No, Thank You

It was day two of writing the first book I've ever been paid to write. And like every new project, it was slow going. I was finding a lot of ways to procrastinate. Walking around the house. Greeting the cats repeatedly. Looking at my stupid phone.

So, I decided I would do something I normally didn't do. I would go to the local coffee shop to get a change of scenery. I used to, back in the day, write for hours in coffee shops. But I stopped. They were distracting, expensive, and usually a lot less comfortable than staying home. Also, my cats get exited when I go into the home office to write, and I have found there are is a serious lack of cat help at the local coffee shop.

But on day two, I needed to shake it up.

And upon turning down the street on which the coffee shop existed, I saw a maze of orange cones and detour routes. Some festival had sprung up between me and my new writing location.

But I would solider on. I found a spot, parked, and entered the festival, which I was forced to walk through to get to the cafe.

I walked down a street populated by EZ Ups. I glanced in them. Crocheted chickens. 3D printed dragons. Slime. I don't know who is making slime and then trying to sell it, or who is wanting to buy it, but any time there is a gathering of EZ Ups in our town, slime is being sold.

I didn't stop in any of the booths, and was very close to being through the festival, when a man selling windows or solar, of whatever home improvement subscription service I didn't want and have never wanted, JUMPED in front of me.

"Can I get a high five?" he yelled, planting his hand even with my nose.

I side stepped him and said, "No, thank you," and kept walking.

Little did this man know, I had just been in close proximity to someone who had spent two days vomiting and having severe gastrointestinal distress. I had spent the morning picking up all the soft items said person had touched so I could then wash them. I was feeling fine, but I wasn't going to just slap hands with some dude who was sweating in the early summer sun. A.) I didn't want to touch him and B.) I didn't want to touch him. Also, I was trying to be respectful of the fact he probably didn't want to spend the next forty-eight hours projectile vomiting while pooping his pants. But maybe that was presumptuous of me.

"YOU DON'T WANT A HIGH FIVE?" he yelled after me, loud enough that all the tents around us could hear.

I didn't respond.

"I WAS JUST BEING NICE!"

And I didn't turn and tell him to fuck off, I just ignored him because that is what makes that kind of man, in particular, madder. But I was struck by the absolute inanity of our culture.

Cue feminist essay on how men take it personally when a woman says no to them. But what really struck me is why I have always disliked salesmen.

Because they never take your no. I reject their sales pitch, and their response is to make me feel like I failed. But deep down, they take this as a failure of their own character. They were publicly rejected by me, a woman! The fact that I do not want to buy a subscription to have my front door replaced every two years shouldn't be a personal failure on anyone, but when that guy took up all my personal space and made a scene and I just walked around him, he had to try to shame me.

This is toxic. Dare I say the triggering words... toxic masculinity... But what I really appreciated from this interaction was that I was able to look back at my life and see the reason I don't ever talk to salesmen. This is, one hundred precent, because that type of male does not listen to me. Is it a consent issue.

If I could just say no, thank you and be on my way, dealing with salesmen wouldn't be anything worth talking about. But I am talking about it. The reason I will always let my any man I am with talk to a salesmen, even if it's my purchase, is because the salesman's personal fragility, and then his aggressive response to his own fragility, is exhausting. I would rather have windows made of Cling Wrap than talk to anyone like that. I have driven the same car since 2008 because if I never talk to another car salesman again it will be too soon. I will walk the long way around the hardware store if it means the guy selling whatever home subscription doesn't look at me.

Now, had I written this post prior to going to Istanbul, I might have thought this was just how men treated women. But after visiting Istanbul, I realized, salesmen are not like this all over the world. I had thought, going to the Grand Bazaar, humanity's original shopping mall, that I was going to get mobbed by men demanding I buy what they were selling. And honestly, I was not looking forward to it.

But, it turns out, in Istanbul, a guy would jump in my path, tell me to come into his Kebab shop, or to see his 'original fake' Gucci bags, and I would say no, thank you and he would immediately stop his sales pitch, return to his shop front, and leave me the fuck alone. I remember being awestruck at this. Never in my entire life of men trying to sell me something, had I been so respectfully given a hard sales pitch and then, upon saying no, thank you had the guy immediately consented to my no.

So it can be done. You can respectfully be a salesman. But apparently not in America. And I think that's worth reflecting on.