If your nervous system requires zero F-bombs, sarcasm or snark to get through your morning, please skip this week's curiosity journal.
I fucking hate it when people say “Hello”.
Wait.
Let me back up.
I fucking hate it when people say “Hello” to me, a complete stranger who is not looking at them AT ALL, and they EXPECT me to stop what I’m doing and say “Hello” back, and be grateful, dammit.
So this is me, minding my own business. I’m running down a heavily-used path and puffing my way through the Couch-To-10 K. (closer to “Couch” than 10K, but gotta start somewhere.)
I have the headphones in so I can hear the perky AI voice say “Great job! You got off your ass , go girl!”
It’s a happy puff. I feel good! I’ve got a sweat going.
People pass in both directions: some running faster, some walking, some picking up poop (YAY). They’re all flowing in a smooth dance through my vision.
la la la.
I’m enjoying my “me” time. There’s river scenery … the canyon on my left, and wow is that an eagle on my right in the sky? And maybe some flowers will-
“Hello There!!”
GIANT RECORD “SCREECH”!!!
Mr. Jolly Lederhosen: rolled up pants, hiking shoes and a walking stick, have all just jumped into my path to wave and shout “HELLO”.
W.T.F.?
Zero eye contact from me. Yet, somehow shoes and a walking stick entitles this guy to impinge upon my flow with his jovial “I’m just the neighborhood stranger” creeper-vibe.
It’s as if the whole world needs to hear from him, so he makes sure he’s loud enough to hear - even with my headphones in.
There’s something especially violating about being spoken to by a total stranger.
To be clear, I’m giving loads of social cues that say “Nope”.
Unless, wait - does wearing headphones, running, and avoiding eye contact put a huge sign on my back saying, “Talk to me, I NEED to be uplifted by the sound of your voice”??
He’s not part of the polite group - the people who smile, nod, or wave. He is one of those people who go out of their way to shout “Hello” at you, head-turn tracking you as you pass.
98.43% of the time (I’ve officially counted this - datapoint my head), it is older white men. Walking alone.
(The other 1.5% was an older white woman who stepped into my path to repeat herself, “I SAID HELLOOO!” and — no, I did not know this person. I don’t know who let her out.)
Surely you’ve seen them - the ones that despite your headphones, they drive their car up, pacing you on your run, and with THEIR PHONE IN HAND, ask you for directions.
My answer? “Use Google maps, it’s what it’s there for”.
For fuck sakes.
Another interesting data point - this NEVER happens when I’m with someone else. Stalkery much?
I can hear the objections now
“Smile, you might make someone’s day!”
“Greet strangers, you never know what’s going on with them”
“Make connections, we’re all too disconnected.”
I get it. After all, I’ve co-created a non-profit that’s all about connection.
But I’m not always on the clock, people.
I trot further down the path, but my eagle-bonding spirit moment is shattered.
Cultural conditioning kicks in. When I ignore Mr. Jolly, my internal judges speak up:
“He’s just being nice, say ‘Hi’ back, what can it hurt?”
“You might make his day!”
“Ugh, who IS that?” (OK that last one is a different judge. The snarky one writing this article.)
There are three reasons aggressive hello-ing is not “being nice”:
It’s about respect.
Ignoring physical cues (such as no eye contact and earphones) and saying “hello” anyway is just rude. Doing this discounts my autonomy. My cues say “I’ve chosen silence today.”
Why can’t these aggressive hello-ers respect this boundary?
Breaking into others’ physical, aural, or visual space is a type of control, potentially rooted in a need to dominate or exert status.
I love this quote from writer Cara Harbstreet:
“…if you can snap someone’s focus, interrupt their routine, and make them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, even in the absence of intent to inflict harm, you have a subtle, temporary power over them.” — Cara Harbstreet (She/Her)
So when someone ambushes me with a “Hello!”, I feel controlled, and suspect THEY are the ones needing to be acknowledged. It’s not my job to do it, so stop asking me to.
2. It’s constant.
Yes, yes, yes… me getting ticked at one person saying “Hi” makes me sound like a total grump.
But…
It’s like a dripping faucet overflowing my neuro-divergent bucket. A constant erosion of respect and boundaries, and I’m tired of defending them with a flame-thrower, even if it’s the only thing that works.
It’s yet another version of:
“Smile honey, it makes you prettier.”
The wolf whistle when you’re minding your own business.
The “Hey honey, what’s cookin’ ” when filling the gas tank.
It’s a constant trickle of outside expectations and micro aggression, sending the message:
Don’t stand up for yourself, you’ll look like a bitch. Smooth the way for others instead.
3. Being “nice” is actually selfish.
Next time you feel the urge to help someone, check your motives.
Remember those objections at the beginning? We all might say, “I just want to make someone’s day.”
I challenge you to ask yourself, “Why?”
It’s possibly because it makes you feel good. Gotta love that oxytocin-dopamine cocktail!
And God help us all if we deny someone their fix. I had a “well meaning” stranger elbow me out of the way as I was loading a pallet into the rear of my car…
[INSERT FLASHBACK WAVERY TRANSITION HERE-- weee ooo weee ooo weee ooo soundtrack….]
EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY
FADE TO:
A grungy Pizza Hut parking lot, an older but serviceable Subaru (blue of course) with it’s tailgate open and a small 60’s woman (Diana) and older man (Sandy) loading a large wooden pallet into the back; it barely fits.
A newer schmancy SUV is parked next to it, the door pops open and a geriatric Superman rushes out.
SUPERMAN
“HO HO HO missy here let me help!” *shove*
SUPERMAN inserts himself between Diana and said palette.
(ok, I added the HO HO HO missy… but literary license, right?)
DIANA
“HEY! No thank you!” -elbows back in- “Please don’t assume I can’t do this!”
SANDY
“No really, she’s fine, if anyone needs help it’s me—”
SUPERMAN
“What? I would never assume you’re helpless, just… FUCK YOU!! FUCK YOU!!!”
stomp stomp stomp
[END SCENE]
Depriving this guy of his neurotransmitter happy juice was like I’d slapped his supersized fries on the ground when he was hangry.
But, he’s just trying to be nice.
What if the best way to help someone is to respect them and leave them alone? Not the great dopamine hit, is it?
My inner ecology nerd is weirdly fascinated with this irritating phenomenon.
Us human ecosystems operate from personal bias. Maybe our own bias wants someone to talk to, so we assume others do too.
Problem is, that system is rooted in neuro-normal, extrovert bias. It assumes that talking to people is automatically a good thing. The best thing.
It’s like introducing invasive species into my closed, balanced ecosystem because it seems like a good idea at the time.
Thanks buddy for introducing your knapweed into my garden. No really, you can keep it.
OK, it’s not ALWAYS bad to be friendly
“But Diana,” you say, “you’ve crushed my sunny optimism and made me feel bad for just wanting to be friendly.”
See #3. Check your motives.
And yeah, I get it, reading the room can be difficult.
So I’ve created a flowchart:
Image by author, created in Canva
I like people (ok except the pallet superman - that guy was just a jerk). I value respect.
In the same way that good fences make good neighbors, respect and checking your motives make better connections.
Even if it means NOT saying “Hello”.
Sideways Into Crazy is a weekly journal of unmasking, creative pivots, and mapping life discoveries. I use story, sometimes-snarky field notes, fiction, map-making prompts and exercises.
If this piece validated your need for boundaries today, or just generally validated the snarky voice in your brain, consider sharing it with another outlier.