Monthly Archives: March 2019

Thoughts

Unwanted Attention Towards Women

A woman is expected, first and foremost, to respond to every communication from a man. And the response is expected to be one of willingness and attentiveness.

Gavin de Becker wrote this in his book The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence about America in the 1990s. In fact, the edition I’m quoting from was published in 1997, but so many years later I found myself returning to that quote more than once. It’s still true on various levels, not just those de Becker writes about, though important shifts are happening in terms of how both men and women perceive and conduct communication with each other.

Lots of examples that come to mind in connection with unwanted attention relate to interactions between strangers who will not necessarily get to know each other. I’m guessing they wouldn’t want to, either. Some are easy to shake off or don’t leave an impression at all. Will this ever become a topic that I and other women will have nothing to add to? A topic the women arriving after us will have nothing to say about at all? I don’t think so. It’s human nature. To make it clear at the start, I’m talking about “everyday” occurrences which, small and fleeting though they may seem, are still marked by a dart of upset, tension, feeling uncomfortable afterwards even if you know exactly how to deal with it, and knowing nods from your girlfriends once you share an experience you had.

So what’s the trigger for this post? Nothing major, just being paired up with a classmate who made me uncomfortable during a language class. I had spotted him immediately upon entering the classroom and thought that I didn’t want to work with him, because I probably already knew I would be, since we were the only ones sitting alone. Before I could join my usual teammates, one of them a twinkly-eyed bachelor in his late fifties whose jokes and polite door holding never gave me any twinges, this stout, slightly hulking man of seemingly the same age was sitting down next to me and staring at me while I spoke, turning brick red in the process. We were answering questions for vocabulary training, and mine was what I would pack for a vacation. I paused to remember the words for “different clothes”, and my exercise partner pounced in with a cackle: “A bikini!” I stopped what I was doing, looked him in the eye and said, “That’s not funny.” It worked.

When I told my girlfriends this story, head shaking and supportive sentences followed, as well as the valid observation from one of them that it would have been a totally different situation if I was paired up with a woman who said that, especially a woman my age, and I have to say I felt myself agreeing one hundred percent.

It wasn’t alright because it didn’t feel alright, besides being, in my opinion, a textbook example of Things You Don’t Say to a Woman, Especially One You Don’t Know Well. I’m reminded of a good colleague of mine who mentioned that there was construction going on right next to her house and she had to walk past the site every morning on her way to work. Despite going out early, as is often the case, there was usually someone there, already busy. We were chatting and she frowned suddenly. “There’s this one worker who always says good morning to me, he calls it out even when I’m clearly in a hurry or focused on walking. I never initiate this and it doesn’t feel nice.”

I didn’t have to say anything as we looked at each other, because I knew what she was talking about, and the additional probable components she wasn’t mentioning: knowing that man would notice you even before you walked out your door and not enjoying the thought, seeing him straighten up out of the corner of your eye, pull up his jeans or lean on something, grin or tilt his head, call out the greeting with an air of mutual acknowledgement that was never established, feeling his eyes follow you as you walk along in the summer dress you were looking forward to wearing.

Change individual bits of these stories and they transfer easily to a variety of experiences, and these are the “harmless” examples. I don’t walk around expecting any of this, in whichever version, but I’m prepared for it, and my mind switches to all the self-protection and self-soothing strategies that have been there so long, I can’t even remember when I started being conscious of them. A conversation with my own mother rapidly proves that what I talk about is as familiar to her now as it was when she was my age or even way younger, and since she’s my mother, she can usually guess where I’m going before I get there in my story. My mother gets approached plenty. So does my father, but that’s another blog post.

With the dude from my language class, I remember suddenly feeling extremely irritated and thinking, Why can’t you be an attractive, well-mannered, well-adjusted man paying attention to me instead of this? But the truth is,  a well-adjusted etc. man wouldn’t have acted in a way that made me feel the way described above. Also, I wouldn’t have cared or noticed what he looked like.

Are we too sensitive? No. Are we forgetting all the good guys? No. They are even easier to spot. Are we tense and frightened of any sort of interaction with a man coming our way? No. But it’s in us to be wary if necessary. The perhaps strongest feeling I usually experience if I get unwanted attention is a sort of proprietary anger: why the hell do you think that I would want to hear this, from you? I didn’t ask you to do this or infringe on my time. That’s it.

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Thoughts

Writing in a Café: How to Keep Your Space

Odds are that there will be people in your café who aren’t there to work, meet up with someone they arranged to see or just enjoy their own company. In fact, they might be looking for the company of others, be it just a chat or something more. This is normal coffee shop/ café culture . After all, you’re a social person as well (most of the time, I’m guessing), and you’re perfectly open to meeting new people, networking, possibly forging a neighborhood familiarity or even a new friendship.

I’m not averse to engaging, because that is also another reason you venture out to work away from the comfort of your home. But I came here with a purpose, so how do I keep the space I need for it?

As already hinted, have a pair of headphones handy. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re listening to music. Or maybe you feel fine without them – also great. But as a woman coming in alone somewhere I’m used to being approached or talked to, even if it’s a short exchange, not necessarily an unwanted one too. If I’m settling down to work on a writing or blogging idea I’ve been carrying around for days, teaching it how to walk on its own before I release it into the world, I need to stay focused. I’ve carved out time for this and I want to make the most of it. Plenty of people still have an inner social brake if they see someone with headphones in. And if not, you have the right to look properly annoyed if you get tapped on the shoulder (depending on the situation and who’s tapping, of course) and have to take out the headphones after all.

Wear comfortable clothing (not PJs, although it’s so tempting – I just imagine it sometimes) that you don’t have to think about once you sit down. Nothing that you need to tuck in or adjust periodically, pull at, maybe a favourite scarf in the event of a draft (so distracting and who wants neck pain after), a signature accessory (I’m that writer/ blogger/ creative person/ everybody look at this thing I got on vacation).

Take a book or notebook (don’t forget the pens!) with you to do something else between typing if you need to pause or think something through, so you still make it clear that you’re occupied. Write some to-do-lists, answer your friend’s text, think about what to give your dad for his birthday, get up and ask the barista about that tea you liked so much. Only if you want to, though. Everyone should be able to stop and stare into space if they wish to.

If you get approached or spoken to, I’m sure you’ll be able to play it by ear. If you don’t want to engage in a longer conversation, there are polite ways of ending it (“I really have to get back to work now”, “Well, thanks for the tip (put headphones back in)”, “Have a nice day (put headphones back in)”, just to name a few). Most people will pick up on social cues or just follow plain good manners. And if you want to continue talking, it’ll happen naturally.

This all goes both ways. If I want to approach someone or ask a question beyond whether I can borrow the sugar, I’ll watch them for a little while first (in a non-creepy way is the obligatory addition to this sentence). There are loads of polite openings that will soften the possible blow of essentially intruding on someone’s bubble of time, and hopefully I’m also socially competent enough to recognize when the interaction is over or if it will continue. Obviously there’s always the option of exchanging contact information and picking up where you left off later, when neither person is deep in answering the muse or working towards a deadline.

I just spotted the jovial middle-aged newspaper reader from yesterday, good that I’m already settled and typing. He’s looking around! Headphones? Mais oui, bien sur! Also one of my neighbours who was very happy when I lent him a stepladder once and enthusiastically attempted to engage me in a subsequent conversation about whether I was Turkish (that was a new one, considering all the stuff I’ve already heard), repeating his name two times, sat down at the table next to mine, despite there being other free ones and me silently asking him not to in my head. However, he didn’t seem to recognize me or simply didn’t want to talk – score! His phone and the pinging noises it was making proved to be more absorbing.

An illustration to all of the above. I looked up on reflex at the person settling at the free table next to me and was pleasantly surprised to see it was an author whose (thrilling and wonderfully written) book signing I had been at fairly recently. We smiled and said hello, chatted a little, then I said I’d let her work in peace. I put my headphones back in, she got her drink, sat down, plugged in her own headphones and began to work. That’s how it’s done.

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Thoughts

How to Pick a Café for Writing

Just ask yourself the following questions…

Do they offer carrot muffins with carrot cake frosting? If they do, how do you feel about that? If they don’t, do you have a second-choice and third-choice dessert as a back-up plan? Do you even like dessert? Am I asking too many questions when I was planning to ask only one regarding this subject?

Do they have free Wifi?

Is the location nice? Are you looking for something closer to or farther from home?

What impression do the people sitting in there make? When does it fill up? Are there enough tables?

Maybe do a test run without your laptop first. Are the tables a comfortable height for working? Is there a counter with chairs that’s also comfortable? What do the seats feel like? Is there enough distance between tables, or you’re fine either way? Is there enough light? Do people respect each other’s space? Are there other people in there writing, studying, in headphones etc.? Is it noisy? Some noise is to be expected, like chatting, doors opening and closing, the baristas and waiters doing their jobs, people asking questions and placing orders, equipment etc. Can you tune it out, or you don’t mind?

Is the service friendly? If it isn’t, but you still get what you need and it tastes like it should, does it matter? Maybe it polishes your sarcasm skills, which are not entirely impractical when you might have to deal with other people approaching you (the drama), but more on that later.

All the possible questions asked? Time to pack up your stuff and when your friends ask you what you got up to over the weekend, just say nonchalantly, “Oh, you know, I went off to create a masterpiece that will put an end to all the stupidity in the world once people read it.”

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Thoughts

Musings While Writing in a Café

After some saving up I bought my first little laptop. It was a fantastic feeling to be able to take it with me on a trip for the first time and be independent as far as communication with family and friends, blogging and writing were concerned. It was also nice to share it when my sister and I were in Tokyo and type away on it during my trip to Iceland.

Now that I’ve name-dropped a few fancy destinations I loved visiting, let’s get to the topic at hand. Laptops are great for travel, but they are also great when you start writing  outside of home. This has been a bit of a learning process for me, because, surprise, surprise, it took a while for me to catch up on offers besides Starbucks or build up to writing in a café in the first place.

I walked into my chosen café today and stopped to do the usual scan of the perimeter – it’s later in the morning and I’m slightly worried every table will be taken, but I’m in luck. There’s a free one by one of the large floor-length windows. A long couch seat spans the width of the window and three tables are placed alongside it. One is occupied by a girl in headphones who is immersed in her own little laptop – bless her. The next one is free as well, but there’s a newspaper lying on the tabletop, so I leave it and take the table I spotted first. I put my coat down to mark my territory and start deciding on a beverage, when there’s movement to my side and chatting.

A middle-aged man has arrived, smiling and clearly thinking he should say something to everyone nearby. It’s OK – I just don’t want to join! I smile politely, get my drink, sit down and start silently setting up, because he settles down, shifts around in his seat, grunts, says “Well…” at every page turn of his newspaper and I just know that if I don’t plug my headphones in NOW, I’ll lose precious minutes of the morning I’d been looking forward to for several days.

I love writing at home – there are no distractions, even though there can be, but everything is so familiar that it blends seamlessly with my concentration. I can write in my PJs, I can write at the desk, on my bed, on the floor, I don’t have to watch my stuff and the fridge is (usually) stocked. I can take a nap when I need to and I can be as introverted as I like. Obviously this all differs a little depending on your household, but in general it’s true.

BUT, and there is a but, I do need fresh air and people watching, because otherwise the writing won’t be authentic and a change of scene is always invigorating both for concentration and inspiration. Writing in a café also takes you slightly outside of your comfort zone, if you’ve been used to writing at home or enjoy being a homebody, or, rather, it trains you in finding your comfort zone anywhere and making adjustments if something doesn’t feel right. It’s also a good solution until you get that dream writing office with an exit straight into a beautiful garden whenever you need a break…and definitely a good place to dream.

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