Never forget, if someone asks you an invasive question, you can always reply by asking them “do you think that’s a normal thing to ask people?”
Do it in a super casual and cheery tone, like you were asking about their favourite food.
This is something you can, and actually SHOULD do, with a small change: Keep your tone neutral when you ask this, because in my experience, you get one of two responses:
-People who KNEW they were being rude will know you’ve caught them at it and will mumble excuses and shut up. You’ve shown them that behavior won’t be rewarded, which is what really stops them, and hopefully they’ll make better choices in the future.
- but you will get some people who do genuinely think that that WAS a normal question to ask because THEY get asked that by their mom/boss/other authority figure asks them things like that all the time???
This person is being taken advantage of and needs help. You then explain, as gently as you can, “No. That’s actually really personal and sensitive information most people don’t talk about because X*, and it’s extremely inappropriate of Authority Figure Z to ask that. You, and everyone else deserve privacy and information security.” they’ll go “oh. I didn’t know that.” or some close variation, and then you tell them “no harm, no foul, and I’m glad you know now.” and then change the topic.
You probably won’t get a landmark “oh my god I had no idea I’m reevaluating my entire life” moment, but just hearing that “No, that’s not normal and not okay” is enough to get the ball rolling in the right direction to protect themselves.
*X is here to explain generally why Privacy and information security is important. For instance, if they’re asking questions about health and finance, you can explain that that’s legally protected information to prevent fraud and in order to keep it safe, it HAS to stay secret.
as a child I wondered why adults were so stupid (doing things out of habit/routine/heuristics rather than reasoning explicitly about what to do based on their goals) and the answer is that adults are unimaginably fucking tired all the time
say what you want about british people but they kinda popped off with what are you on about. because sometimes you literally have to ask someone what they’re on about
i used to burn cds for my friends car in high school because she had no tunes and as a joke i’d put pinball wizard on every cd
everyone who carpooled in the car with her goddamn knew every lyric to that song by the time i graduated and also wanted to murder me
“did you put pinball wizard on this cd”
“no : 3”
further clarification for the post: i gave her a new disc per week for about 2 years. so at least once a week everyone would hear pinball wizard before she learned when to skip tracks. The song was never skipped if we were on the highway (traffic here is intense and going to switch a song while dealing with a full SUV is sometimes not the best idea in an older car) and also was never skipped if i was in the passenger seat despite how many kicks to the back of my seat i got
After almost a decade on this site, I found another Tumblr user in the wild. I stopped to tie my shoe with rainbow laces this morning outside the silversmith at Colonial Williamsburg, and I heard it.
“I like your shoelaces.”
Oh. Oh no.
I responded the only way I could. “Thanks.” And then I reluctantly added, “I stole them from the president…and if that makes sense to you, I’m very sorry.”
The poor man, in full Colonial dress, stared at me for a long moment. And then burst into laughter. And said, “I haven’t thought about that in YEARS and this has never happened to me before.”
