{"id":132118,"date":"2015-10-11T23:27:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-11T23:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/10\/11\/men-who-interrupt-you-when-youre-reading\/"},"modified":"2015-10-11T23:27:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-11T23:27:18","slug":"men-who-interrupt-you-when-youre-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/10\/11\/men-who-interrupt-you-when-youre-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"men who interrupt you when you\u2019re reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

ceruleancynic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

There\u2019s an article over at Jezebel<\/a> about this eternally infuriating<\/i>\u00a0phenomenon, and the comments are about what you might expect. Because it\u2019s Jez, the commenters going YES, THIS, PLEASE FUCKING STOP DOING THIS outnumber the BUT I WAAAAAANT TO commenters, but it\u2019s still subject to Lewis\u2019s Law<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the but whyyyyyy<\/i> commenters raises the question\u00a0\u201cwhat if she\u2019s reading in a bar<\/i>.\u201d I would like to address this particular situation with an example to support my argument, which goes\u00a0\u201cSHE\u2019S STILL READING, YOU DELIBERATELY OBTUSE FUCK.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I read in bars. I read in bars because I read everywhere <\/i>unless I\u2019m with another person and talking to them. When I read, I am able to block out whatever is happening around me to a large extent, so reading while in a crowded noisy environment like a bar is relatively easy for me. When I am reading a book in a bar I am reading a book<\/i>, and I don\u2019t want you to interrupt me there any more than I want you to interrupt me in a library.<\/p>\n

Example: Some years ago, I am sitting at a bar, drinking a beer and reading one of a stack of books I just got out of the science library. The titles of these books are along the lines of Archives of the Roentgen Ray<\/i>, The History of Radiography<\/i>, and a facsimile edition of\u00a0Roentgen Rays and Electro-Therapeutics, with Chapters on Radium and Photo-Therapy<\/i>. These books are old. These books are heavy. Some of them have gilt edging on the pages. They are full of amazing information and frankly terrifying practices and I am doing the internal equivalent of rolling around in them in gleeful delight, sort of like a cat in catnip.\u00a0Cue a dude and his friends sitting down riiiiight next to me, closer than I would prefer. I can feel his eyeballs like tiresome little searchlights playing over me, and I just wait for it<\/i>. I don\u2019t have to wait long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dude: Hey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Me: *reads*<\/p>\n

Dude: *louder, leaning closer* Hey. Hey.<\/p>\n

Me: *reads*<\/p>\n

Dude: Hey<\/i>, whatcha reading?<\/p>\n

Me: *pauses, lifts book up and turns it so that he can see the cover and spine, holds it for a beat, returns to previous configuration, all without making eye contact*<\/p>\n

At this point he and his buddies have seen that this encounter is not going as well as they might hope, so he switches over from just trying to get my attention to actively trying to get a rise out of me, complete with snickering and mutters.<\/p>\n

Dude: What\u2019s that mean? Is it good? Is it a good book? Do you like it?<\/p>\n

Me: *still not looking up from my page, deadpan* No. It\u2019s absolutely dreadful.<\/p>\n

Dude: *not sure how to take that, goes for snickering some more* So, like, do you read a lot of books? Do you like reading books?<\/p>\n

Me: *sighs, sits up, turns to face them, sufficiently irritated to unload* Yes, I do like reading, and I do read a lot. Right now I\u2019m trying to read this book on the history of radiography. Did you<\/i> know that in the early days of diagnostic radiography an x-ray exposure could take up to ninety minutes? And that in those days the apparatus relied on a spark gap run off either a Ruhmkorff coil or an electrostatic generator, and that the walls of the tube might fluoresce green when in use due to cathode rays hitting the glass? Imagine sitting perfectly still for an hour and a half while the tube glowed and the coil buzzed, or the discs turned, and the spark gap crackled, and the room smelled of ozone. Would you like me to draw you a diagram of a Crookes tube? *bright smile*<\/p>\n

Dude: \u2026ooooookaaaaaaaaay. *finally turns his attention elsewhere*<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t have had to take the time to do that. He should have picked up on my lack of interest in the potential interaction around about the first non-response to his\u00a0\u201cHey,\u201d and definitely<\/i>\u00a0should have got the hint when I showed him the book title without speaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It happens no matter what. I could be reading Fifty Shades of Dreck<\/i>\u00a0or whatever Jonathan Franzen is putting out and I\u2019ll get the HEY HEY HEY WHAT ARE YOU READING IS IT GOOD DO YOU LIKE IT treatment; I could be reading Hiding the Bodies of Importunate Fuckheads\u2013For Dummies!<\/i>\u00a0and I\u2019ll get the same thing. Guys, I don\u2019t know why you think this behavior is acceptable, or why a woman owes you her attention when she is clearly focusing it on something else, or why you can\u2019t take a goddamn hint when it is doing the equivalent of jumping up and down in front of your face, <\/i>but please could you try to internalize the idea that interrupting somebody when they are reading is rude as fuck?<\/p>\n

How about this: If you wouldn\u2019t do this to a dude \u2013 if you would not interrupt a dude in public and then get pissy when he doesn\u2019t want to interact with you \u2013 do not do it to a lady. And don\u2019t hide behind the I\u2019m Bad At Picking Up On Social Cues thing either. You can pick up on social cues perfectly well in all other areas of your daily existence; you just don\u2019t want to <\/i>when it means you don\u2019t get to demand a woman\u2019s attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next time a dude interrupts my book to ask me what I am reading and whether it is good and whether or not I like it, I\u2019m just going to turn to him with coldly offensive incomprehension and ask \u201cwhat is it that you want me to say?\u201d Then repeat whatever line he answers with, follow it up with \u201cgreat, we can now consider this encounter concluded\u201d and go back to what I was doing. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ceruleancynic: There\u2019s an article over at Jezebel about this eternally infuriating\u00a0phenomenon, and the comments are about what you might expect. Because it\u2019s Jez, the commenters going YES, THIS, PLEASE FUCKING STOP DOING THIS outnumber the BUT I WAAAAAANT TO commenters, but it\u2019s still subject to Lewis\u2019s Law. \u00a0 One of the but whyyyyyy commenters raises … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “men who interrupt you when you\u2019re reading”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[208,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}