l33tminion | "I Don't Donate"

Had an interesting moment today.

Kendall Square, where I work, is pretty busy, so there are often professional hasslers out-front hassling people for donations for nonprofit organizations. I really dislike pressure sales, and I've found the best approach for me is to make decisions about donations in private deliberation. "I don't donate in response to in-person solicitations" is quite a mouthful, though, so what actually came out when representative of [worthy cause] asked me if I "had a minute" on my way to the bus stop this afternoon was an unintentionally-truncated "I don't donate".

Then I was caught in this awkward moment, cut short by a non-confrontational response ("it's cool, man" or something like that). And I had this sudden panicky impulse to clarify or defend myself, to say that I do in fact donate, to [particular organization] even, it's just that etc. etc.

And I found myself stuck still for a moment just suppressing that urge. Because for one thing, I have no reason to defend myself to this person anyways, even if they've got me wrong it doesn't matter. And for another thing, the whole point of my "I don't donate" (with or without appended caveats) was that I didn't want to waste their time and didn't want to be hassled, and it would be bizarrely counter-productive to respond to them agreeing to not hassle me by turning around and wasting their time by hassling them or, I suppose, myself.

So I just gave them an awkward and I hoped apologetic-seeming smile before hurrying off to the bus stop.

That moment stuck with me a bit, so it seemed like a good thing to write down here.