Today I am back at work. I put away my bicycle and collect my breakfast and head up the stairs. En route I am joined by someone I know only a little. I nod. She nods. Personally I think that's enough socializing for one day but apparently not.
distant co-worker three times removed: [cheerily] "still bicycling in 2012?"
Chafe City: [I admit it] "Yes."
distant co-worker [with wonder] "How do you do it?"
Chafe City: "umm." [I mean what. How to bicycle? How to pedal? Where to get a bicycle? Where to get a pedal?]
distant co-worker: "I get up in the morning and just head right to my car."
Chafe City: [uncomfortably] "I do basically the same thing. Except it's a bicycle."
distant co-worker: "But how do you ...you know...get yourself to do it?"
Chafe City: [we are now stalled on a stairwell. I fight off despair] "Do you ever have a tough time getting pysched to go to work in the morning?"
distant co-worker "Well, sure."
Chafe City [briskly] "But you go anyway, right?"
distant co-worker "Well sure."
Chafe City "Same thing. Except I bicycle. You could too."
distant co-worker [earnestly] "It's different. I just get in my car and turn the key in the ignition."
Chafe City "It's the same. I just get on my bicycle. And I pedal."
argh.
ReplyDeleteI have a new co-worker who is constantly commenting on my biking. On one hand she's very admiring of the bike, my new helmet, that I ride every day. On the other, it seems that without fail, she slips into the conversation how dangerous it is, and it seems suicidal to bike in downtown boston. It gives me whiplash. I think that subliminally she's attracted to it, but she's not comfortable with it, so she makes horrible statements for psychic balance. I think it's like your Cambridge acquaintance who says "Cars drive in the bike lanes" and means "I drive in the bike lane". She says "Boston drivers are so awful" ......
Everyone else is used to it now, so I rarely have conversations of this sort, except sometimes with random people on the elevator.
But basically your distant coworker is just saying "I'm lazy", isn't she?
@cycler Perhaps I am unfair, but at least some of the time I think people are disappointed that I am not yet dead as it makes masking their reasons for not bicycling (it's dangerous) much harder.
ReplyDeleteI think my co-worker is (1) trying to flatter me and (2) wanting me to support her position that bicycling is a nearly insurmountable task.
I can't think of a single time when a guy suggested bicycling was dangerous. It seems to be a charge women volley at other women.