This week, a friend left me a voice note. She had just taken a solo train journey, during which she’d been sitting next to another woman. After exchanging some light pleasantries, my friend settled down to do what she enjoys best: watching the world go by, with her headphones in. Except: no such luck. Her new seat buddy kept tapping her on the shoulder, meaning that my pal had to turn off her podcast and remove her earphones, only to find herself being asked the most random of questions. “Have you ever visited County Wicklow?”... “Do you like spaghetti carbonara?” and the like.
“I kept thinking about you and how you’d have politely but firmly said something like ‘I’m sorry but I’d like to listen to my audiobook now’,” my friend said in her voice note. “But I just couldn’t do it. I’m not assertive enough.”
I sometimes wonder whether I’ve created a myth of assertiveness around myself. I’m very good at dishing out advice (and I’ve given you some below) to friends - ‘Oh, I’d have just said xxxx’ - but often less able to put it into practice myself. Of course I know what YOU should say to your boss when asking for a pay rise. But how often did I manage to negotiate one for myself over the years? Quite.
While I might like seeing myself through my friend’s eyes, the truth is that I’d probably have tolerated my fellow train-traveller’s questioning for longer than I’d care to admit. But, yes, ultimately I might have said something passive aggressive along the lines of, ‘do you think it would be OK if I concentrated on my work now?’ and would then have spent the rest of the journey feeling like a terrible person. Although I didn’t feel bad when, on a recent solo trip, a man approached me in a gallery and tried to start a conversation about the painting I was standing in front of, clearly deep in thought. OK, I didn’t know his intentions but I didn’t want to find out, so I just turned to him and said “no, thank you.” He walked off. I returned to the Bermejo, feeling discombobulated.
Does anyone else struggle with this?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Tell Me About It with Claire Cohen to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.