My bad nail salon etiquette?

[Opol]

I don’t often go to the nail place as I like to keep my nails short and think only nude pink suits me. So it’s pretty easy to achieve this look at home.

But my friend asked if I would go with her as she had a gift voucher. Very lovely of her.

The place was nice enough but it’s the sort of place where there are no frills, bargain value. Cheapest in town probably.

Anyway, as we sat down I was trying to make small talk with the person doing my nails. I started with “have you been busy?”. The lady responded. I then was asked about nail shape and said “almond”. I then said something like “oh I’m such a newbie I never know about shapes”. The lady said “ask your friend, ask your friend” (sat next to me getting nails done). I picked up obviously she didn’t want to chat (weirdly I’m not a massive chatter myself just found it awkward to be sat in complete silence facing each other).

After my friend said I was making it weird.AIBU?

There may have been a language barrier but the beautician’s English was conversational at the very least.

Was I a pest?

You weren’t making it weird. Some ladies like to chat, some don’t. Think your friend is the weird one to comment on the fact you had a bit of chit chat.

I always chat away to my nail ladies. Sounds pretty rubbish sitting there in silence.

I prefer the silence - we're all different!

The nail technician was being unprofessional, as working with the public often means chatting to the public even when you don't fancy it/have something going on in your life.

Having said that, I still wouldn't give it another thought.

Maybe you did something weird with your face. You didn't say anything weird.

I don’t think she could understand you.

I used to work with the public to administer benefits, and on a daily basis would help people who couldn’t speak English fluently. The instinctive approach is to speak in broken English if they were “conversational” - but more often than not, it was required to source an interpreter as their understanding was very basic. More basic than you might assume.

I doubt “newbie” is in your nail tech’s vocabulary for example as it isn’t really a common word for new English speakers to pick up. All she needs to learn is the basic words to be a nail tech.

You can’t really gauge how good someone’s English is after 5 minutes to give the sweeping statement that they can hold conversations. Sometimes it’s also someone’s accent or speed of voice, that can throw them off from understanding. I don’t think her response of “ask your friend” is rude, it could be that she understands your friend easier than you so thought your friend could have tried to explain to her instead