Whom should i give more Attention?
why do i want to receive less attention from people?
it’s simple, sometimes if i receive too much attention from people, it could be super disturbing and a bunch of low engagement conversation . for example, i am living as a nomad in russia now during covid19, there are super rarely travelers throughout the world, and i didnt know and meet a single tourist in irkutsk and vladivastok. countless of people look at me, but this is not the attention i am talking about. i am talking about deeper stuff like, wanting to talk to me.
usually i know people from couchsurfing, and on the street. and very often after i interacted with hosts and people ive interacted with on the street, they would tell their friends, about me, like
“ i meet a traveler from taiwan today and he speak great russian and english”
“i am hosting a guy who want to save the world”
“a foreigner approach us today on the street!”
“he has a youtube channel about making people happy!”
“he is so handsome” ( JKING)
further they would invite me to parties, meeting, hangout , texting me on instagram.
but! the problem is that most of the people that interacted with me arent openminded enough, english aint good enough( my rus lang still suck at this point). its really hard to have high engagement conversation with them. and its even harder for me to refuse not to talk to them:(( its really hard for me, i realized at this point i can be a super kind person, i need to focus on my work but still didnt/could not refuse their invitation of interacting with them.
what kind of conversations i had in these 3 months that i want to avoid in the future ?
people ask me so many questions, although i still ask more, but receiving same questions all the time and not getting high engagement feedback could not satisfy me.
“eric where are you from”
“eric is taiwan part of china?”
“do people in taiwan speak chinese?”
“how do you learn your russian?”
“does your parent worry about you traveling in russia during covid19?”
“how do you learn your english?”
“what do you think of russia?”
“our famous dish in russia is boscht?(sorry i dont even know the name i dont wanna waste my time to know the name, but i know what are they talking about)”
“how do you earn money?”
“wow you are still wearing snow pants and long sleeves”
“what is your finger doing eric( i do eye exercise every 1 hour, i have strasbismus)”
me:”i could really understand how celebrity feel when they kept being asked the same questions over and over again”
the problem with these questions are not the questions are boring to me, because i know its interesting for them, but rarely people focus on my interest ,rarely people ask about my youtube, my dream, my goal:(( i am the person who ask them. one of the things i have learned from conversation in 2020 is that — ask more questions about their interest, could boost the conversation. like fuel to car.
what should i do if unqualified people trying to talk to me?
you:“eric, please define unqualified”
me:” people who dont speak good english or chinese, people who lose focus on me within 1 minute of our conversation”
haha at this point i think its easy, but i just never introspect about it, i guess i simply just need to say
“sorry Harry, i would love to talk to you but i seriously need to work now”
202006eric
