At 8:00 a.m. one winter morning, before the day’s sessions began, I was standing in a conference hall with a friend listening to Stephen Pierce. He was explaining an intricate traffic driving tactic to us. Suddenly, we were interrupted by a guy who had been watching us from a distance for a while.
He stepped between us, thrust a one-dollar bill in Stephen’s face (along with a business card), and said: “I appreciate what you’ve been sharing with these guys, and here’s a little gift to show it. I’d love to do a JV with you.”
He then turned to the two of us, saying: “Listen to what this guy says, he’s an expert!”
Then, just as abruptly, he turned and walked away, never to be seen again for the rest of the conference.
Stephen mumbled: “Now what was that all about?”
We wondered too.
Was this guy just a jerk? Maybe. But I suspect he suffers from a far more common condition - cold feet, a.k.a. shyness.
And in unfamiliar social surroundings, it manifests as ‘rude’ or even ‘arrogant’ behavior.
Chris Brogan wrote a nice blog about handling social contacts with celebrities (even ‘Internet celebs’) when you meet them in public. It was advice from the perspective of the celebrity, and how they might feel about meeting and getting to know their ‘fans’.
The unique thing about being an Internet celebrity is that it allows you to be a shy, reclusive, inhibited person in ‘real’ life, yet be stunning and scintillating with your wit, humor and charm in your online persona.
Your two contrarian ‘faces’ come into conflict only in a physical situation like meeting other ‘real’ people face to face in a social network - offline. And different people handle this face-off differently.
Some retreat into themselves, and let their real persona take over. Others transpose their online persona onto their real one - but without corresponding experience to guide them, ‘play it by ear’ as the ‘rude’ guy at Stephen’s seminar probably did - and came across as being a jerk!
What’s even stranger is that you see this behavior on virtual social networks too. For the same reasons - people lacking real-world inter-personal skills are ’socializing’ with a group, but without a guidebook or radar to show them the right moves.
The spammer who invades a forum or bulletin board with an intrusive message that’s out of context to the conversation that’s taking place is one such example. The real world equivalent would be the boor who thrusts himself in on a private (or closed) conversation waving a dollar bill and a business card - hoping to close a joint venture deal and rake in huge profits.
What do you think? Are all rude, arrogant folks jerks - or just shy?
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2 Comments Received
October 4th, 2007 @3:56 am
Well this is an interesting topic, and there may be a few that are actually shy.
I have seen people come into a forum and be a jerk and then turn around and end up being a contributor. Usually they just did not understand forum ettiquette and were told to use forums and post a lot by someone.
Others will just go away. Those are probably the shy ones.
Then the majority are jerks and end up starting flame after flame until they are either banned or ignored. The “Don’t Feed The Trolls ” rule usually does them in quickly but it is hard not to respond at times.
October 4th, 2007 @11:35 am
I have a good friend who comes off as arrogant all the time in large social settings. She scowls at people, refuses to wave to others saying hi across the room. She rarely even acknowledges others not standing in her close social circle, as if they’re not even there.
Her true crime? She refuses to wear her glasses, and doesn’t own contacts. She can’t SEE.
When I think about “rude,” I usually have about forty or so qualifiers such as the above. Sometimes, people are agoraphobic. Other times, they have speech impediments they don’t want to announce. I look for all the angles.
And then, there are folks who are just asses. Those tend to leave a trail. : )
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