The Kindness of Strangers - disgruntled

The Kindness of Strangers

I was walking to work this morning from the station and I passed a woman going the other way, obviously on her way to the office. She was looking pretty put together: sleek hair, cropped trousers, shiny shoes - apart from one small detail. She must have put her cardigan on without the benefit of a mirror and it was buttoned up wrong - not just one button out but two or three. The effect was comic, and it was exactly the sort of thing I regularly manage to do to myself (although I can't usually manage the sleek hair and shiny shoes part, obviously) and I know that if I were in her poistion I'd have wanted to know before I made it to the office.

So I ... pretended not to notice. A simple gesture or couple of words from me would have tipped her off before she embarrassed herself in front of her colleagues. And I bet I wasn't the only one either. I bet you she walked past tens if not hundreds of people before anyone pointed it out. But why not tell someone she's about to make a slight fool of herself? I remembered an article by Xinran in the Guardian where a Chinese man was angry at the 'cold-hearted' westerners who let her spill coffee on herself rather than tell her she was tipping it down her front as she drank, but it's not cold-heartedness exactly, and it's not that we're generally unhelpful people, even in London. I lose count of the number of times I've been chased down by total strangers returning to me my dropped newspaper, mobile phone, even 200 quid of holiday money that just fell out of my bag. It's something more complicated than that.

Partly it's about avoiding embarrasssment - at least the small immediate embarrassment of pointing something out to someone, even if it means letting them continue on their way with their wonky cardigan, or their skirt tucked in their knickers, or spinach on their teeth. Ignoring someone's eccentricities is considered polite here, and we find the directness of the Dutch or the Chinese rude, even when it's kindly meant. We prefer the courtesy, the polite fiction that nothing's wrong, or at least we think we do.

All this means that London is a great place to be different and nobody will point or stare. There was a man on my train this afternoon who talked to himself the whole way, just a gentle running commentary on what was going on, and nobody turned a hair, or even changed seats to avoid him. But on the other hand, it's a terrible place to look for help among strangers. I sat on a tube carriage once with twenty other people while a woman went from loud, to strange, to scary, to berserk, and all of us desperately pretended it wasn't happening. It was only when someone had the courage to approach her that we realised it was claustrophobia, not rudeness or insanity.

So if you're reading this, green cardigan woman, I'm sorry I never mentioned it. And if it happens again and I pass you, I'll probably ... pretend I haven't noticed.

Total time wasted today: 8 minutes
Total time wasted to date: 2 hours 45 minutes

17.6.05 18:19

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To date 4 Comment(s) TrackBack-URL

huttonian / Website (17.6.05 19:47)
I got this from a natural history website-it really relates to yesterdays blog but here it is for what it is worth
"Basking sharks measure anything up to 12 metres and weigh up to seven tonnes - larger and heavier than a double-decker bus"

Ross / Website (21.6.05 12:49)
I had a similar experience - I was approaching an Italian man on the street, and he eyed me up and down, and then made eye contact. "Hey!" he bellowed, then cupped his genitals playfully, before rolling his eyes in an alarming manner. Naturally, I assumed he was either trying to pick me up, or accusing me of some sexual transgression. But my fly was down, and it was his attempt to inform me of this.

(21.6.05 20:26)
So were you grateful? Or did you mean to go out like that?
And how did you know he was Italian?

Ross / Website (23.6.05 09:00)
Of course I was grateful - British etiquette demands ritual suicide, if strangers glimpse ones undergarments. It was his body language, liberal use of gentleman’s brilliantine crème and accent which gave away his nationality. Apologies for the stereotypes, but I'm just reporting what I experienced.