Ew! Don’t Eavesdrop!

Eavesdroppers who join the conversation are the worst.

Photo by Creedi Zhong on Unsplash

I was walking in a park with my family the other day and saw a sign outlining some of the important historical events about the park when some stranger joined our conversation.

According to the park sign, back in the 80s, the 7-hectare park situated in downtown was private property owned by a large corporation, but the development project was later exposed that there was corporate-government collusion going on, and many government officials, politicians and entrepreneurs involved were arrested and prosecuted for bribery and corruption.

After the development project was disapproved and rejected by the government many times, and the corporation failed to find investors and buyers, the park was compulsorily acquired by the city government a couple of years later and open to the public for free.

When my family and I were talking about the history of the park in front of the sign, an old woman appeared out of nowhere behind us, and she started by saying the park was not compulsorily acquired, but donated by the corporation out of their goodwill to the government. She said she was in her seventies, and all of this happened before us young people were born, but back in those days the park required an entry fee.

She said the corporation’s good intention should not be twisted into something else, and how could the park be compulsorily acquired if the corporation had done nothing wrong?

She talked more and more passionately, but I was starting to fade out. What I thought about at the moment was, wow, this old woman sounds like a political maniac I don’t know how to handle. I’d better get out of here soon.

What irritated me the most was that my private time with my family was not only interrupted by a stranger out of nowhere, but I had to listen to a radical old person talk about something that was obviously a lie?

She was wrong in so many ways. First of all, my mom was already in her thirties when the corruption case was exposed, and she remembered vividly about how it made the headlines and became the scandal that everyone talked about.

Second of all, the fact of what happened back then was literally written on the sign, and I looked up on the internet later to make sure it was not the kind of disputable case interpreted by different political parties.

Lastly, how dared she eavesdropped on us and joined the conversation with her sanctimoniousness?

It gave me the creeps.

It was a violation of privacy. It was supposed to be a private conversation, but she basically admitted she eavesdropped on us and showed her ignorance by vehemently defending a corrupted corporation.

What’s more, I saw the vest she was wearing: park bureau. She was the staff from park bureau? Is that what they do, educate unknowing people with misinformation?

When she ended by saying she welcomed us for firefly season next April and May, I smiled politely, but the truth is I didn’t even want to run the risks of meeting this delusional old woman again by joining in any event held by the park. I am really bad at dealing with old people flauting their seniority and false knowledge.

If you eavesdropped on someone (especially a stranger) accidentally, the best you can do is pretend you didn’t hear them. Don’t ever join in the conversation just to assert your point of view.

It’s rude, and no one fucking cares about your views.