Small talk dilemmas

[G-Man]

At a function we were sat with a couple we didn't know. The conversation went very well, we had our starters. Then the question of tattoos came up, and we all agreed that they are not a great idea, generally. In fact, we had found common ground on everything so far.

The man recalled how as a young man in the 1980s he twice in successive years had stood outside a tattoo parlour but chickened out from getting the tattoo he really wanted on his chest. The tattoo he really wanted was of a German eagle with a swastika...

The guy, otherwise perfectly nice, didn't offer any "ah, the stupidity of youth" caveat either. Maybe he thought no explanation was necessary because it is obvious that it was a stupid thing, or he still likes Nazis, or he thought that we are kindred spirits (though why would a mixed couple admire Nazism?).

I am rather good at navigating awkward conversations with causing least confrontation or embarrassment at such functions, but this was a total WTF moment.

In the event I pretended he didn't say swastika but Daffy Duck or something, and carried on the small talk. But we didn't swap phone numbers with them.

[San Bernardhinault]

Small talk dilemmas

You weren't tempted to passive-aggressively ask "Why?"

[Bored Of Education]

Small talk dilemmas

A couple of long-time friends were staying with us over the weekend and we were discussing another long-term friend. Before I go any further, I will state that all of us involved were, hitherto, the model of liberal Islington chattering classes. It appears that the other long-term friend voted Brexit and had put up the defence that, in Cricklewood where she lives, there were a 'sea of immigrants' some living homeless near them and they have been having people shitting in their gardens.

Now, the friend telling us about it didn't defend the fact that they voted for Brexit, hadn't themselves, noted the lack of connection between the EU and, apparently, the 'third world' immigrants apparently concerned but, noticeably kept on defending our mutual friend as not prejudiced at all and saying that we didn't know her situation.

IT was a shame, Not only finding out a long-time friend seems to have become quite so prejudiced but that another is, perhaps understandably enough, failing to acknowledge that prejudice. As I explained, it is the fact that she is in the middle of a very multi-cultural area that means that her issues may - and it is a very big 'may' - be blamed on the immigrants. If she was on a white working class estate, she may very well have the same issues but it would be the whites who were the issue. Anyway, you don't extrapolate individual issues to a whole ethnic minority.

It was one of those times when you are completely on the same frequency as someone and yet not.

[Patrick Thistle]

Small talk dilemmas

Unlike G-Man I think I would have had to ask. Probably something like "That's a bold choice. Any particular reason?"

He honestly might not have thought through the implications of having that symbol tattooed onto him.

[evilC]

Small talk dilemmas

Maybe he was recruiting, but in a really subtly 'fishing' kind of way?

[Squarewheelbike]

Small talk dilemmas

Sometimes it's just better to let things go to keep everyone happy at someone else's do, even if they are monumentally thick and ill informed. Like Brexiters and Trump supporters.

[G-Man]

Small talk dilemmas

San Bernardhinault wrote: You weren't tempted to passive-aggressively ask "Why?"

Of course I was tempted -- and Patrick Thistle's "That's a bold choice. Any particular reason?" would have been a good way of doing so. But I knew I was going to be stuck with these people as conversation partners, and what if I didn't like the answer? In the event, I could decide that it "probably" was a case of youthful indiscretion.

As I call it in the thread title: it was a bit of a dilemma.

Towards the end of the function he started making anti-Muslim noises, especially how "all of them" hate America. When I pointed out that many Americans hater Muslims just as much, and that America-hating Muslims may have good reason to, he readily agreed.

In a different context I might have liked to interrogate his political philosophies, which I suspect are not invariably well thought-out. Or I might have decided, as I increasingly do, that with politics some people are just not that interesting or open to reason; so why bother...

[Patrick Thistle]

Small talk dilemmas

I would probably have asked without thinking it through the way you have and either put my foot in it or ended up having to sit next to a Nazi all evening.

[hobbes]

Small talk dilemmas

This has happened to me at weddings twice.

First one at a female friend's wedding sat with the groom's friends.
Apropos of nothing during a fairly fun conversation:-

"I fucking hate pikeys." said one. All the friends laughed.
"That's a bit strong isn't it?" I said, aware that P and I were alone on a table of 12, 9 of whom laughed at the 10th's bigotry.
"Oh I can say that because my Dad was one."

We didn't stay for the evening do.

Second one. At a wedding near Hull for one of P's school friends. After dinner I was sat with the boyfriend of one of the school friends drinking beer and passing the time until P came back from the bathroom. It's a convivial silence between 2 blokes who don't know each other and therefore don't feel the need to small talk much.
Then this chap (for colour, I'll mention that he was about 6 foot 6 and the same width and a prison officer who looked like a bit like the big rocky one in Fantastic Four) leant over towards me and said "that Enoch Powell had the right idea, eh?"
Now given that he could have folded me up like a piece of tracing paper, I'm afraid my duty to confront bigotry was ignored because of cowardice. But I did manage to choke out "I'm sorry mate, I think you've accidentally mistaken me for a racist."
I mean for fuck's sake! I beat a hasty retreat to the bar and avoided the fucker like the plague for the rest of the night.

[Patrick Thistle]

Small talk dilemmas

That's a pretty good comeback, Hobbes. I'm going to try and remember it.

[Bored Of Education]

Small talk dilemmas

Indeed, hobbes, you have to be applauded for both responses.

[Sam]

Small talk dilemmas

In 2007 when I was travelling round Spain, in Seville on a hostel-lead bar crawl I got talking to a couple of American girls who told me they were really excited about going to the bullfight the following day. We had a conversation about it which carried on for quite some time, and which ended when one of them delivered what she appeared to think was the inarguable argument-winner, 'It's just a cultural practice we English-speakers shouldn't judge.' My reply was 'well, some people would say the same about female genital mutilation,' and it resulted in the conversation immediately ending and them avoiding me for the next couple of days, which I was fine with frankly.

[Wouter D]

Small talk dilemmas

Sam wrote: In 2007 when I was travelling round Spain, in Seville on a hostel-lead bar crawl I got talking to a couple of American girls who told me they were really excited about going to the bullfight the following day. We had a conversation about it which carried on for quite some time, and which ended when one of them delivered what she appeared to think was the inarguable argument-winner, 'It's just a cultural practice we English-speakers shouldn't judge.' My reply was 'well, some people would say the same about female genital mutilation,' and it resulted in the conversation immediately ending and them avoiding me for the next couple of days, which I was fine with frankly.

Sam, you don't _usually_ look like this guy, do you?

[Reed John]

Small talk dilemmas

This is why it's best to avoid weddings. Or talking to people you don't know.

[Sam]

Small talk dilemmas

You've met me, Wouter. I think you know full well that's an uncanny likeness.

[Thierry Ennui]

Small talk dilemmas

G-Man wrote: At a function we were sat with a couple we didn't know. The conversation went very well, we had our starters. Then the question of tattoos came up, and we all agreed that they are not a great idea, generally. In fact, we had found common ground on everything so far.

The man recalled how as a young man in the 1980s he twice in successive years had stood outside a tattoo parlour but chickened out from getting the tattoo he really wanted on his chest. The tattoo he really wanted was of a German eagle with a swastika...

The guy, otherwise perfectly nice, didn't offer any "ah, the stupidity of youth" caveat either. Maybe he thought no explanation was necessary because it is obvious that it was a stupid thing, or he still likes Nazis, or he thought that we are kindred spirits (though why would a mixed couple admire Nazism?).

This sounds like a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[Fussbudget]

Small talk dilemmas

Reed John wrote: This is why it's best to avoid weddings. Or talking to people you don't know.

Word. And to most of the people you know, too, to be on the safe side.

[G-Man]

Small talk dilemmas

Daniel Radcliffe has no such small talk dilemmas. "Some of my best friends are racists."

[Reed John]

Small talk dilemmas

Yeah, that's not....ok...is it?

https://youtu.be/Acu1N1-AbL4

[WOM]

Small talk dilemmas

I struggle with it. My first instinct is "well, that's you done". But do you dump all your friends for every view they disagree with you on? I mean, do you dump Trump supporters or Conservatives from your FB just because you hold different politics. Dunno...

[San Bernardhinault]

Small talk dilemmas

This happens all the time on the golf course. People generally don't come out as full on Swastika-tattoed fascists, but there's a lot of low to mid-grade racism. Particularly if you head inland in the US. Palm Springs and Arizona are rife with it.

I've been unable to shun people who are willing to tell me how terrible immigrants are, even when I point out my own green card. And on a golf course, you're often stuck with these wankers for 4 or 5 hours. I'll often just revert to sullen silence, but even then sometimes someone will just carry on and on and on about it.

For example, just before the Brexit vote, a not very bright man was Yanksplaining to me how "Brits have been too nice to foreigners and that's why we need a Brexit because there are too many muslims in London now, have you seen the footage, they have Sharia law in Kensington, you know?" And there was no way to get him to shut up, unless I went full on unpleasant. Which would have made the next 3 hours unbearable, so I just shut down and didn't respond to anything he said.

[WOM]

Small talk dilemmas

As my father-in-law gets older, he gets more and more 'old white guy' in his views. Of course, that includes "the immigration problem".

On the golf course (of course) last week, he used the phrase "I'm probably too liberal..." and I just said "Yeah, that's the problem."

[Amor de Cosmos]

Small talk dilemmas

Not for the first time, I'm glad I don't play golf.

[caja-dglh]

Small talk dilemmas

Right. Five or six hours stuck with people you wouldn't choose to be with to hit a ball every ten minutes.

[Reed John]

Small talk dilemmas

WOM wrote: I struggle with it. My first instinct is "well, that's you done". But do you dump all your friends for every view they disagree with you on? I mean, do you dump Trump supporters or Conservatives from your FB just because you hold different politics. Dunno...

Yes.
Unless I'm related to them, in which case I can just "unfollow" them. But they're still friends.

But I don't do facebook. Tonka does. So I don't get requests from people I don't really want to deal with.