TLDR: How do you treat ‘pleasant’ reactionaries?
Long story short my cousin was visiting, but couldn’t make it. My family asked if I could show his friends around regardless, and of course I was happy to oblige.
I knew they were going to be sort of rich frat-bro poli-sci stereotypes from the outset, maybe a little bit ghoulish, but nevertheless I find Americans very entertaining in their ways and I’m a nice fella so I took them to some bars and some comedy.
Conversation didn’t exactly flooowwwww, but what can you expect meeting someone for the first time? I can’t tell if they had no opinions about anything or were embarrassed about the opinions they did have. And then I found out that they were descendants of CIA/NYPD.
I’m now going to be a joyless communist:
I just knew they were bubbling with totally oblivious reactionary ideology, but outwardly they were very pleasant and enthusiastic. We never did broach a topic that was too controversial. About the election, all they had to say was a quick sentence of ‘well, most people think both sides are bad… It’s a controversial topic because we’re unfortunately so divided…’ - just absolute platitude spoken very very seriously.
We also talked about the concussion crisis in contact sport, and again, they were just like ‘yeaahhh, seems inevitable really, not a lot you can do… anyway…’
Never have I met people so un-opinionated.
When the comedy acts came on, they had a wail of a time. One comedian was a stereotypically attractive woman, and as she came on stage, while everyone applauded her onto stage, these two 25 year olds were giggling like schoolboys, prodding each other, and shouting “lets fucking go!! Lets go bro!!!”. At other points in the set one of them especially would give a ‘lets gooooo’ to a punchline.
Very funny to watch. Americans are such a different breed. Still, they were just having a good time on holiday, and 2 of the sets were very gay and autistic, and they liked those too. And they bought me a couple of drinks as thanks for taking them. I would be lying if I said they weren’t nice and friendly guys. I would place them as Democrats or perhaps libertarian.
Anyway, what do you tend to do in scenarios where you know someone would find you a disgusting godless communist if they had any idea?
What I did was just to be normal, and genial. But it is an odd position to be in. Can someone truly be considered ‘nice’ and ‘pleasant’ when they harbour staunch ideology that is inherently racist and so on? How do you reconcile that? Aren’t like 90% of people like that (though some to more of an extent than others).
I think that conditioning to have it perceived as rude also goes hand in hand with vague pleasantries like asking someone how they are only to be met with sunshine and roses despite feeling like doom and darkness. It’s perceived as rude to tell someone how you really feel despite someone asking you how you are.
Worse I ever hear at work is “Hanging in there” or, if I say, “How’s it going?” and they respond, “It’s going.” And I respond, “I hear ya.” 🙃
yeah, it’s treated more like a call-response with the expectation that parties in exchange are expected to offer each other encouragement. it feels like kicking a puppy to respond with a discouraging remark to a casual acquaintance or a colleague saying hi.
the responses i like best are the ones that offer amusement and an out from further elaboration. like i used to work near this aged sales guy whose life was basically fucked in a job where the sales are not happening. of course, you can’t be that and be the sales guy, so he had a persona for clients of a happy go lucky guy for whom everything was clicking. when someone who knew the score would see him and ask, “how its going?” he would say the “just living the dream” line but in this hysterically oversold manner, like he was rich and day drinking on a beach somewhere. it killed me and we would all get a laugh. so years later, elsewhere i started using it when i was frustrated and people i worked with would ask, when they knew i was “in it”, emotionally.
another good one i’ve heard that is more earnest/less sarcastic, is to respond with a pleasant, “oh, i can’t complain” and let it sit for a beat, following with, “but i will” more conspiratorially, like i’ve got “secret” gripes that are super juicy gossip.
I’ve found this to be contextual as well. Like with good friends asking how you’ve been, they actually want to know. There’s a line where if all they ever hear out of your mouth is doom and gloom, it gets to be overbearing, and it can definitely be rude to trauma dump unprompted. But generally speaking, friends want a genuine answer. Random coworkers you don’t know do not. And then everyone in between is on a sliding scale where they’re feeling you out, getting to know you and expecting more and more candid answers as that progresses.
And then of course once you get to know someone well enough you just know where their limits are because you’ve seen them approach those limits and get slightly uncomfortable before. Like I just learned my coworker doesn’t like to talk politics because I brought up some very mild school politics around charter schools and it stopped a perfectly good conversation in its tracks.
I feel very behind for having just figured this out in the past couple years, but it makes interacting with people a lot easier. Like I finally have basic script for small talk.