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pragmatist comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong
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I would guess that the part that caused such a strong reaction was this:
You're not just introducing yourself: you are putting pressure on the other person to be social, both with the notion that you would find sitting in silence "excruciatingly" uncomfortable, and with the implication that a lack of communication is unusual and unacceptable.
Usually if somebody would introduce themselves and try to start a conversation, one could try to disengage, either with a polite "sorry, don't feel like talking" or with (more or less) subtle hints like giving short one-word responses, but that already feels somewhat impolite and is hard for many people. Your opening makes it even harder to try to avoid the conversation.
Hmm... good point. What I typed isn't exactly what I usually say, but I do tend to project my personal opinion that sitting quietly side by side is awkward and alien (to me) behavior. I can see how conveying that impression makes it difficult to disengage. And while I do find the silence pretty damn awkward, other people have no obligation to cater to my hang-ups, and its kind of unfair to (unconsciously) manipulate them into that position. So on consideration, I'm retracting my initial post and reconsidering how I approach these conversations.
My suggestion: say “Hi” while looking at them; only introduce yourself to them if they say “Hi” back while looking back at you, and with an enthusiastic-sounding tone of voice.
(Myself, I go by Postel's Law here: I don't initiate conversations with strangers on a plane, but don't freak out when they initiate conversations with me either.)
I think sitting really close beside someone I would be less likely to want to face them - it would feel too intimate.
So, you wrote an imaginary, exaggerated version of how you would offer conversation, to which RolfAndreassen responds with an imaginary, exaggerated version of his response, and SaidAchmiz adds "Some such people apparently think", and others chip in with "I've heard stories of" and "the dude is just trying to break the ice", and...and.
Where has reality got to in all this?
FWIW, I would find your approach obnoxiously presumptuous and would avoid any further conversation. Look at this:
In other words, "You will be hurting me if you do not talk to me. If you do not talk to me you are an evil, hurtful person." Sorry, I don't care.
This is resentment at other people not magically conforming to your wishes. I don't expect you to magically conform to mine. I'll just stifle that conversation at birth if it ever happens. I put the telephone down on cold callers too.
I didn't say it was exaggerated (nor did I think it when I wrote the grandparent), although now that you mention it, perhaps the adverb "excruciatingly" is an exaggerated version of what I usually express.
I don't think "in other words" means what you think it does. Also, this paraphrase is pretty rich coming from someone who was just complaining about exaggeration in other comments.
Apart from that, yeah, I see your point.
Well then, in what other way does it differ from what you usually say?
Sorry, I edited to qualify before I read your response. The major difference is probably that it is delivered more as part of a conversation than a monolog. I don't just rattle off that script as soon as I encounter the person without waiting for a response.
I usually take an army1987-type approach in this situation, but here's another possible compromise.
Recently I was flying and wanted to ask someone next to me about the novel they were reading. I waited until half an hour before landing to talk to them, to set a limit on the conversation's length — no implicit request they chat with me for the whole flight. When I did talk to them, I (briefly!) acknowledged the interruption, and kept it specific: "Pardon the intrusion, but what do you think of the novel? I've read some of John Lanchester's nonfiction but I haven't read Capital yet and I've been thinking about picking it up."
Asking a specific question lowers the conversational stakes since someone can just answer the question and then resume what they were doing without violating politeness norms. (That time my question led to a full-blown conversation anyway, but the important thing was giving the other person a chance to gracefully avoid that.)
Things are of course different when you want to improvise small talk instead of asking about a specific thing, but you can still use external circumstances to implicitly limit the conversation's potential length, and ask about something arbitrary as a conversation starter. (This is no doubt a reason English people making small talk stereotypically talk about the weather. English weather's variable enough that there's always a little to say about it, it's a bland topic that won't offend, everyone in England has experience of it, and there are well-known cached responses to weather-related comments, so bringing up the weather doesn't demand much mental effort from other people. And since it's a low-commitment topic it's easy to round off the conversation smoothly, or to make brief, just-polite-enough noncommittal responses to signal an unwillingness to chat.)