Originally Posted by
Spoonrobot
You be nice to people by respecting their response, if they do not respond to you or respond negatively; you leave them alone. Sure, say "hi" but if they don't respond or respond negatively, you leave them alone. This is very easy to understand.
I work with abused/abandoned/neglected children so maybe I'm just too sensitive to this but it is always a red flag when an adult male attempts to repeatedly interact with children that 1. they do not know 2. have already responded negatively or not at all. I mean think about it, those kids are forced to be at that bus stop every day. That is a space they have little to no choice but to go to, every day. Now this adult man on a bicycle is going to come by and cajole them into paying attention and responding to him. How often is he going to do this? Every day? Is he going see something he didn't like in the morning and then come back and wait to confront someone in the afternoon? It is creepy and is not behavior that is appropriate.
This was not meant to be offensive, it was meant to be educational. Sometimes knowing how to behave in public is not intuitive and it can be helpful to use the things one should not do to start a frame of reference.
Yes, I can understand and appreciate your sensitivity to this, but I think it is an overreaction. This man is engaged in something that is harmless. I see no problem in trying to get teenagers to engage in friendly banter. So many of you are reading way too much in this and being judgmental. Unless any of these kids say "Stop saying hi to us!" I see no problem. We're talking about a guy on a bike, going anywhere between 12 and 20 MPH, passing by who doesn't stop, with an interaction time of, what, anywhere between 2 and at most 10 seconds, to a
group of teenagers, outside in a public area.
As my last post on this (oh, except for my post awaiting moderator approval for whatever reason that might show up after this), I say chill, folks. Take his friendly post for what it is and stop the lecturing to him already. Really, to me, some of the posts and reactions here are more bizarre than the behavior with which you are accusing him.
Have a great ride.