'd not long had a miscarriage and couldn't face going home at night. did I help? I have no fucking idea, but telling them "oh I am reading my book go away" seems worse to me than someone who might need to reach out just for a moment.

I've spoken to pricks who just want to fight about football and sluts who see the wedding ring as a challenge both of whom I'll gladly insult and tell to fuck off.

Annoying, but honestly, I cut myself off by choice, but these are real people and while I fucking hate humanity generally, individually I'll give almost any of them five minutes of my time if they are not overburdening me with shit or making an arse out of themselves.

If we care more about the fictional characters in books we're readubg rather than real contact with real people, we're all going to end up the kind of socially stunned weirdos that haunt the halls of academia waffling on about Iago and Steinbeck's portrayal of the working class and coming up with complex intellectual sophistries to avoid dealing with each other.

Oh and on buses, that's different, I don't care if Jesus told you all of next months lottery numbers, get the fuck away from me unless you absolutely have to sit next to me. The headphones mean "shut the fuck up and don't engage me."

[hadespussercats]

I agree with that. It drives me nuts when I'm sitting in a pub alone reading. I deliberately move away from the bar to a dark corner stick on headphones and read in peace and quiet. I find it questionable as to why someone would make all that effort. "Hey that guy over in the back is sitting alone reading a book, poor sod, what he needs is MEEEEEE!!" It displays a level of arrogance and ego that I find pretty sad.

However, as annoying as it can be and as odd as I find it, I accept that in social settings that people just gravitate towards me. Perhaps my height or my confidence, perhaps I just have a face like a priest (since a lot of the time it feels like I'm only a silent partner in their confessions and angst). I don't know what they are going through and thus while I don't think it ideal that they lay it on me, what is really lost but a connection with a fellow human, even if only briefly? I've spoke to guys who've just walked out of a raging fight with their partners, a women who'd not long had a miscarriage and couldn't face going home at night. did I help? I have no fucking idea, but telling them "oh I am reading my book go away" seems worse to me than someone who might need to reach out just for a moment.

I've spoken to pricks who just want to fight about football and sluts who see the wedding ring as a challenge both of whom I'll gladly insult and tell to fuck off.

Annoying, but honestly, I cut myself off by choice, but these are real people and while I fucking hate humanity generally, individually I'll give almost any of them five minutes of my time if they are not overburdening me with shit or making an arse out of themselves.

If we care more about the fictional characters in books we're readubg rather than real contact with real people, we're all going to end up the kind of socially stunned weirdos that haunt the halls of academia waffling on about Iago and Steinbeck's portrayal of the working class and coming up with complex intellectual sophistries to avoid dealing with each other.

Oh and on buses, that's different, I don't care if Jesus told you all of next months lottery numbers, get the fuck away from me unless you absolutely have to sit next to me. The headphones mean "shut the fuck up and don't engage me."

You know, Audley, I think I know what you mean about attracting confessions from people. I've experienced that. I've wondered if it's an aspect of my freak magnet-- my sister, who's experienced the same, says it's because we look kind. I don't know-- that seems self-serving!

There are times I detest intrusions on my public solitude. But I also... I don't know. There's something about making these strange, deep, yet fleeting connections. It's a way of being with people but remaining solitary.

I don't think that precludes feeling like I wish people would leave me alone to read my book, though.

[Audley Strange]

No it does not. It's good to be left in peace.

Really though it is a best an inconvenience unless it does become actual harrassment and this is part of what bothers me about all this privilege nonsense. I'm supposed to be the cynical misanthrope and yet it seems to me that this sort of exaggeration of inconvenience to FEAR is coming from those who claim to care about society blah blah but are incredibly anti-social, obnoxious and totally oblivious to anyone but themselves. This kind of exaggeration is so deeply negative that the actual bindings that hold society together are liable to fall apart. I go out with TGLS and we sit in restaurants and bars and witness the lack of communication between couples and friends. They sit there thumbing phones when they are out with people and get annoyed when they are interrupted by the very people they are out with. They ignore their children, who are so very very fucking desperate for any form of attention that the kids run riot while they are oblivious because they're permanently texting.

Where I was a couple of weeks back we ended up in a hotel full of older folks. They thought nothing of striking up a conversation with strangers, yet the few young folk that were there in their twenties were just joyless vacant and totally miserable, basking in the sun by the adriatic with free cocktails and chill out music piping gently along with the warm breeze. The Good Lady tried to start a conversation with one of the young ladies and just got this blank slack jawed "how dare you" stare.

Are we creating a world where any form of actual human contact or communication is suspicious?

[charlou]

There's a guy who is pretty recognisable in the small town where I live, for walking around town in shorts and singlet and tan, with an acubra hat, and he's reading while he's walking ... and he's often in the food court at our shopping centre, sitting with a Farmer's Union iced coffee, reading. Sometimes there'll be someone chatting with him, often not. I'm curious about him ...

[hadespussercats]

There's a guy who is pretty recognisable in the small town where I live, for walking around town in shorts and singlet and tan, with an acubra hat, and he's reading while he's walking ... and he's often in the food court at our shopping centre, sitting with a Farmer's Union iced coffee, reading. Sometimes there'll be someone chatting with him, often not. I'm curious about him ...

Trip him?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

There's a guy who is pretty recognisable in the small town where I live, for walking around town in shorts and singlet and tan, with an acubra hat, and he's reading while he's walking ... and he's often in the food court at our shopping centre, sitting with a Farmer's Union iced coffee, reading. Sometimes there'll be someone chatting with him, often not. I'm curious about him ...

Trip him?

Absolutely! Dropping LSD into someone's coffee is as socially acceptable a way of getting to know someone as it comes!

[JimC]

I often sit in a little corner of the staff room reading, oblivious to the currents of gossip flowing around me...

Of course, I then complain that I'm always the last one to know stuff...

[Coito ergo sum]

Jesus, I'll go out with you, already - enough with the avalanche of text!!

Finally!

What time should I pick you up?