Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.
Speaker 2: This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast. It's
Speaker 2: Flex and Rooms on Kata. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: you know, but when I open up dms from people
Speaker 2: on Instagram, I'm able to scroll up and see our
Speaker 2: conversational thread and sometimes that kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it spricks an idea, an old thought that I had.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you remember me telling you
Speaker 2: this story about me getting on a plane and sitting
Speaker 2: next to this older couple and we were all wearing masks.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like mandated, but you know, we're mindfulful. And
Speaker 2: so I was sitting on an aisle seat right, so
Speaker 2: the person behind me in the middle seat was incessantly coughing,
Speaker 2: and it's like the guard all chesty, flemy cough spluttering,
Speaker 2: kind of like speaking as well, and just like really
Speaker 2: not having the best social decorum. And because our plane
Speaker 2: had been delayed, we're kind of sitting there taxied for
Speaker 2: a little while. Now I felt sympathetic for the person coughing,
Speaker 2: because you don't want to have a coughing fit on
Speaker 2: a plane. Nobody is going to be gentle with your feelings.
Speaker 2: But what ended up happening is after about thirty minutes
Speaker 2: of this, the couple next to me turned around and
Speaker 2: offered them a mask, and they said no, thank you,
Speaker 2: and they said, you're actually what you're doing is actually
Speaker 2: quite harmful. Said, the last thirty minutes, you've been coughing,
Speaker 2: you've been spluttering. It's not being great. You've made no
Speaker 2: attempts to cover yourself. I'm hearing you so clearly, like
Speaker 2: I'm sitting next to you. Please just take this mask.
Speaker 2: And the girls like they're so rude, like la la
Speaker 2: la la.
Speaker 1: Lah.
Speaker 2: I started this conversation online and asked who was ruder
Speaker 2: in that in that instance, the person coughing like loudly
Speaker 2: in everybody's air or the older couple, and it was
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty. Wow, which I find so surprising because
Speaker 2: everyone's like, well, the couple should have approached it nicer,
Speaker 2: and it's like I was talking my people's health and
Speaker 2: health and wellness fame. But anyway, it prompted this response
Speaker 2: that I got from this person that I didn't see
Speaker 2: until almost a year later when I saw them message
Speaker 2: me again, listen to this. This person says, controversial opinion,
Speaker 2: but confrontation is in fact, positive expression done in a
Speaker 2: non violent, respectful way. It's constructive feedback on public behavior.
Speaker 2: Discomfort with confrontation is something we should reflect on because
Speaker 2: why we uncomfortable expressing communal values in public, particularly if
Speaker 2: someone is doing something that directly affects the people around
Speaker 2: them in a negative way. I said, let's really mull
Speaker 2: over that on a second, because I have no doubt
Speaker 2: that everybody in the vicinity was freaking out at this coughing.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone's like kind of looking back, seeing where
Speaker 2: it's coming from, putting on masks that they didn't have before,
Speaker 2: maybe kind of like motioning to cover their faces, or
Speaker 2: just being a bit more mindful of their own body
Speaker 2: and their bodily fluids. But all of a sudden, as
Speaker 2: soon as our older couple said hey, like do you mind,
Speaker 2: the energy shifted, and I felt people thinking that the
Speaker 2: older couple were added. And I'm saying that older because
Speaker 2: I was hearing commentary as we're getting off the plane,
Speaker 2: and everyone's like, yeah, see this is a thing like
Speaker 2: old people. This old people that like it's not a
Speaker 2: big deal. And I think the commentary was from someone
Speaker 2: who knew the girl as well, right, But I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm saying older, so you know the context. But realistically,
Speaker 2: it was so brave for that couple to say something,
Speaker 2: because to isolate yourself from a group in any instance,
Speaker 2: especially public, especially when you're not around your people, is
Speaker 2: such an unsafe thing to do. It could have gone
Speaker 2: either way, could have been a whole fistfight. People are insane,
Speaker 2: and especially on a flight where everybody feels entitled. I
Speaker 2: paid to be here. This is my seat three, A
Speaker 2: thank you. It's a bit of me.
Speaker 1: Once you have one real bad public confrontation after you
Speaker 1: try to stick up for the quote unquote communal values
Speaker 1: that this person talks about, try doing it once, guys
Speaker 1: triving in my ship. No, but I'm serious, Try that
Speaker 1: at once and getting abused to hell and high water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the communal value seem a little less communal and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: Because then, as someone who definitely took up that role
Speaker 2: and was asked to do that in too many situations,
Speaker 2: I was like, it is so unsafe out here. It
Speaker 2: is beyond unsafe. And it's also really confronting to know
Speaker 2: that once you put yourself in harm's way, people don't
Speaker 2: have your back.
Speaker 1: Literally.
Speaker 2: I love seeing like people stand up for their people.
Speaker 2: I don't even need to see the circumstance. I just
Speaker 2: love to know that, Like, if something's going down, someone's partner,
Speaker 2: best friend, teacher is like, wait a second, what's going
Speaker 2: on here? Because yeah, these communal values they're there. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: when we're all on the plane scared to death COVID, they've.
Speaker 1: Just bitch, Yeah, where are the flat atcendants. It's not
Speaker 1: nice to stand out from the pack.
Speaker 2: It's not especially when it almost feels like you're telling
Speaker 2: someone how too human. Yeah, gosh, it's not. People always
Speaker 2: do it to young mums. Oh they loved people hate women.
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