Seeking some advice here. I’m a small female who travels alone sometimes and there never seems to be a shortage of curt or blunt people, especially in big cities.
Sometimes I get a bit caught up reading directions and shift sides of the street or bump into people by accident and once in a while people do say something, not necessarily overly mean or threatening but just some sort of remark. I come from a place that’s very conflict avoidant and people usually don’t speak their mind even if they’re inconvenienced so my first (inexperienced) reaction is usually to ignore or just to apologise and get away from the situation.
It does linger on my mind though and I’m just wondering if it would be better to just have responded with sincerity to release that tension I felt rather than an automatic blanket response just to get out of the situation. I always find a way to justify that fawning behaviour, be it that I’m in a hurry or it’s just not worth wasting my breath, or that I’m alone and the consequences of upsetting the wrong person when I’m small and mostly solitary just is not worth it.
I would like to say I’m being a bigger person but it doesn’t feel like it since I’m dwelling on it. It feels like I’m doing something wrong, like I’m betraying myself. And I don’t think it’s right to harbour such a deep distrust of people that I just immediately assume they’re a threat whenever they’re slightly less than nice. Does anyone have any advice? Should I continue to do the ‘smart’ thing for these millisecond interactions in public?