The Art of the Ignore

Ignoring people – sometimes it’s rude, but other times it’s a good idea. Let’s say a friend wants to talk endlessly about details of her life that you find boring, unpleasant, overly personal, or just plain ridiculous. It would be rude to just ignore her because she is, after all, a friend, right? On the other hand, if you grew up with siblings, your mom probably told you repeatedly to just ignore your brother or sister’s attempts to annoy or harass you, as in:

“Mooommmm, he’s looking at me.” (said in the whiniest voice ever)

“Just ignore him.” (said with exasperation and an unspoken yet distinct threat of negative consequences if you choose not to ignore the culprit)

I’ve discovered a new “ignore” category that I’m enjoying immensely. Are you on LinkedIn, the quasi-professional version of Facebook? On LinkedIn, when someone asks you to connect, you can choose to “Accept” the invitation or “Ignore” the invitation. As I understand it, the inviter is notified if you Accept, but simply gets no response at all if you Ignore. It might be appropriate to Ignore complete strangers, people you know who creep you out, or potential stalker types. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to Ignore someone.

You know, if I had had an Ignore Button when I was about 4 or 5 years old, it would have saved my mother all kinds of humiliation. Why? Because I was a shy little kid, but pretty cute. Adults seemed to think that my cuteness gave them permission to invade my personal space to pinch my cheek or pat my head or other seemingly innocuous gestures that I DID NOT LIKE. My response was to look such an intruder straight in the eye, point my finger and make a giant air “X” in front of the offender’s face while chanting, “I-Cross-You-Out.”


An Ignore Button would have been a much more gracious solution, but it’s not my fault that there are alot of annoying ppl in the world i have to ignore. If by chance you are one of the people I crossed out years ago, I apologize for being rude, but really, you had it coming. And Mom, I know it must have been humiliating, but it gave you a great story to tell over and over and over again for decades, right?(mom,"WRONG")

by