Why do people always ask me directions?

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Or the time, or choose to sing a Spanish song to their mates whilst looking directly into my eyes as I walk past, eh? Even when there are plenty of other people around and I have my walkman on, thus, I'd have thought, suggesting I was listening to something and therefore a worse choice of person to ask for directions than the person 2feet away from me who has no walkman on?! Why why why? is it because I walk quite quick so look as if I have destination and purpose? Do I just have an approachable face? (-kids always seem to like me too for some reason.) Why why why? I have no sense of direction and a shocking memory for landmarks so asking me for directions is just plain wrong and silly.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:53 (twenty-two years ago)

You must look unthreatening or something. People always ask me for directions, too. Even when I'm in a freaking foreign country.

― kate (kate), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:55 (twenty-two years ago)

(Thing is, even when I'm in a foreign country, I generally have a better sense of where I am and where I am going than most locals. But that's cause I love maps so much.)

― kate (kate), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Because you look like a signpost?

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

What, cross?

― kate (kate), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I get this too. It used to be a source of deep annoyance when I was a moody scowly teenager trying to alienate the entire world, that tourists and old ladies would still happily pick me out of a crowd to talk to.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

People seldom ask me for directions but shop assistants seem to have an overwhelming urge to tell me their entire life story - I dunno why, my boyf thinks it's hilarious.

― smee (smee), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

people do this to me, too. or ask me if i know what subway i am on or where the subway is going (ahem, that's what the fucking maps all over the fucking subway stations are for, you fucking morons!)

yeah, this is a pet peeve of mine too.

― Tad (llamasfur), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

n.b.: i know that NYC subway maps are confusing (though not as much as those of certain other american cities cough! philadelphia!). but really, i do wish people would use some common sense -- manhattan is not that difficult to figure out, not even downtown! (the outer boroughs are another matter, but no-one seems to ask me directions about how to get around in brooklyn or the bronx.) i mean, one side of the train goes uptown, the other goes downtown. it isn't rocket science! and no, i don't know what fucking train i've hopped on (esp. when there are several lines that share the same track)!

― Tad (llamasfur), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I always get asked directions and when I don't know, which is all the time (I can't figure out where my house is half the time, I have a hard time telling east-west-north-south as anyone at the J4 FAP could tell you from the amount of walking I made them do), they get pissed off! It's like, buy a fucking map then, Mr. Smarty Pants. I'm not a tour guide.

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Once some guy stopped his car dead in the middle of a main road, blocking traffic behind him, on the opposite side of the road to me and asked (or rather shouted to) me if I knew the way to Cheam! He was actually in the direction of Chessington, which is totally the wrong way - the utter oppsite way, in fact, and a good 4 miles or so out. As he was holding up traffic, I just quickly nodded when he said "It is this way, yeah?" and he drove blithely off. Then another time someone asked me directions (they were on the same side of the road to me this time and pulled up properly, thank heaven) and I pretended that I was foreign and couldn't speak English to get rid of them. Like Nick, I have no head for giving directions.

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:37 (twenty-two years ago)

am i the only person who likes being asked directions? I like the feeling that they wouldn't have find their destination without me, because obv NO ONE ELSE would have helped them at all.

Actually I live in london so maybe that wasn't sarcastic afterall.

― ken c, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I was walking home from the bus stop (in North London) when a lady pulled over and asked if I knew the way to Central London. Which was a bit vague, but I pointed her in the general direction.

― Emma, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I am happy to be asked, and can sometimes help. I don't get asked often. It is weird, how some people are so approachable, somehow. My ex-wife was an insanely extreme case: she couldn't hang around at a bus-stop for five minutes without some random stranger starting to pour out their troubles/life story to her. She'd always be the one to be approached by random nutters too. It meant that she lived in a different world from most of us: when I once mentioned that no one talks to anyone else on the tube (bar friends, plus some comment when there is trouble) she was completely confused. Eventually, it became clear that when she rode the tube, within minutes that whole section of the carriage would be chatting together. I never quite understood it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Asking me for directions is a disastrous idea but I do like to be asked. Sometimes I want to follow them to see just how bad my advice was.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

People who ask you for directions and then go in completely the opposite direction - C/D?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Today somebody said to me, "Hey you know what day it is?" and I had to think for a second, totally drew a blank and he just snorted and said "Oh forget it" and asked the next person, It just dawned on me though, why was he acting so superior if he had to ask someone in the first place? People are weird. It IS Wednesday right?

― dave q, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 16:37 (twenty-two years ago)

That's weird. Does EVERYBODY here always get asked directions even when they're in a non-home city or country? It's "get off bus/plane, Brazilian seeking monument accosts you before you get the cigarette in your mouth."

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

When i was 15 i was walkin to school and a golf gti pulled up beside me and i noticed the driver and all passengers were of indian origin and looked rather frightening. The man asked where the location of this school was, i tried explaining and he pretended not to understand, and offered me into the front seat, now i wudnt have usually gone in, but he offered me 10 pounds, so i thought why not, anyway, i showed him where to go then he dropped me off at the school as it wasnt far from mine, and suddenly took money back and my bag, and drove off. Now i tried explaining to my teachers this, as a reason for my not handing my homework in, did they belive me?ha. moral of the story, dont trust indians in golf gtis :(

― Simon Byrne, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 17:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Is that a pun?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 17:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I like when people ask me directions. But that's cuz I send them in the opposite direction and laugh at their inability to read simple maps.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone asks me [for] directions. Sometimes in foreign languages, like "Ach, ja, this nice Kerl looks like he speaks Deutsch! Entschuldigen Sie..."

My scoundrel friend Nick used to give people elaborately wrong directions, with a confident and trustworthy expression on his face -- the same expression he always wore, actually.

The other day I was standing at 20th Street and Broadway. A woman comes up to me and asks, "Which way is it to 19th Street and Broadway?" I point downtown along Broadway and say, "One block that way. This is 20th; one block down is 19th."

She looks at me distrustfully for a moment, then says, "Can you come show me?"

― Paul Eater (eater), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

She was hitting on you, duh.

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Or she was leading you into an ambush with ninjas and stuff.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 18:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I get asked everything. I must look like a brilliant fucking genius to people. I walk down a street in Boston or DC or Atlanta or San Francisco and I will get asked for directions. I walk down a street with EIGHT FRIENDS surrounding me and I, I get asked for directions. I walk out of Amoeba records with SIX OTHER PEOPLE and two British girls with a digital camera interview ME about the in-store act. My buddy and I go into a music store, he starts playing with keyboards while I stand around, and random guy turns around and asks ME if I know a lot about synthesizers.

Of course in 90% of these cases described these people were right to ask me since I do know about synthesizers, I was familiar with the guy doing the in-store at Amoeba, I did know in fact how to get to where the people in Boston and Atlanta and SF wanted to go etc. - it STILL doesn't make any sense.

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:26 (twenty-two years ago)

OK hang on for some reason this all made me think of the worst thing about my job. I have to answer the door, right, cos none of these other lazy ass motherfuckers will do it. So at least 4 times a day, someone rings the doorbell to ask me where the Phillips Club or the Red Cross are. I'm like, IS THIS 411? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU BOTHERING ME FOR? The fact that there are massive signs on the correct buildings indicating where they are (immediately down the street) doesn't escape me. I put a sign up once that said "NOT THE PHILLIPS CLUB FUCK OFF" and got in trouble.

And don't get me started on the people who bother me while I'm smoking to ask about the goddamned Normandie, wtf do I know about ships?

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

i get this a lot too. on the other hand, nobody sits next to me on buses.

people in cars don't seem to have realised that asking pedestrians for directions is a bad idea because they have no idea about one way systems and the like and cars can't go down alleys.

andy

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 20:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe they are filming The French Connection III or something.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick, can you tell me how to get from Walton to Exeter by car?

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Thursday, 24 July 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

P-ractice?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 24 July 2003 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

No I can't, colin.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 24 July 2003 07:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, can a New Yorker tell me whether they are actually ever asked the way to get to Carnegie Hall and if so whether the joke ever wears off?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 24 July 2003 07:31 (twenty-two years ago)

On my last day in New York, I stopped to ask a couple of tourists if they were lost, and helped them (just directed them to the nearest subway, which was hidden beneath the Museum of Natural History). They were pretty impressed, as I was wearing my IheartNY t-shirt, and so clearly even more of a tourist than them.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah, I took great satisfaction in being able to point people to the right subway line by the end of my one and only 10 day trip to NY.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I will never be able to point to the right subway line. I refuse to learn that horrible shit.

On the other hand I am willing to bet all of you that get asked directions all the time COLD HARD CASH that if you hang out with me nobody will ask you for directions. They will ask me instead. Didn't this happen outside Sunny's that night? I think it did.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:51 (twenty-two years ago)

We're all so bitter about being approachable.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:52 (twenty-two years ago)

When people ask me for directions to somewhere I don't know, and I get my A-Z out to help them, they tend to be amazed and pathetically grateful. Are they mentalists, or am I?

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:55 (twenty-two years ago)

you are.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Are they amazed at your actions or the existence of the magical map book?

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes Julio but you're the one with that beard.

RT: they seem amazed that I'm prepared to stop for two minues to help (although some people in North London seem bemused by the existence of the alphabet).

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 24 July 2003 09:00 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was visiting London for a week, about a month ago, I was amazed by the number of people asking me for directions on the Underground. Helping little old ladies get to their destination did give me a nice warm feeling inside, but I've got no idea why they kept asking *me*.

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 24 July 2003 14:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think the question was specifically directed towards you, you self-centered freak. In fact, you weren't even near us when we were asked (BOTH TIMES) and on both occasions CAME OVER to offer completely useless advice to the drivers about how you aren't from around here and thus would have no idea. If this is how you are defining "people coming out of the blue to ask you directions", I think you are cheating!!

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 24 July 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

act like yer a foreigner yerself. i've taken to answering questions like this in german or polish. i just hope that i don't get a german or polish tourist asking me directions or i'm fucked.

― Tad (llamasfur), Thursday, 24 July 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

If this is how you are defining "people coming out of the blue to ask you directions", I think you are cheating!!

whatever.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 24 July 2003 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, nice comeback, chess champion.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 24 July 2003 23:56 (twenty-two years ago)

how do i get to sandy hook from manhattan?

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 25 July 2003 00:03 (twenty-two years ago)

the ferry!

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 25 July 2003 03:03 (twenty-two years ago)

You come meet up with me and Mary and bnw and go with us!

― Ally (mlescaut), Friday, 25 July 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

TART

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 25 July 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

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