Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.
This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast. It's Flex and Rooms on Kata. So I don't know if you know, but when I open up dms from people on Instagram, I'm able to scroll up and see our conversational thread and sometimes that kind of like, I don't know, it spricks an idea, an old thought that I had. And I don't know if you remember me telling you this story about me getting on a plane and sitting next to this older couple and we were all wearing masks.
It wasn't like mandated, but you know, we're mindfulful. And so I was sitting on an aisle seat right, so the person behind me in the middle seat was incessantly coughing, and it's like the guard all chesty, flemy cough spluttering, kind of like speaking as well, and just like really not having the best social decorum. And because our plane had been delayed, we're kind of sitting there taxied for
a little while. Now I felt sympathetic for the person coughing, because you don't want to have a coughing fit on a plane. Nobody is going to be gentle with your feelings. But what ended up happening is after about thirty minutes of this, the couple next to me turned around and offered them a mask, and they said no, thank you, and they said, you're actually what you're doing is actually quite harmful. Said, the last thirty minutes, you've been coughing,
you've been spluttering. It's not being great. You've made no attempts to cover yourself. I'm hearing you so clearly, like I'm sitting next to you. Please just take this mask. And the girls like they're so rude, like la la la la.
Lah.
I started this conversation online and asked who was ruder in that in that instance, the person coughing like loudly in everybody's air or the older couple, and it was fifty to fifty. Wow, which I find so surprising because everyone's like, well, the couple should have approached it nicer, and it's like I was talking my people's health and
health and wellness fame. But anyway, it prompted this response that I got from this person that I didn't see until almost a year later when I saw them message me again, listen to this. This person says, controversial opinion, but confrontation is in fact, positive expression done in a non violent, respectful way. It's constructive feedback on public behavior.
Discomfort with confrontation is something we should reflect on because why we uncomfortable expressing communal values in public, particularly if someone is doing something that directly affects the people around them in a negative way. I said, let's really mull over that on a second, because I have no doubt that everybody in the vicinity was freaking out at this coughing.
You know, everyone's like kind of looking back, seeing where it's coming from, putting on masks that they didn't have before, maybe kind of like motioning to cover their faces, or just being a bit more mindful of their own body and their bodily fluids. But all of a sudden, as soon as our older couple said hey, like do you mind, the energy shifted, and I felt people thinking that the
older couple were added. And I'm saying that older because I was hearing commentary as we're getting off the plane, and everyone's like, yeah, see this is a thing like old people. This old people that like it's not a big deal. And I think the commentary was from someone who knew the girl as well, right, But I was like,
I'm saying older, so you know the context. But realistically, it was so brave for that couple to say something, because to isolate yourself from a group in any instance, especially public, especially when you're not around your people, is such an unsafe thing to do. It could have gone either way, could have been a whole fistfight. People are insane, and especially on a flight where everybody feels entitled. I paid to be here. This is my seat three, A thank you. It's a bit of me.
Once you have one real bad public confrontation after you try to stick up for the quote unquote communal values that this person talks about, try doing it once, guys triving in my ship. No, but I'm serious, Try that at once and getting abused to hell and high water. Yeah, and the communal value seem a little less communal and gentlemen.
Because then, as someone who definitely took up that role and was asked to do that in too many situations, I was like, it is so unsafe out here. It is beyond unsafe. And it's also really confronting to know that once you put yourself in harm's way, people don't have your back.
Literally.
I love seeing like people stand up for their people. I don't even need to see the circumstance. I just love to know that, Like, if something's going down, someone's partner, best friend, teacher is like, wait a second, what's going on here? Because yeah, these communal values they're there. Suddenly, when we're all on the plane scared to death COVID, they've.
Just bitch, Yeah, where are the flat atcendants. It's not nice to stand out from the pack.
It's not especially when it almost feels like you're telling someone how too human. Yeah, gosh, it's not. People always do it to young mums. Oh they loved people hate women. Told you you've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast. For more, Tune Indicater on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.