CHALLENGE №3

Hello! New week – new challenge, right? This time I accomplished the following task:

3.                To say “hello” to every stranger I meet when I go outside.

As you know, I am not an outgoing person, that is why this challenge was pretty hard for me. Actually, the only idea that I would start greeting unfamiliar people made me so anxious! In European countries it is considered to be OK to say “hello”, “Good morning/ afternoon/ evening” etc.. whereas in Russia we have a very different mentality. To my mind, people here are not so amiable and they can suspect that something is wrong if an unknown person salutes them all of a sudden. They can just ignore him/her and go away, avoiding talking to this person. We are taught to be watchful and we do not normally greet individuals we have not met before. It is funny that greeting strangers is a sign of courtesy and politeness in some places, but in our country it is an awkward action that violates the privacy. I was afraid that nobody would answer me. 

I went to the nearest shop to buy some food. When I was in the lift, there were some residents of the house. I never talked to them, but that time I said “Hello” to them. They were kind of surprised and a little bit puzzled because we did not interact before. After a small pause they replied to me and I was glad they did it. Then I saw outside some women going down the pavement with their children and I greeted them loudly. As I expected, they did not react to me, probably they thought I was crazy or that I wanted something from them. The kids stood there staring at me, but their mothers pulled them by their sleeves and quickened their pace. It was evident women wanted to escape me. I felt embarrassed a little because there were some bystanders who observed the situation and giggled.  However, I had to pretend that nothing unusual happened and said “hello” to those people as well. The majority of them just ignored me, but some smiled at me and answered me. I became more confident because of it, that is vital for me to get a response. Finally, I came to the shop. It was not a big of a deal to greet unfamiliar people anymore after the situation I had with those women. I knew already that their indifference to my actions were predictable and understandable. 

Even though I did not do anything bad, expressions of people’s faces were so dissatisfied. I guess they felt disturbed. A few customers greeted me back, they were mainly youngsters. Adults pretended that they did not hear me. I tried to calm myself down by telling me that everyone will forget me very soon. On the way back home, there were no many people. I was happy by this fact, but still I had to finish my challenge somehow. I said “hello” to every stranger, but no one responded. I was earning the greasy eye from everyone, but I had to put up with it. At the beginning of this challenge I was uneasy, uncomfortable, but at the end I did not care anymore, I just wanted this torture to come to an end. I am proud of myself that I did it no matter what. I learned that your persistence and stubbornness plays a great role when you do strange, silly things that are not accepted by society. 

Tell me what do you think about this challenge. Leave some comments down below!