Be kind to a stranger today

[Globules]

Yesterday I bumped into a friend outside Sainsbury's.

Whilst we stood chatting, a wonderful stranger interrupted our conversation to tell me how amazing I looked, how she loved my dress, how elegant I looked and how much the dress suited my colouring.

It absolutely made my day!

So I going to pay it forward today. I'm going to try and make a strangers day by being kind or complimentary to them.

I urge you to do the same!

She said the friend was "slumming it"- I'd take offence from that from someone I didn't know.

On mn saying good morning to someone is intrusive and an invasion of their privacy so I can only imagine the reaction you're going to get to this outrageous suggestion! 😬

I too am kind, chatty, pleasant to strangers every day. I enjoy it!

Just enjoying a last blast of summer on a quiet local beach. Lady came paddling in on her kayak while I was swimming. Had the cutest dog on board. I told her so, and that my hound would never manage to sit so calmly. She was delighted someone had spotted her beautiful dog, and shared how she'd trained him to be her shipmate. Lovely little exchange

I really don't think I was imposing. We both enjoyed the exchange. And it WAS a v cute dog

I'm mostly nice to strangers. Why wouldn't you be?

I will never forget the pharmacist in Asda when I was down there collecting morphine for my gran who was on EOL care at home. Had to go there several times daily. Their policy is if you spend £5 in store you get free parking. I didn’t care about paying, it was the last thing on my mind. But when he saw what the prescription was for, he found me a stack of car park vouchers and said use as many as you need over the next few days.

She died 2 days later. I will never forget that small act.

A word on internalised misogyny I think here -There is absolutely nothing stopping men going about their business and telling other men that they love their style or their shoes/hair/tattoos etc.

We are talking about women on this thread as if it is only down to us being a shallow puff headed sex that we even entertain the idea of complimenting another woman on her style. The reason this doesn't work across the sexes so well is that -as we have seen illustrated by some PPs here - Men get creepy and unnecessary about the interaction. That's for men to sort out and police amongst themselves, not women.

For what it's worth, I work in retail and often say to people 'Oo I love your nails/earrings/necklace/top/handbag/whatever' while we're making the sale. I might say 'that's a jaunty hat!' to an older gent perhaps, or to a child 'I like your (insert toy's name), he looks lovely and soft!' or similar because I think it's good practice to get children used to talking to adults and interacting. They might say nothing, they might smile, they might say a few words back. It has cost me literally nothing, but what I will say is that the vast, VAST majority of people seem to enjoy a bit of positive interaction. They smile, they say thank you, they say 'what, this old thing?!', or they might say 'I know, my nails are amazing, I get them done at ... He's so clever, I love going there!'.

It makes the world turn smoother, and I think the people who don't indulge in this sort of pleasantry are the one's who are really losing out.

Well said @AntigoneFunn . Totally agree with you.

The last time a total stranger made a personal remark to me, it was an old git busy in his front garden, who told me to ‘Cheer up!’ At the time I was hurrying to keep up with Gdd2 (4) who was whizzing along on her bike towards her pre-school - we were on the verge of being late.

The next morning, the same old git was there, so I told him (rather more politely than I felt) that I hadn’t been miserable, it was unfortunately just my face, so in perhaps he’d like to refrain from making such remarks to random strangers in future. 🤬

Urgh @GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER why do they do it??
I like to think that people saying nice things is at least an antidote to that kind of rudeness. I've been on the receiving end of many a similar remark. They wouldn't say it to another man would they?

@AntigoneFunn absolutely. Every word!