Please help a social moron......

[Jack Straw]

My social skills are that of a hermit and as I grow older I am trying to be more polite. The Jehovah Witnesses showed up here a few weeks back so I did my best to be polite and I listened to their speech. They left some paperwork and went on their way. Last week they showed up and I did my best to be nice and again listened to the speech. Today they stopped again and started going on about whatever. This time I was quite curt and I told them I would never join their ranks and I was too busy for them to keep bothering me.
It seems to me that I should have been my normal rude self the on their first visit. Maybe I shouldn't bother trying to become nicer. What say you?

 

[PapaDave]

When JW show up, they barely make out of the car before I'm out there shooing 'em away.
I don't let 'em even get started.
I didn't invite them and have no interest.
Same with salespeople. Doesn't happen much, but even one is too many.

 

[USMC80]

I tried being nice with them and they keep bothering us. Now I just let my 98 lb pit (super friendly but very intimidating) jump up to the window and bark. They turn around quickly. Works for salesman too. If I'm outside when they arrive I quickly tell them I'm just too busy

 

[BrotherBart]

Back in the early seventies I lived in a singles apartment complex. I wouldn't suggest it but after a Friday night of hard partying in the community room I got a call warning my hungover self that the Witnesses were making the rounds. When the doorbell rang I opened the door standing there buck naked. You never saw such a hasty retreat and I was never bothered by them again.

 

[USMC80]

Back in the early seventies I lived in a singles apartment complex. I wouldn't suggest it but after a Friday night of hard partying in the community room I got a call warning my hungover self that the Witnesses were making the rounds. When the doorbell rang I opened the door standing there buck naked. You never saw such a hasty retreat and I was never bothered by them again.

hahaha nice! Might not go over to well by me. They always bring along a young child to guilt you

 

[Delta-T]

i have a small "no soliciting" sign on my front door...pretty much takes care of everything except the politcal blanket crews who obviously cannot read, or do not know what solicitation is outside of prostitution. Could also be that I have a reputation of being "the weird guy" in the neighborhood. one of life's great mysteries.

 

[bmblank]

You can be courteous and still say no. You just say that you're sorry, but you're not interested in what they have to say. If they step it up, then you step it up. At some point you may have to insist that they leave. Don't yell and tell them how stupid they are and whatnot.

 

[fossil]

Never rude. I greet them and immediately tell them I'm a non-theist, so that we have nothing whatever in common so far as religious beliefs go. Maybe some small talk chat about the weather or whatever. I accept nothing from them. I wish them good luck in their "work" and we part amicably, everyone wishing everyone else a good day. The're perfectly nice people doing something they feel deeply about having been "called" to do. I've no reason to be nasty to them. Rick

ETA: Once, after I labeled myself a "non-theist", the young lady I was talking to asked, "What's that?"

 

[PapaDave]

Ever had anybody show up trying to sell laundry soap out of a van?
He was coming up the walk with a jug in his hand. I merely told him to have a great day, but I wasn't interested. I may have passed up a good deal.
I actually talked to a political candidate a few years ago as I sat in the yard. Shocked myself. Very weird of me.
I'm pretty sure he was speaking Martian or something, 'cause all I heard was similar to the sound of the teacher on "Peanuts". Wah, wah wah....wah wah wah wah.

 

[Jags]

Being in the position I am in I get Tons of cold calls from people insisting that they have exactly the product or service that I need to have. I state my interest clearly and concisely. I have no interest in them wasting my time or vise versa. It is amazing how effective "I won't be interested, Thank you." really is.

 

[Pallet Pete]

I am a Dick to them as they won't leave us alone ! The last time I opened the door and said in a normal voice - its ok dear I buried him outback. The cops showed up to see a stray cat I buried they left fast too lol.

Pete

 

[webbie]

Maybe you could be nice the first time but at the end of the conversation tell them to never come back....

 

[Delta-T]

you could always try to convert them to your....philosophy. If'n yer good at it, there's pretty good $$ in tele-vangelism I hear.

 

[ScotO]

Tele-vandalism......tell 'em if they don't get off of your property, they are going to wear your TV for a headpiece.....

Seriously, they come here too. And we kindly tell them, time and again, we aren't interested. That usually works......but occasionally, you have to "up" your tactics. That's when the 'redneck' comes out of me, and I tell them I'll hear them out if they drink a couple of beers with me.......
needless to say, they leave.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

It is actually extremely easy to get rid of them without being rude in any way and you both can be smiling. My normal greeting is to ask right up front if they are Jehovah's Witness'. They will say yes and then I'll simply say something like, "Thank you for stopping but our beliefs are much different than yours so I am not interested." No hurt feelings on either part.

If you do want to have some fun (and I'm not against doing a bit of this myself) is to simply begin talking about Jesus Christ and the fact that he is God. If you wish, look up in the Gospel of John, Chapter 20, verse 28. "And Thomas (of doubting Thomas fame) answered and said to Him (Jesus), "My Lord and my God!" Then ask, "If Thomas is calling Jesus God, and the Word can not lie, then why do you say Jesus is not God?"

Funny one time when one said, "No. He said, "My God, it's the Lord!" Okay...

I have nothing in particular against these folks and they can and do a lot of good work in the world so I won't run them down. It is just that they have some strange beliefs.

 

[Dix]

I never answer the front door. Any one in the "know" uses the back door.

 

[midwestcoast]

I don't think this has much to do with social skills necessarily. I mean I get along with most folks just fine, but I really don't like people knocking on my door figuring they'll change my world view in a single conversation.
I figure we have little in common and they are about as likely to really listen to me as I am to them. So I just save us all the time & cut it very short.
"I'm not interested thanks" is about as sociable as I get in that situation. I feel no obligation to listen just because they want to talk, so if they keep yapping I just say sorry & close the door. Same goes with telemarketers.
I guess not yelling, cursing them out or threatening violence counts as social skills

 

[wesessiah]

I tried being nice with them and they keep bothering us. Now I just let my 98 lb pit (super friendly but very intimidating) jump up to the window and bark. They turn around quickly. Works for salesman too. If I'm outside when they arrive I quickly tell them I'm just too busy

Back in the early seventies I lived in a singles apartment complex. I wouldn't suggest it but after a Friday night of hard partying in the community room I got a call warning my hungover self that the Witnesses were making the rounds. When the doorbell rang I opened the door standing there buck naked. You never saw such a hasty retreat and I was never bothered by them again.

these are two of my approaches... first encounter, i'm friendly, and give them a couple of minutes. if the same ones show up again, i use both of the above listed tactics. something else i never knew of until recently is, if you say "i'll give you 15 minutes, if you give me 15 minutes to tell you about my beliefs" they will decline.

100 pound dogs tend to make people turn the other way...

 

[Thistle]

Dont see them too often but one way I get rid of them (and all other trespassing solicitors) is to have Guns N Roses,Black Sabbath or similar blaring in the background while opening up the door with a 40oz PBR in one hand with my 9mm Glock at my hip.....

I did tell them through the screen door once I was raised a Baptist,you never seen them run down the steps so fast....

 

[bfunk13]

Man, i have the complete opposite problem.
The older i get the less i care who i piss off...

 

[billb3]

I just state a thanks but no thanks and close the door too.

Telling them you already have religion is usually one of the worst things to do because now you are someone who really neeeds saving and more of their attention.

My house sits quite ways back from the street and most pass it by.

 

[ScotO]

I feel no obligation to listen just because they want to talk, so if they keep yapping I just say sorry & close the door. Same goes with telemarketers.

I had to laugh and follow up on this as ever since I saw the episode on Seinfeld where he is on the phone with a telemarketer, I stopped hanging up on them and started the patented Seinfeld "reverse telemarketing" method. I would let them get through their speedy initial introduction, at which point I stop and say "Hey, I'm really busy right now, but how about you give me YOUR home phone number and I'll call YOU back later this evening when you are on YOUR personal time....say around 1:00-2:00AM.....sound good?" Sometimes I have to repeat that whole phrase, and for the really stubborn ones a three-peat is necessary. But that usually ends the call!

Kinda sucks because nowadays, its a pre-recorded message. Thank God for caller ID. If my phone says "unknown" on the caller ID, it don't get answered at all.....

 

[wesessiah]

I had to laugh and follow up on this as ever since I saw the episode on Seinfeld where he is on the phone with a telemarketer, I stopped hanging up on them and started the patented Seinfeld "reverse telemarketing" method. I would let them get through their speedy initial introduction, at which point I stop and say "Hey, I'm really busy right now, but how about you give me YOUR home phone number and I'll call YOU back later this evening when you are on YOUR personal time....say around 1:00-2:00AM.....sound good?" Sometimes I have to repeat that whole phrase, and for the really stubborn ones a three-peat is necessary. But that usually ends the call!

Kinda sucks because nowadays, its a pre-recorded message. Thank God for caller ID. If my phone says "unknown" on the caller ID, it don't get answered at all.....

these telemarketers don't even care when they call a police department... they'll keep talking until you threaten to charge them with misuse of an emergency line.

 

[ScotO]

these telemarketers don't even care when they call a police department... they'll keep talking until you threaten to charge them with misuse of an emergency line.

I like to play hardball with ones like that.....and believe me, I HAVE played hardball with them, too...

 

[Delta-T]

I like to answer the telemarketrs with " Hello! You've just won an all expenses paid trip to tropical Fiji! Press 1 now!" then you just sit and wait.

the phone at my house is never for me, so when I answer, I say "hello" and wait for whoever is calling for my wife to ask to speak to her...her parents and her sister haven't quite picked up on this (after many years) and will say "hello" back to me, and then just sit there....I say nothing, they say nothing...until about 30-40 seconds later whaen they say "is Jen there" and I say "yes"...and wait...about another 15 seconds later comes the "can I talk to her" follow by "hold on, I will get her". Same, everytime, pretty much every other day. Life's small moments where we get to mess with pepole and no one gets hurt.

btw, anyone intersted in a small, in home demonstration of my new line of plastic steak knives/vaccuum cleaner/home fitness contraption?