Yes.

This is also an instance of a more general principle: notice when people are weaponizing social norms, and react by refusing to play the game.

Easy mode for this is the people on the street with pamphlets. They’ll weaponize social norms in an attempt to make you stop and talk to them. One script I see, for instance:

ACTIVIST: Hi! Excuse me, are you a student here?

PASSER-BY: –yes, I am.

ACTIVIST: Do you care about the ethical treatment of minorities on campus?

PASSER-BY: ….um, yes, but…

ACTIVIST: Were you aware that 90% of statistics about minorities are made up on the spot to serve as examples in tumblr posts?

PASSER-BY: …no, I wasn’t, but I really have to…

ACTIVIST: Here’s what our organization does to fight that!

…and so forth.

The trick here, of course, is that the first question is one which it’s socially unacceptable to avoid answering. If the activist opens with “would you like to help save a photogenic animal today?” you can say “no thank you.” If they open with “do you care about the whales?” you can grit your teeth and say “nope.”

But how do you respond to “are you a student here”? It’s a yes or no question, to which you definitely know the answer, so you can’t mumble something about not knowing. And it’s not explicitly related to their cause, so you can’t just automatically say “not today thanks.” (If you try either of those, they’ll call you on it – “what, you’re not a student today?”)

Ignoring them, or saying “that’s none of your business” or “leave me alone,” is a violation of social norms, and means you look like a jerk, because they asked a question that’s well within the realm of what’s socially permissible. So if you’re playing by social norms, you have to answer.

And then, once you’ve answered, you’re engaged in conversation with them. It’s an egregious violation of social norms to walk away from a conversation without going through the normal conversation-ending procedures. And they of course will not participate in those. So now you’re trapped, where you would have been free under social norms to walk past someone shouting at you about statistics if you hadn’t yet engaged with them.

The only way to escape these situations is to notice them and step outside the social game. This is hard; you will get intense this-is-awkward, I-am-being-awful-and-mean feedback from your brain, which has noticed you are violating the rules and would like you to stop. But walking away without saying anything, or saying “I don’t want to talk right now,” is in fact the correct thing to do here.

And that’s easy mode. People selling something play this game blatantly. Hard mode is people who play it expertly, within society, so that you have to go along with what they want or be forced into violating social norms. (And people will go along with a lot rather than violate social norms.) Friends who ask you for things in a way that makes it awkward to refuse. Family members who treat you badly but do it in a way contrived so that any complaint will constitute you being rude. In the really extreme cases, the same dynamic shows up in abusive relationships. It’s the adult version of an abuser convincing a kid he’ll get in trouble if he tells his parents.

So this is, IMO, a really important skill to learn and to deploy properly. Social norms are great, I love doing the dance of social convention, it’s lovely and satisfying, but if your partner keeps trying to stab you with a poisoned dagger, maybe it’s time to stop dancing. Even if that looks weird in the middle of the dance floor.

This is something I never thought needed to be broken down before, but once you did it helped make a lot of things clear. Like, I already knew that sales people are pushy and try to rope you into conversations that are difficult to terminate, but describing the reasons why those conversations feel so awkward to leave abruptly was super enlightening.

Well said.

One other reason that people feel uncomfortable breaking social norms is the fear of retaliation. This is one that the face-to-face marketers tend to play on more than the telemarketers.

There’s a reason that chuggers (“charity muggers”) frequently pick on women - female-socialised people find it harder to say “no” and walk away from a social interaction. Some of this may be due to fear of retaliation. Lots of situations in which “a stranger forces you into weird public engagement” can escalate horribly, so it’s often easier to just mumble along with them and contrive an escape. Rejection (of the chugger/catcaller/marketer) is something that sometimes leads to retaliation, so depending on your experiences you might find yourself being afraid to “just walk away.”

I have had two experiences where chuggers caught me in public and reacted badly to my flat rejections. They were both men chugging for Greenpeace, and I actually complained to the organisation about them. Because they’re playing on social norms as well, using aspects of themselves in the marketing performance, they can get waaay too invested and in-character, and treat it as a social/sexual rejection, apparently. One of them actually lost his head and chased me down the street, shouting.

Anyway the best way I found to stop both of them was to stand at bay and scream “STOP HARASSING ME”, which created such public amazement among the other people on the sidewalk that the chuggers had to put their hands up and back away.

With the chasing-guy he sort of did a defeated primal scream and went back to his pitch, presumably having come back to his senses. but the other guy just raised his eyebrows like “hey WOW fair enough” so it worked out okay.

Basically even if there is retaliation, just remember that THEY STARTED IT and THEY MADE IT WEIRD.

Your number one script for the very first response is, “Sorry, I’m late, can’t talk.” And keep walking.

Oh absolutely. In the cases of the two Greenpeace chuggers I had initially flatly rejected and kept walking with a murderous pace; it’s not like I haven’t lived in cities. But the chasing-guy then followed me and touched my shoulder to stop me (departing wildly from the chugger script - they’re supposed to leave you alone if you say no) so I told him he was now harrassing me, which made him escalate. The other guy was more casual, but he still got in front of me and blocked me with his body. Both of these are seriously inappropriate, which is why I literally stopped and called them out, then reported them to Greenpeace.

The “fear of retaliation” is an incredibly important aspect of the social-awkwardness part of rejection, though. So I think it’s important to model how that can happen in aggressive-marketing situations. In fact, you have more power with marketers than when faced with a catcaller; you can get marketers fired for it, because there are rules about how marketing behavior is supposed to happen.

I know exactly what you’re saying, so I apologise for riffing on it, but I’m getting notes/activity that’s all bright and chipper and reccomennding doing the murderwalk to “simply not have the trouble in the first place” as if this is New Information.

And I think it’s a little unhelpful for people to be told “Well, just say ‘no’ and you won’t get into escalating situations” because that’s patently untrue, and doesn’t work in any sphere of life where you actually need it. And then when it does escalate, it automatically becomes a situation where “saying no and walking way” is ineffective because you’re already past that point. And it is deeply irritating for people who do end up having trouble: “Uhh why didn’t you practice the magic murder-walk ™ that makes people leave you alone? (insert gif of the lady doing the murderwalk) I do that and nobody’s EVER committted crimes against me, you should be more like me.” And it’s like, uhhhh well yes the murderwalk is great for walking past the drunk guy in the student hub, but when every pissed-off commuter in London is literally doing that at all times ANYWAY, then statistically a trained lancer in the Chugger Pack in a tube station Marketing Gauntlet is going to go for murderwalkers anyway, because they gotta make rent, and sometimes you’ll be one of them? It’s an evolutionary arms race. it doesn’t REALLY matter how you always walk past importunate homeless people while thinking about murdering Captain America, or whatever. You don’t get paid to do that, and other people DO get trained and paid to break into your personal bubble and sell things to you.

In conclusion: I think most people have, in fact, heard of the word “no”. Thus, telling them to “just use it” is not always that helpful (if you really want to help people). It’s like saying “if someone touches you, then do karate on them.” And if anyone has questions, then it’s like answering “just do karate! Do five karates!” and if it doesn’t work then it’s like saying “well, it’s because you didn’t do SEVEN karates.”

I’m not mad and everyone is absolutely right, it’s just that it can be true that “murderwalking” or “hanging up” or “saying no and walking away” is helpful, BUT ALSO, when that doesn’t work, that’s what the post is about - why it doesn’t work, and what happens next.

Sorry, @elodieunderglass , I guess I should have responded to this post earlier in the thread rather than from you. (Not sarcasm.) The earlier posts were largely concerned with “these people are using social scripts to trap you with obligation, that’s the trick you probably don’t consciously understand, this is why it works” and my response was meant to be “this is a sample script that allows you not to get trapped by using a completely socially acceptable excuse, which in most cases obliges the people bothering you to stop because respecting your lateness is an opposing social norm.” It wasn’t until your addition that the thread became about exceptionally douchy chuggers that have no conception of boundaries or norms in their pursuit of their goal.

So yeah. My addition clearly doesn’t apply to your situation. Nothing does. It was a script meant for people who have a hard time shaking ordinary chuggers. Sorry.

No no no please don’t feel like you have to apologise! You don’t! It’s a really good reply and a really good point and I completely see it! They can all be good points and you’re absolutely right!

All of this is super important. Both of you are awesome for talking about this phenomenon. Thank you. I needed to read this.

All of this.