WHILE POLITELY MAKING small talk at a baby shower, my day was ruined in one fell swoop. “Ooh, are you expecting?!” asked a family friend, eyeballing my body up and down. I sheepishly shook my head, instantly regretting both my party dress and my ample plate of mini-sandwiches. Then, just when I thought this conversation couldn’t get worse, it did: “Well,” she asked earnestly, “why not?”
Reasons and retorts flooded my mind—deep-rooted doubts about my maternal capabilities, fear of climate change, “just fat, thanks” or perhaps a well-chosen expletive. Instead, I murmured something about being busy at work and excused myself to mope for the rest of the afternoon.
I’ve since recovered emotionally, though I sometimes daydream of a do-over. What should I have said to such a nosy question from such a rude person? And how about all those other, um, challenging personalities we have to converse with whether we want to or not? Just in time for the festive season, I asked experts about how to deal with the trickiest, tackiest, meanest and most maddening personalities—with nary a single insult hurled.
THE COMPLAINER
You know the type: This restaurant is too expensive, the music is too loud, my burger is overdone and I can hardly taste it anyhow because I’m probably coming down with something. As Saturday Night Live’s famous Debbie Downer sketch goes: Whaa, whaaaaa. But the Complainer in real life isn’t so funny.
この記事は Reader's Digest India の November 2023 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は Reader's Digest India の November 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
ME & MY SHELF
Siddharth Kapila is a lawyer turned writer whose writing has focussed on issues surrounding Hinduism. His debut book, Tripping Down the Ganga: A Son's Exploration of Faith (Speaking Tiger) traces his seven-year-long journey along India's holiest river and his explorations into the nature of faith among believers and skeptics alike.
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Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India by Karan Madhok (Aleph)
Karan Madhok's Ananda is a lively, three-dimensional exploration of India's past and present relationship with cannabis.
I'll Have it Here: Poems by Jeet Thayil, (Fourth Estate)
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Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Penguin Random House India)
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She Defied All the Odds
When doctors told the McCoombes that spina bifida would severely limit their daughter's life, they refused to listen. So did the little girl
DO YOU DARE?
Two Danish businesswomen want us to start eating insects. It's good for the environment, but can consumers get over the yuck factor?
Searching for Santa Claus
Santa lives at the North Pole, right? Don't say that to the people of Rovaniemi in northern Finland
