Social Awkwardness – Saying No

I like people, probably prefer dogs, but I’m not a big fan of “unnecessary” social interactions. I actively/deliberately choose gas/petrol stations that are self-service, so I don’t have to make small talk to an attendant, and I have always been a fan of the self-checkout in supermarkets for the same reason. If I don’t need to talk to you, I don’t want to. To some this may seem rude, but I’m more at ease in my world than in anybody else’s, and often “unnecessary” social interactions take me away from mine and make me uncomfortable. I only started working in pub/bar security because I needed the money, and at the time believed I had the skillset to do it; something I quickly found out that I didn’t – I could, to some extent, do the “physical” part, but it took me awhile to learn how to effectively communicate, de-escalate, and deflect etc., which really are the bread and butter of the job. Like most people I hate social awkwardness e.g., those interactions where you have to say “no”, to what other people see as reasonable/common sense. I see why a person wearing a pair of immaculate $300 sneakers/trainers isn’t going to understand why they’ve been refused entry to a club, after watching a person with a pair of scruffy $50 dress shoes get admitted, because the club’s policy is no sneakers/trainers etc. I get it, the policy in that instance doesn’t really make sense. I’ve had people ask me why they couldn’t come into an establishment that had a no jeans rule, when they were wearing a designer label, which cost them most of a regular person’s monthly salary. I never really had a good argument to such questions, other than that the rules are the rules, and I didn’t make them i.e., I’m just here to enforce them. These were – at least in the beginning – situations for me that were extremely socially awkward. Fortunately, after a while, and after enough of them, you get used to dealing with them. However, most people aren’t regularly exposed to such interactions, and find it hard to deal with socially awkward situations, and difficult to say “no”, when they should. Something that predatory individuals exploit.

                At the time of writing this I’m 52 years of age. I couldn’t name a Taylor Swift song, don’t have a Tik-Tok account, and have no idea if the jeans I wear are out of fashion, or have rotated back into fashion etc. In one sense I’m pretty out of touch with the current world, and many younger people may question the relevance of my experience, just as I questioned that of older people when I was younger etc. However, I have spent enough time working in pubs and especially clubs, watching predatory individuals ply their trade. In many, many cases this involved pressuring other people - using social awkwardness - into capitulating to their demand. I have seen men bullied into buy drinks for other men, sometimes for entire groups, in order to avoid getting deeper into an already socially awkward situation. I’ve seen women, consensually but reluctantly, go home with men that they’d wished they hadn’t met, to avoid having to further deal with a socially awkward situation, and the perceived/imagined consequences of saying “no” etc. I stopped working the door a number of years ago, but I don’t imagine that these scenarios have disappeared or changed. Human beings understand the power of persistence, and how we as individuals are not good at dealing with and navigating social awkward situations. I’m terrible at doing this by default, which is why I avoid supermarket checkouts, and gas station attendants, who I only have reason to believe, are at the most, going to ask how my day is going etc. That’s the type of social pressure I have trouble dealing with and so am certainly not judging others who succumb to more intense pressure/social awkwardness. There is probably not a woman on this planet, who hasn’t experienced the advances of a man, who just keeps chip, chip, chipping away at her polite, but maybe not explicit, responses of “No”. There may be some men who pat themselves of the back at their “powers of persuasion”, of being able to turn a “No”, into a “Yes”, without realizing that the “Yes”, was a reluctant one, which only came about to relieve a socially awkward situation they had created.

                One of the reasons we often succumb to social pressure, in order to avoid social awkwardness, is because we believe it gives us an end to a current interaction/problem, which we will be able to deal with later e.g., if someone at a bar is pressuring us to let them buy a drink for us, we believe that agreeing to this demand, will relieve the immediate pressure, and allow us to gain a “credit” that we can cash in later – I wasn’t being rude, I had a drink with you, now you should leave me alone etc. However, these are entryway behaviors, and by acquiescing to a “small” demand, we may find it ever harder to say “no” to “greater” ones. Predatory individuals are skilled at identifying those of us who have difficulty saying no or maintaining our identity in socially awkward situations. I have written before about a sexual predator who used to watch and observe women pushing shopping carts in supermarkets. He’d watch for someone who quickly apologized, when it wasn’t their fault, after someone else had bumped into them. His assumption was that when someone took the blame for another person’s mistake, it was because they were uncomfortable dealing with socially awkward situations i.e., they took the blame to avoid being involved in one. His largely correct conclusion being that when he confronted them in the parking lot, they wouldn’t reject his request for them to get into his car with him.

                I was fortunate that I was educated to say “no” and ignore/deal with socially awkward situations when I started working the door e.g., no sneakers/trainers, no jeans, that was the pub’s/club’s policy etc. My job involved saying “no”, sometimes when personally it didn’t make sense; yep, your jeans and trainers are smarter than that other guy’s shoes and pants etc. None of this came easy to me though and it went against my personality, which is largely about avoiding confrontation, finding a work-around, and saying “yes”. But I was fortunate enough to be put in a role where this wasn’t allowed, and rules had to be enforced. These are “rules”, and an education, that I work to today. I’ll entertain discussion and debate, but my “no” isn’t something I go back on, because whilst most people may not exploit this, there are others who may, and saying “no”, and sticking to it, is actually the quickest way to end a socially awkward situation.