I can’t believe that these are the best two people that the US can produce right now.

Re-read the post

They can use social humiliation, which is way worse than not trying.

“Ugh who the fuck are you, get out of here you fucking weirdo. Why are strange men approaching me? UGH! Get away!”

It hasn’t happened to me but I’ve seen it happen. The guy imo was behaving normally and reasonably. I think the girl just didn’t want to bother. Fucking shameful on the girl’s behalf when she could have politely turned him down.

Yeah I know. It still annoys me though, I don’t want this place to turn into Reddit.

I understand your frustration, I’m an introvert and I work in education which is about 75% women, so I have run across groups like what you describe.

The easiest fix is to find a better work place, but in the meantime the only thing I’ve found that works is to become boring to them; listen politely but give short, non-committal answers. Shrug and say “I don’t know” as much as you can. Don’t say anything that they can use to ask a follow up question. If you get a hardcore talker, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom.

OP proposed many ways to let his co-workers know he doesn’t like chatting and none of them are what you quoted. In fact, he expressly created this thread to figure out how not to be rude to them

People are allowed to keep to themselves. Why does it bother you so much? Why are you so personally offended by this? I’ve never understood why extroverts feel as if the world owes them attention.

Some people need socialising

Great, so find some people who want to socialise. Having that need does not give them the right to force OP to socialise if he doesn’t want to. He’s not stopping them from doing it, he just doesn’t want to partake in it himself, and he has every right not to.

OP owes exactly nothing to his co-workers other than doing his job and being polite. If you think he does, then you’re the problem.

Why do you think it’s OK to force someone else into interacting with the world the same way you do, just to please you? That’s not what OP is doing.

UK are safest

Until you step on a plug…

You thought Lego was bad on bare feet? Hoo boy

To paraphrase George Carlin, by definition half of the population is below average intelligence. But nobody thinks they’re in that bottom half.