Up the down escalier
Have you ever been on the receiving end of behavior so baffling that you couldn’t figure out whether the other person was being deliberately rude or just plain clueless? And then come down with a bad case of l’esprit d’escalier, the “spirit of the staircase,” in which you don’t come up with the perfect way to say, “Hey, WTF?” until some time after the fact?
Me too. And today I got to make up for it.
Necessary background: there’s a coffee shop near my apartment which I basically use as my second living room. I’m there just about every day, either to hang out with friends or to get work done or to sit and contemplate the crema on my espresso. I talk to a lot of the other regulars, and some of them have become good friends. So it’s not unusual for me to start conversations with people if I’ve seen them there a few times.
Some months ago, I started having conversations there with someone I found intriguing: frequent traveler, food and wine lover, international background, well-read. You know, a good conversationalist. And after a few good conversations, he invited me to meet him for a drink at a new local watering hole one evening. Which I did, although I had to run off after just an hour because I had another commitment. So I figured I’d reciprocate with an invitation to my own favorite bar, on an evening where an artist friend was having an opening.
So. On the appointed evening, my new pal showed up with another friend in tow, spent the entire evening at the far end of the bar, and came over just long enough to meet the artist and inform me that he was going to escort his (by then very drunken) friend home. And then he vanished. And I was astonished. Boggled. Flummoxed. And, frankly, insulted. Mind you, it’s not that I was expecting some hot romantic date — I had actually suspected my new friend played for the other team. It’s just that I think it’s astonishingly rude to show up to an event and ignore the person who invited you! I thought of several dozen cutting things to say when I saw him next. The only problem is, I didn’t see him next. Not for two months.
Then I walked into the coffee shop this afternoon and there he was, standing in line right in front of me. He smiled broadly when he saw me, told me he’d been busy, asked how I’d been. And I cocked my head and said coolly, “You know, I have to ask you something. What the hell happened the last time I saw you? I invited you to do something and you showed up with a friend and didn’t interact with me the entire time, and frankly, I found that shocking.”
Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I was thinking, Is this me? The person who tries so hard to be nice and give everyone the benefit of the doubt? The person who hates being at all confrontational? Go, me!
My erstwhile coffee shop pal stammered something about having misunderstood, that he’d thought I had just told him about the event and not actually invited him there as my guest, that he was sorry. Then off he went to drink his coffee in another part of the cafe. Oh, how proud of myself I felt! But wait, it gets better. A little while later, he came over to my table and said that he appreciated how honest and straightforward I had been, and he apologized again. And I said it was water under the bridge, in a slightly less chilly tone than I’d used before. And that was that.
Boundary set. BS not taken. The end.
Filed under progress, triumphs | Comments (13)13 Responses to “Up the down escalier”
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genius! i feel like you struck a blow for all of us rendered mute by rudeness
reminds me a little of the Douglas Adams story about the stranger eating his cookies.
There might be more than one way to read that whole story.
It’s true, there might be. On the other hand, how many chances am I obligated to give someone? After years of giving so many people the benefit of the doubt that I have footprints on my face, I say “one.”
LOVE this!
Thank you!
honestly, I think obligated and footprints on your face are certain ways of telling the story.
It seems sad to me. You aren’t obligated at all of course.
I could see it as he was sad/depressed when you left after an hour and felt insecure about what was going to happen at the art show so he brought a friend. Or there are a hundred ways to imagine that it wasn’t about being rude to you. Have people ever felt you were rude, when really there was something else entirely going on?
I guess since it was about having pleasant conversations in a coffeehouse and not about dating, that if you had let it go (which could be read as not stepping on you, but just his own behavior about who knows what buried issues), that maybe then it would just go back to pleasant conversations in the coffeehouse and maybe meeting outside of there didn’t really work for either of you. Now I wonder if it can go back to the way it was. Has it? Could it? Would you want it to?
In the same way, your part sounds like so much more – like it isn’t really about this person, but about a whole history of pain, and being stepped on and hurt, that really he had nothing to do with that history, when I read this, I feel sad. Sad that you carry that with you. Sure, we all carry things with us, but when you tell the story, the pride you feel in telling him off, it seems like there is more behind it.
I know it is a story I am spinning too. but in the beginning it had hope as a connection, which these days seems hard to make, and now it feels a little like that connection is broken.
that is all I meant, you are under no obligation.
I find it interesting that you interpret it as “telling him off.” I think it’s important to be able to say “ouch” when someone does something that hurts.
yeah, the what the hell, and shocking, and tone in yr description didn’t sound the same to me as ouch. but maybe it is words on the screen. it seemed more like ‘hey you were rude’ rather than ‘I was hurt.’
I’m sorry you were in pain. do you feel like the pain went away after the conversation?
He was rude. And that made me angry and hurt. And I feel great for saying something about it instead of quietly sucking it up. Being compassionate toward other people for their flaws isn’t the same as continuing to accept their bad behavior.
Once again, I wish I’d have commented first, then read other comments. I don’t agree with debbie’s assessment at all, and now feel like the conversation about you standing up for yourself has gone on a strange, unnecessary tangent.
Regardless, Fawn, you know what you did and why it was important to you. I see it too, and I am proud of you.
One wonders if Debbie’s comment made *her* feel better.
I’m the “good” part of the “good friends” links in the story and I was at the cafe that day sitting right next to where this conversation took place. I’m the fly on the wall!
First, the story’s a little condensed to get to the pertinent information. It sounded like there was some other chit chat happening before leading up to “I have to ask you something.” None of it sounded angry or confrontational. Asking what happened on the night of the event didn’t come across as angry or “telling him off.” I thought I detected a little nervousness in Fawn’s voice which was probably the “Is this me?” coming out, but I could just as easily have been projecting my own nervousness onto the situation. I sometimes don’t say the things that maybe “should” be said for fear of chumming up the waters.
It came across as the need to express Fawn’s perception of the situation and invited the guy (I don’t know his name and wouldn’t mention it here if I did) to express his perception of the situation. It seemed gutsy.
Fawn — Great post, and I’m glad I read the comments. You did one of those little things that are so tough to do, but so necessary. I’ve been in the same situation many times, and I always feel better when I level with the other person. As for the commenter who felt something deep within you must be amiss, I think she’s presumptuous. As a blogger, I like having people comment. It’s interesting to discover the kinds of posts that invite lots of comments — as this one certainly did.
Best, Fred