An admission

Ok. I’ve got something to admit. I was unfriendly yesterday. I didn’t mean to be, because I’m attempting be more friendly recently.

I was swimming and there was a woman in the same lane as me going a similar speed. So I started having a little Olympic race of my own against her. While breast stroke and back stroke were in play, we were almost the same speed. Then she started doing front crawl. Therein lay her mistake.

She did that kind of laboured don’t-want-to-put-my-face-in-the-water front crawl. Every stroke required her to throw her body in the opposite direction in order to get her arm forward. She was a gonner. I sped ahead. ‘Eat my splashes, swimming lady!’

As we neared the edge of the pool, I snuck in first for the gold, and my competitor came in a second later for silver.

She had been looking at me over her shoulder like she wanted to say something and now that I was alongside her, she went for it.

She said something about it being a lap lane and that I was supposed to be behind her, not next to her. I thought about saying, ‘yes, I know it’s a lap lane, but I can’t swim behind you if you’re swimming slower than me because you’ll slow me down.’ I didn’t say it. But I wanted to.

What I did instead was reached the side of the pool and threw myself into a length of backstroke without even the slightest pause. Just as though I hadn’t heard her say anything. Totally ignored her. That was unfriendly. But she was being nonsensical. When the front person is going slowly, at some point, someone will overtake, so for a brief time, there will be two people next to each other instead of behind each other. Don’t go slow then get grumpy when someone overtakes you.

So I was unfriendly and I’m sorry for deviating from the mission. I shall try harder.

On the other hand, I was walking behind a lady the other day who had her hands full pushing a bike and she dropped a red pepper. As she tried to juggle holding up the bike with bending down to get the pepper, I pottered over, friendly mission face on, and picked up the pepper for her.

So maybe my pepper picking friendliness cancels out my swimming unfriendliness….?

Feedback from Day 1 of being friendlier

I woke up in the morning, my resolve was strong, I was feeling light-hearted and friendly. I couldn’t wait for the approaching day and the prospect of being friendly to everyone. Come on people! I thought. Come here and let me be friendly at you!

I was up early, baking banana bread. I had been awake a bit in the night, with toothache (the dentist is taking it out on Tuesday so I wasn’t worried or anything) so hoped it wouldn’t make me grumpy.

Into work I went and started getting everything ready for opening. I left the door slightly ajar as it was a bit stuffy but kept all the lights off and covers down on everything. As I was doing something in the kitchen a lady walked all the way in and to the till and ‘Halloo’ed me, as though a silent dark shop with the fridge covers down and all the food clingfilmed was how a shop would operate.

“Is your coffee machine on yet? Can I get a coffee?”

Every coffee place I’ve worked, people check this when you’re near the end or beginning of a shift. Is the coffee machine on? I’m going to tell you all a secret about that. A coffee machine does not go ‘on’ or ‘off’. It’s always on. I mean, you can turn off the mains, if you want. But you don’t. You never turn off the coffee machine overnight. Never. But it provides you with a convenient excuse if you don’t want to serve someone. I worked in a coffee place which closed at 10.30pm. I was exhausted by then and wanted to clean and go home asap. I used to nod, and shrug helplessly, “Yeh, it’s off already, I’m sorry.”

So this lady is here, in my quite obviously not-open-yet shop, while I’m running around like a mad woman, baking croissants, asking if the coffee machine is on.

Be friendly, be friendly.

“It is on, but I’m not open until 8, sorry,” I smiled in the friendliest way I could at that moment. Satisfied, she said she’d be back at 8 and not to worry. Phew, grumpy Laura disaster averted.

But wait! The phone was ringing! I picked it up. The voice on the end said, “O great! I was just checking if you’re open and you are.”

“I’m actually not open until 8, unfortunately.”

“Ok, well if I come down now, will I just be able to buy some bread from you?”

“Well, I’m sure it will be fine. I’m quite busy so it would be better to wait til 8, when I’ve opened up…”

“Right, well I’ll be down soon. I’ll just hang around till you’ve got a minute to serve me.”

Be friendly, be friendly.

I made myself smile and said into the phone, “Ok, great, I’ll see you soon then.”

It’s like they organised themselves to test my patience today because they knew I’d be in friendly mode.

Down pottered phone customer five minutes later, and way before 8am, and I smiled as much as I could.

Those were my first two interactions on my first day of being friendly. The rest of the day was fine. Once I’d got into the swing of things, it was fine. I’m not usually unfriendly, so it wasn’t that difficult. It’s when I’m not in work that I’d like to be friendly and approachable.

Wish me luck for Day 2. I’m off swimming in a few minutes and that might test my patience a bit.

Be friendly, be friendly.

Being friendlier

The day I finished my exams, I told myself (and all of you) that I was going to give ‘being friendlier’ a go. I did ‘getting excited about stuff’ and that was good fun. I did ‘being sporty’ and I still swim most days (people have started to comment on my arms in a complimentary way but I’m still worried they’re getting Madonna-ish).

So now it’s time to try being more friendly. Now I’m not unfriendly. I’m perfectly nice to people I like. But I don’t often go out of my way to be nice. You know when people have those stories about how they met their new best friend in the launderette? Or on the train or something?

That is never me. I am never saying those things. Firstly because I don’t ever go to a laundrette. I don’t think I’ve ever been in one in my entire life. I also try to avoid public transport by living my life within a distance that doesn’t require me to go on public transport. If I am on public transport, I put my earphones in and listen to a book. I don’t look around for people to chat to.

I usually think I’m kind of ok without new friends. My phone book has as many names in it as I need and, to be honest, I’m quite busy a lot of the time.

When I started law school, my excited classmates gathered in the hallway after tutorials, chatting enthusiastically and working out which pub was closest to get to.

“Yeh, that sounds great. Let’s go there. Come on guys! Is everyone coming? Yeh? Yeh, come on. Laura, are you coming?”

And me… Little old me… Little old antisocial me…. What did I say? Did I say “Sure, I’m there! I don’t have any plans. I’m definitely coming”?

Of course I didn’t. I said something along the lines of “I’m sure you’re all really nice but I’m here to get a degree not some new friends, so actually, I’m going to go home and get started on the stuff they told us to read for next week.” Paraphrased slightly, but essentially that.

I’ve always thought it’d sometimes be great fun to be the person who’s all carefree and lovely and nice to everyone. But most of the time, I don’t feel like being nice to people, especially when they’re swimming at me in the swimming pool or standing in my way in the shop.

But I am going to try. I am going to try to be friendlier, to not be annoyed by people who don’t stick to the unspoken rules of social etiquette, or who swim in my way, or who push in front of me in a queue, or pronounce something wrong, or appear to be unfriendly to me. I will be relaxed and smiley and friendly, regardless. I’m not sure how well this will go, or how long I will last before someone annoys me. I am going to try though. I am up at the crack of dawn today so by about mid afternoon, grumpiness will set in. That’s when it will be hardest to keep up the friendliness. Wish me luck. I’ll report back.

X is for…

X!

As on the end of a text message, eg “See you later x”. This probably seems pretty straight forward, what’s the problem, what’s to write about? It’s just a kiss on the end of a text message.

Well, this is where my over active brain kicks in. Should I do one here? I mean, the whole message only says “Ok” so does it really need one? But it’s nice to do one. Alright, I’ll do one there.

And should I do it at the end of every message? To everyone? Yes, just do it to everyone, because otherwise I’ll be spending time thinking about who to put a kiss on a text message to. Just put it, as a friendly thing. If people know you, they’ll know it’s just a friendly thing. Ok. But what if I don’t know them very well yet? Say it’s someone at uni, who I just need to text about what time class starts tomorrow? Ok, it doesn’t need one, because they might think you’re being too friendly? A bit flirty maybe? But actually, we’ve become quite good friends now, we sit together a lot and help each other with tutorial preparation. So do I start putting a kiss on the text messages now, after a few weeks? But the sudden arrival of the kiss where there wasn’t one before might arouse suspicion. Maybe they’ll think you’re developing a crush on them? So just don’t do kisses, that’s fine. But now I have to remember to do kisses for everyone else but not them. Imagine if I forgot and did it once but not the next time. That would look a bit weird.

And then there’s the it’s-probably-never-going-to-be-appropriate situations. Like in a professional capacity. I did this once, wrote a few text messages that didn’t have kisses, it wasn’t a friendship-type interaction so it was fine. But then they replied with an x on their text! So I panicked a little and wrote one on my next text, to be friendly back, but that bloody predictive text thing kicked in and I sent my reply with a “z” on the end! So they’d been nice and friendly and written an “x” and I’d replied with an unfriendly you’re-soooo-boring-I’m-falling-asleep “z”. I did it twice more, I’m blaming the nerves, before I just gave up altogether and went back to nothing at the end. I hope they don’t think about their x as much as I do otherwise I’ve really offended them.

And these are the things I spend my time thinking about…. Is it any wonder I’m blogging instead of studying?!?!

Exams in just under four weeks, by the way. I must be pro-active! Today I will learn about theft! And I will be interested! And I will not panic! And it will make sense (ha!)! And I will remember it all!