Being shushed as an adult is humiliating. I think I know why

Recently, I was interstate with my family. It was a ceremonious occasion, as it was the first time my new partner (after seven months, are they really considered “new”? What is the cut-off?) had been to my parents’ home.

We decided to have dinner at a restaurant my family had been to a handful of occasions in the beachside town of Goolwa. My mother described the food as “pretty good”, which is her equivalent of a Michelin Star.

I was startled by how busy it was. It was popping, a positive sign for any restaurant, especially in a post-pandemic world when so many of my favourite places have closed. Had I been in Melbourne, the buzz would not have surprised me, but South Australia is a different beast. It’s the sort of place where a pub will be dead quiet on a Friday night, despite being in the heart of a beautiful neighbourhood.

The first thing I noticed was a quote from the owner on the front page of the menu. It read, “I love being in hospitality. It’s like hosting a party every night.” We ordered wine, entrees, the works. And, as usually happens when you shove seven people in the corner of a restaurant on a Saturday night, you start chatting and talking. Dare I say it, you start having a damn good time.

As we continued talking – we were on the topic of which male football players were genuinely attractive and which were just tall – a stocky, salt of the earth waiter approached my girlfriend and I, and tapped me on the shoulder. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Could you be a little more quiet? A couple of tables have complained.” As he waltzed away, I drifted out of reality. I entered a bizarre alternate world, just contemplating his words. He reminded me of an old teacher, Mr Gilmore, who hated me and would tell me to shut up at least once a history class.

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There is something quite shocking about being told, as an adult, to be quiet. It makes you feel like you are back in school, as if you need to ask for permission to go to the toilet. For what might appear such a small gesture it can rapidly invoke red mist. I’ve seen one bloke’s unappreciated attempt to shush another end in blows. A simple shushing signal even caused a national incident at the Paris Olympics, when one of the gold-medal winning Dutch hockey players celebrated his victory by taunting the German goalkeeper.

There are times and places when a good shushing is, while unwanted, necessary. At the cinema, if someone is talking loudly or repeatedly during a movie, of course, you have the right to tell them to shut up. I did this myself to a couple of loud teens at a screening of The Whale a few years ago, though part of me regrets this, as their conversation was more interesting than the film. Naturally, if you use coarse language around children, you will get some side eye, if not worse, and this judgment I accept.

Why are we so hurt by these challenges to our dignity? Fascinatingly, when sociologists asked Melburnians to share their experiences of rudeness, it wasn’t threats or danger that got them most animated. No, as the authors of Incivility: The Rude Stranger, explain, the encounters that most upset people were everyday interactions in a supermarket, on the street or in restaurants. The perpetrators weren’t violent youths but were “generally older and looked respectable”. Being castigated in this way rips us out of our comfort zone – it’s a rude awakening from a happy place when we are expressing ourselves without self-consciousness and are made to feel socially incompetent.