Spinach in your teeth
Apr 9th, 2007 by Creativity Coach
You know that moment when you notice your friend has spinach in his teeth? Do you tell him?
There are those interminable minutes of paralysis where you can’t bring yourself to say, “Hey man, you have a huge hunk of green between your right incisor and canine.” What the heck is that all about?
Yesterday a friend had a bit of white fuzz on his eyebrow and it took me a whole half hour to break the conversation and tell him. He got kinda pissed with me–understandably. I could have told him the moment I saw it.
He had a really good point that I took the time to think about today: why wait and let someone continue to walk around with something embarrassing in their teeth, or hair, or nose? We all appreciate it when a friend, or even a total stranger, points these things out to us, aren’t we?
Are we really afraid of the other person’s reaction? Obviously not! I can just hear how silly that would sound in my own head, “Oh no! He’ll thank me and I just couldn’t bear the thought of that! The horror!”
So, that’s not the reason we sit still and keep our mouths shut. At some point when my eyes wandered again to the bit of fuzz, I became vaguely aware that I was trapped in my own mortifying memories of being the one with the booger in my nose. I have no idea why I hesitate when I know that the right thing to do would be to speak up. Interrupt the conversation, if necessary.
I have other stories of times when I did speak up right away. What made the difference between action and hesitation? I don’t know the answer to that one either. I suspect it’s all in the urgency of the situation—for example, if I don’t do something NOW, the tiny hole in my friend’s pants will become a huge split and the whole world will see her ass.
Actually, in the case of an open zipper, I worry that someone will question why I was looking there in the first place. (Come to think of it, if you don’t want me looking there, close the damned zipper!)
Whatever the fears that keep us silent, they don’t really hold up under scrutiny. I can’t think of a single valid reason to not spare friend or stranger further embarrassment. All we have to do is quietly mention it, or remove the offending article discreetly. Unless they’re total freaks, they will thank you for it.
(I would be careful about picking white stuff off the back of a friend’s sweater, though. It’s not always cake icing.)