There Are No Downsides to Being Friendly But What About The Opposite?

This morning I’d arranged to go out on my motorcycle with a friend. Because of where we were heading, we looked for somewhere to meet up on route. We decided a sensible place would be Knaresborough as I’m near Wetherby, he’s near Boroughbridge, and we were heading to Skipton. One of the main well known attractions of Knaresborough is Mother Shipton’s Cave so we agreed to meet there as we both know where it is, and it’s just off the main road.

I arrived there about 8:15 and parked up. Just to paint a picture of the scene, there’s a huge entrance area (you could fit a handful of large coaches in it) directly off the main road. I was parked at the side of this area about 2 metres from the road. It was 8 o’clock on a wet Sunday morning so they were obviously closed, and as they don’t open until 10am there was nobody else around.

Literally 2 minutes after I arrived, so did my friend. Before he’d even got off his bike to say hello a guy came out of the building and confronted us. He told us to move as we were on private property, and was generally unpleasant. All while wearing his branded Mother Shipton’s Cave top.

Firstly, I don’t even think there was a need to move us on. I’d switched off my (pretty quiet) bike as soon as I stopped, nobody else was there as it was closed, and there was absolutely no downside to me being stopped there. Not as far as I could see at least.

Secondly, his attitude stunk. Even if he had felt the need to move us on for a good reason, he could have approached it so much better. Maybe they were expecting a delivery and he was just being vigilant. I don’t know, as he didn’t give us a reason. And his attitude and the way he spoke to us was unnecessary too.

All this has an impact on not just him but his employers business. I only live about 20 minutes away and have 2 young children. We often have visitors from outside the area too. Visiting Mother Shipton’s Cave would probably be a good day out for both our family, and our visiting friends. Will we ever be going now? Not a chance! Whenever I hear it mentioned, it will obviously remind me of this morning which I’ll now recall to whoever mentions it.

As my title suggests. I can’t think of any downsides to being friendly to people and it’s something I try to be myself. However, there are so many downsides to being unpleasant and unfriendly. Many of which, people probably don’t even realise.

Thanks

Richard