grandmother approach

Where you bring an older lady along with you on a potentially-problematic endeavor, so that any observers will feel less concerned/suspicious.distrustful of you and what you are wanting to accomplish. P.S.: This strategy **always** works --- no exceptions.

I first discovered the grandmother approach --- and how wonderfully effective it is for "opening doors" --- merely by accident at age 15, when Mother and I went to meet one of my favorite radio-announcers "after hours" ; the announcer had kindly agreed to come down the elevator and meet me outside during her break, and so my mother and I had gone to wait outside the front doors of the building. A burly security-guard or maintenance-man subsequently happened by and pleasantly asked if he could help us; we explained that we were waiting for my announcer-friend to come and say hello to us. Without hesitation, he said, "Well, there's no need for you to have to wait outdoors here; I can let you in and you can go up to the studio to wait." I am sure, however, that if I had just been there by myself, the employee would not have felt nearly so confident or trusting of me that he would have actually just allowed me to effortlessly "waltz right in" like that; I realized that it was my super-respectable-looking mother's presence that had caused the man to "automatically" figure that "we were okay". I have employed this "bringing an older lady along" strategy several times in subsequent years whenever I have been concerned about possible negativity/suspicion from others regading something I'd wanted to do, and it has ALWAYS succeeded --- people everywhere feel an automatic compulsion to respect an older lady, plus of course they would not want to behave disagreeably in front of her.

grandmother approach by QuacksO February 21, 2019