OK everyone, how do you deal with people who for whatever reason, disapprove of
you unicycling? This includes peers, authority figures, and people who just got
thwacked with a runaway uni…
RE: What to do with disapproval?
> OK everyone, how do you deal with people who for whatever reason, disapprove
> of you unicycling? This includes peers, authority figures,
Relax and feel good about the fact that not only can they not do it, they don’t
believe they ever could. For some, that’s the reason for their disapproval. It’s
a problem with them, not with you.
> and people who just got thwacked with a runaway uni…
For these a profuse apology, and don’t let it happen again!
Stay on top, John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
Re: What to do with disapproval?
“uni mtl” <dwilliams@mtl.clubplus.net> writes:
> how do you deal with people who for whatever reason, disapprove of you
> unicycling?
I’ve never really run into that.
My closest experience was hearing from my then-girlfriend that one of her
friends was uncomfortable with the fact that I juggled. (Presumably he’d
have had the same reaction to my unicycling, but he found out about my
juggling first.)
It turns out that he was a bit of an outsider growing up, and he made an effort
to fit in and be accepted by everyone. Meanwhile, I’m a flaming juggler and make
no effort to hide it. This made him uneasy about who he was, and he might have
also worried reflexively about how people would treat me.
He got over it though. Maybe it helped him to see that my being different from
the mainstream crowd didn’t bother me at all, and that it wasn’t something he
had to be afraid of, or at least not for my sake.
Of course, I’m not that different from my friends, many of whom ride
unicycles.
So I guess if I had any advice it would be to try to figure out why they
disapprove. Except for parents worrying about how you’ll shoot your eye out with
that dangerous unicycle, it probably has nothing to do with you.
When people lash out, it’s often out of fear.
If your friends are hassling you about it, teach them to ride. Even if they
don’t get hooked, they at least won’t be afraid of it. It’ll be part of who they
are too, and it won’t be so different anymore.