Barberous
Went and got my hair cut this afternoon. (No, I still didn't get it bleached. Maybe some day.) Been going to the same little hair salon (is that the right word?) for about ten years now, on and off; it's local, not part of a chain, and though there's not much variety in the haircuts they give, their haircut is luckily one I like. And it's cheap. And I like the woman who usually cuts my hair, even though (or perhaps because) we have very little interaction; she smiles, I smile, I tell her to take an inch off the back and cut a little above my ears, she does, I pay, all's copacetic.
But the last three times I've gone, this guy has cut my hair instead. I certainly have no problem with having my hair cut by a man; the problem is that this particular man really likes to chat with his customers. I'm fine with that from some customer-service kinds of people, but there's something about this guy's manner that puts me off; also, though he starts with reasonable questions like "Bad weather today, huh?", he quickly moves on to questions like "How far away do you live? Did you go to work today? What did you do today? How big is your apartment? How much do you pay in rent?" The first of those is reasonable for random smalltalk; the second through fourth feel a little less so, but I could certainly imagine those questions coming up in conversation (if an actual conversation were going on); the last seems beyond the pale to me.
And he doesn't let up. If I don't answer, or if I answer noncommittally, he asks the same question again and again, perhaps phrased slightly differently.
I finally hit on the stratagem of simply ignoring his questions; after the fourth or fifth repetition, he stops asking. This is rude of me, and awkward, but I don't know how else to manage it. I suppose to be adult I should say "I'm sorry, I don't feel like chatting." But I kinda feel like I shouldn't have to say that, like he should be aware that not all customers want to carry on conversations with random strangers who happen to be cutting their hair.
If this keeps up, I'll have to find another place to get my hair cut; not worth going somewhere that makes me that tense.
(I suppose I should note that there's lots of subtext underlying the above: class issues (as a child of hippies, I'm not really comfortable with paying people to do work for me in general); race issues (I neglected to mention that everyone who works at this place is of East Asian descent, I think specifically Chinese); my general level of (dis)comfort interacting with strangers; etc.)