General Discussion seems to me the most suitable sub-forum for this post mods, please shift if appropriate.
Reflections prompted by reading, of late, the largely-railway memoirs of a British enthusiast now aged about 80. The memoir-writer is a big proponent of the importance of being a worthwhile / rounded / contributing human being, rather than an obsessive, hermit-like hobbyist: he opines, Railways are a fine place from which to start the escape from the immediately obvious and shallow, but an awful prison in which to incarcerate the mind. He mentions in passing, a couple of encounters in relatively recent years with enthusiasts clearly a lot younger than himself; whom he plainly considered to have failed his being-properly-human test.
One was encountered on a big station, busy noting down observed train numbers; not very willing to converse at length with the author, or to be particularly civil ending with turning away, terminating the conversation to stare blankly into the tunnel. The other, in an opposite seat on a train monopolising the supposedly-shared table with a mass of timetables, stockbooks, notebooks and Dictaphones [sic]. Any attempt at conversation about our common interest was met with a glare and a non-committal grunt as he fixed unrelenting attention outside... An attempt by the author at indicating the obliterated site of a one-time station a haunt of the authors half a century previously was rebuffed with Shhh ! I dont want to miss anything! There follows in the text, fairly vitriolic stuff by the author about in his view behaviour unsatisfactory verging on the sub-human.
Various chords struck for me, by all this. There is a wide awareness that many railway enthusiasts definitely lack social smoothness and savoir-faire: chicken and egg -- its what tends to make them railway enthusiasts in the first place; and / or if theyd been from the first, socially on the ball, theyd have eschewed such nerdy pursuits as railway enthusiasm. Numerous railfans, at least when doing their thing, dont want to be social / conversational beings they just want to get on with their gricing. Ive been on different parts of this continuum: though fairly socially awkward, I do enjoy talking about the hobby with fellow-addicts uncomfortable experience over the decades has shown me that many such fellow-addicts dont feel likewise: anyway when out on the grice, they just want to do not to yak at length about the hobby or anything else, with annoying would-be latchers-on; and they can be very blunt about thus informing the latcher-on. Which would make my octogenarian author consider them boors and inferior specimens of humanity; but then, who died and appointed him God?.
Ive been the rejected latcher-on-wannabe; and also at times, the absorbed hobbyist not wanting to be bothered by latching-on motor-mouths (though impeded by childhood conditioning to the effect that one should try to be polite, even to the annoying). It can be a difficult business if one would rather have, on the whole, pleasant dealings with ones fellow-humans.
I find it interesting that even among those for whom polite behaviour is important; not everyone is in unanimity with my elderly memoirist, to the effect that being human and in society, always trumps silly solitary pursuits. Theres an (American) Net discussion board dedicated to good etiquette and its promotion, which I frequent; which strongly espouses the position that personal privacy is acceptable and defensible. People thereon, mostly agree that one has a right to get on unmolested including in public with ones own business: the would-be gabby stranger does not get an automatic pass to latch on to one and annexe ones attention for their conversational entertainment. If youre happy to enter into conversation with them, fine; if not good etiquette does not mean being a doormat it is perfectly acceptable to rebuff them (politely, rather than in terms of **** off and die, **********er !). They should have enough of a grasp on politeness to realise that their desire to yak with a randomly-met person, does not mean entitlement for them for that result to come about.
Would be interested in others experiences of being somewhere especially re the hobby -- on this leave me alone conversation-sharing continuum; and maybe of conflicting sentiments concerning same or strong feelings one way or the other.
Reflections prompted by reading, of late, the largely-railway memoirs of a British enthusiast now aged about 80. The memoir-writer is a big proponent of the importance of being a worthwhile / rounded / contributing human being, rather than an obsessive, hermit-like hobbyist: he opines, Railways are a fine place from which to start the escape from the immediately obvious and shallow, but an awful prison in which to incarcerate the mind. He mentions in passing, a couple of encounters in relatively recent years with enthusiasts clearly a lot younger than himself; whom he plainly considered to have failed his being-properly-human test.
One was encountered on a big station, busy noting down observed train numbers; not very willing to converse at length with the author, or to be particularly civil ending with turning away, terminating the conversation to stare blankly into the tunnel. The other, in an opposite seat on a train monopolising the supposedly-shared table with a mass of timetables, stockbooks, notebooks and Dictaphones [sic]. Any attempt at conversation about our common interest was met with a glare and a non-committal grunt as he fixed unrelenting attention outside... An attempt by the author at indicating the obliterated site of a one-time station a haunt of the authors half a century previously was rebuffed with Shhh ! I dont want to miss anything! There follows in the text, fairly vitriolic stuff by the author about in his view behaviour unsatisfactory verging on the sub-human.
Various chords struck for me, by all this. There is a wide awareness that many railway enthusiasts definitely lack social smoothness and savoir-faire: chicken and egg -- its what tends to make them railway enthusiasts in the first place; and / or if theyd been from the first, socially on the ball, theyd have eschewed such nerdy pursuits as railway enthusiasm. Numerous railfans, at least when doing their thing, dont want to be social / conversational beings they just want to get on with their gricing. Ive been on different parts of this continuum: though fairly socially awkward, I do enjoy talking about the hobby with fellow-addicts uncomfortable experience over the decades has shown me that many such fellow-addicts dont feel likewise: anyway when out on the grice, they just want to do not to yak at length about the hobby or anything else, with annoying would-be latchers-on; and they can be very blunt about thus informing the latcher-on. Which would make my octogenarian author consider them boors and inferior specimens of humanity; but then, who died and appointed him God?.
Ive been the rejected latcher-on-wannabe; and also at times, the absorbed hobbyist not wanting to be bothered by latching-on motor-mouths (though impeded by childhood conditioning to the effect that one should try to be polite, even to the annoying). It can be a difficult business if one would rather have, on the whole, pleasant dealings with ones fellow-humans.
I find it interesting that even among those for whom polite behaviour is important; not everyone is in unanimity with my elderly memoirist, to the effect that being human and in society, always trumps silly solitary pursuits. Theres an (American) Net discussion board dedicated to good etiquette and its promotion, which I frequent; which strongly espouses the position that personal privacy is acceptable and defensible. People thereon, mostly agree that one has a right to get on unmolested including in public with ones own business: the would-be gabby stranger does not get an automatic pass to latch on to one and annexe ones attention for their conversational entertainment. If youre happy to enter into conversation with them, fine; if not good etiquette does not mean being a doormat it is perfectly acceptable to rebuff them (politely, rather than in terms of **** off and die, **********er !). They should have enough of a grasp on politeness to realise that their desire to yak with a randomly-met person, does not mean entitlement for them for that result to come about.
Would be interested in others experiences of being somewhere especially re the hobby -- on this leave me alone conversation-sharing continuum; and maybe of conflicting sentiments concerning same or strong feelings one way or the other.
