#11: Refusing directions in unfamiliar/scary environments
This is a great awkward rule from Paul Van Slembrouck. If you’d like to suggest a rule or a situation, email awkwardrules@gmail.com and if I post it I’ll link to you. You could be getting tens of hits to your site!
The situation - You’re taking the bus in an unfamiliar city. You’ve taken the wrong line or missed a station because all of a sudden you’re in what looks like a bad neighborhood. You get off the bus and look around to figure out where you are. One of the people that got off the bus, a disheveled looking man, asks, “hey you need help?” He has crazy/scary eyes so you say, “no thanks, I know where I’m going”.
Fig 1. Notice seemingly scary crazy-eyed follow walker.
Now you have to demonstrate that you know where you’re going, so you start walking in a random direction. Then you realize where you are and remember that you should actually head back to the bus stop and take a different bus. You turn around and you see the man on the way back, and he shakes his head sadly at your lack of faith in humanity. You get back to the stop, and then one of the people hanging out near the bus stop leans over and says, “That guy you refused directions from is J.D. Salinger, he hasn’t talked to anyone in 20 years until today when he asked if you needed help. Maybe now you’ll learn not to judge a book by its cover.”
This situation could have been much less awkward if you had followed -
AwkwardRule #11: Refusing directions in unfamiliar/scary environments
After you have refused directions in an unfamiliar / scary environment follow these guidelines:
- Maintain posture, expression, direction, and pace such that it appears that you know exactly where you are going.
- Mentally create and navigate spatial models and estimate probabilities that you should be heading in a direction other than the current heading. For example, dark alleys are the wrong way 99% of the time.
Should you need to change course, it must be inconspicuous. Abruptly doing a 180 degree turn could create substantial awkwardness as described above. The awkwardness factor increases with the amount of time spent in close proximity of other walkers, especially if you have refused directions from them.
Fig 2. Showing the complex variables that must be juggled in order to non-awkwardly refuse directions.
Here are some strategies to allow you to change directions without showing that you didn’t know where you were going:
- Wait until you come to an intersection or crosswalk, and then cross the street to head the other direction. If the next opportunity to cross is too far away, you may try to cross right where you are.
- Walk around the block.
- Find a lamp post, doorway, other object to lean against until those who were walking in your proximity are out of range, and then you can resume walking (in the opposite direction) without anyone noticing your change of direction.
- Use a newfangled 3D pedestrian navigation app for your smartphone, avoiding the problem entirely.
