Thursday 12 October 2017

#279 Bothering strangers in London to ask them questions

I chose a coach on Friday. Having spent nigh-on a month meeting candidates, my shoe leather was wearing thin although I had visited parts of the city I'd not seen before. At 7pm, on a dark evening in Clapham, I finally came away from an appointment having met someone I trusted with the task.

One of the first objectives I had to complete was something called the "Bold Request" exercise, which involved asking a favour of a stranger. "That sounds fine" I'd piped up when first hearing about it. I thought I could simply ask someone for the time. It then dawned on me that the point of the exercise was to do something which felt a bit uncomfortable. This meant that like most things in life, if it seemed easy, I probably wasn't doing it very well.

I decided to start small. After all, why should I ask a stranger anything? To gain confidence? Surely confidence came through noble pursuits, not by blindly participating in requests that had no other meaning or purpose attached to them. What an ill-devised exercise. Still, it was all there was. 

I had to complete the objective because I had to participate in the coaching. I certainly wasn't spending another month trying to find an alternative option. I could try changing the objective but that would be like opening up a CD player and rewiring it because I didn't like the way it sounded. That would only void the warranty, offend the maker and who knew if it would even work afterwards. So I proceeded with the objective. Ill-advised or not.

I wandered around Canary Wharf for a while, looking for someone relatively approachable. A woman in her fifties at a cafe table. I walked over. "Fancy a chat?" I asked her. "No", she said flatly. Well, that was easy. I thought about heading home. Then I remembered, I was supposed to log how I felt. I didn't really feel anything. I hadn't done anything. Dammit. I walked around some more.

I'd been toying with the idea of asking someone to buy me a drink since leaving the house. The rain had displaced most of the drinkers from their usual spots on the patios and I didn't much like the idea of trying to bum one inside, for fear of getting thown out by armed police. Security's tight in the Wharf. 

I eventually found a couple of smokers with lunch break lagers in their hands, outside a bar on an otherwise deserted street. I walked past them once. "Fuck it" I thought and went back to them. "Hello, sorry to bother you, I was wondering, could one of you chaps possibly buy me a pint?" They looked a bit taken aback. Then one burst into laughter. "It's not often I get asked that mate" he chuckled. Great. Now I was ill-advised and apparently gay. "No, sorry" he added. I thanked him anyway and departed.

How did it feel? Well, I'd been more reluctant to approach the men with the second request so I guess I'd felt nervous. During asking it, it wasn't something I'd normally do, so I didn't even feel like myself. That was probably normal. I was following an unusual set of instructions rather than being my usual self. I got a bit of a buzz for a few seconds afterwards. Then I felt content. Not because I'd served any great moral principle or done some good in the world. Just because having completed the wretched objective, I no longer felt the burden of having to do it. At least, until next time.

Next time?

That's right.

It's an ongoing objective.

2 comments

Running on empty said...

Dan, I'm very proud of you. Keep up the good work.

Profound Familiarity said...

Will try.