For most of my adult life I have been horribly averse to salespeople. On a bad day, I dread even the simplest “Can I help you find anything?“, and find myself packing the response (usually something in the “Just browsing” vein) in my mouth before I even enter the store, like a boxer trying to clench his jaw, knowing that a fist, sooner or later, is coming. In compensation for this I tend to be exceedingly mission-oriented when I shop; I do not want to need help because THEIR help exhausts and overwhelms me as I fight to protect my wallet.
We have talked about the concept of the social battery, and about how willpower is a finite daily resource that needs to be replenished just as we put food in our guts to keep the fires burning. Every choice, even the choice to deny an offer, depletes that willpower. Every wall we throw up that reads “NO THANK YOU”, as polite as we make it, comes with a cost, because we are turning back their will. And if you haven’t noticed, people on commission are some willful motherfuckers.
And of course, you don’t even have to walk into a store to get pushed around in this manner. I was walking around my office park today and some dude in a pickup truck yelled an offer to wash my car. (Repeat: I WAS WALKING.) It is times like this that I am rather grateful to be an undistinguished man of no great means. If I were wealthy, or, God forbid, an attractive woman, I would probably live in a cave right now rather than face the number of people just lurking on the sidewalk to make me offers for things I do not want (their penis, let’s say) on a daily basis.
This goes beyond even such predictable interactions as retail. There are tough days when I feel oppressed and assaulted by a waiter or waitress asking me if I have everything I need. Now, I may come up with surface excuses: “I haven’t had time to even look at my food yet“, “I was fine when you asked two minutes ago, “Where were you when I was slapping my menu on the table for ten minutes trying to get you to come and take my order?“, but that’s just my ego trying to construct an understanding of a mean kick from my id that, in pure form, was more like this:
Parties, meetings, shopping, dating – there’s a common thread here relating to a combination of social endurance and will. Some people are born charmers, or born runners. Have you ever noticed Michael Phelps’ body proportions? Dude was physically-sculpted at birth to be a great swimmer.
But if you accept that you’re not born to it, then we’re not talking about how to achieve sparkling, Dale Carnegie-style dominance; we’re just talking about basic survival for people who seemingly weren’t born with a generous allotment in these categories. It helps to think of them as muscles. Because with muscles we know we can fight our destiny with WORK. We can build better selves if we’re willing to put in effort.
This year has seen an explosion of interaction for me. From flying to Texas as a corporate client to oversee the shoot of my training video, to all those days at the gym, navigating the equipment and the locker room and all the competitive sweat in the air, to these plays; especially these plays. With every show, you meet a new group of impassioned strangers, full of ambitions and insecurities, and in a matter of weeks must trust them as if your life (or, at least, the potential for extreme embarrassment, which is pretty near fear of death in our natural phobias) depended on it. And on top of the rehearsals and the performances there are the parties, the new Facebook connections and promises to keep in touch and work together again, talking afterwards with all those beautiful strangers who waited for you to emerge from the dressing room and have awkwardly pre-packed all their own desired greetings and interactions for you.
And I am noticing a funny thing recently – I am having an easier time shopping. I don’t flinch when the saleswoman offers help. I give her the benefit of presumed best intentions and answer her with honesty and confidence. I’m not saying it’s happening every day, but it’s happening more and more. This is 10,000 miles away from any of the intended benefits I expected from the goals I set, but it may be as valuable as any of them, if not more so.
This is a different thing from what we describe as “coming out of our shell”. I’m still an introvert by nature – comfortable in my own company and restored by solitude. I’m never going to be the last man at the party. But I can see now where my innate weaknesses had me constructing sour-grapes rationalizations against those very forces that made me feel weak. It was that weakness that made me hate them; like all those gym classes I always hated in school. With a little new strength and courage, I can let some of those bitter opinions go, and FUNCTION. People without such struggles don’t know what a gift it is to function.