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I Met A Freeloader On The Road And Changed My Mind About Positivity
A face-to-face encounter with toxic positivity
Just as the last passengers were boarded and the driver was making his way to the coach, I saw one woman get up excitedly from the waiting room and follow the driver inside.
She got in and was chatting away, to no one in particular. She approached me and asked me if she could sit next to me as she had some work to do on her laptop. I was gutted that I did not have the extra seat for breathing space but I welcomed having a buddy on the long drive.
Except she was not really interested in talking to me. She asked politely if she could use my hotspot for two minutes to text a friend to tell her what happened.
Oh, I forgot that before that, she told us (anyone who would listen) about how she had lost her phone in Bulgaria, bought a cheap one then got a plane to London.
Now she was looking to go to Brussels but the driver offered her a seat in Paris for cheaper. Her sob story got to me. It is fine, she said, she has a brother in Paris. Two minutes turned to ten minutes, at which point I was growing impatient. I asked her if she was done, and she got slightly upset. I got that uneasy feeling that I was sitting next to a freeloader.
