I need a sanity check, please

[figmo]

Here's the situation:

You're in a large, open room, working side-by-side with someone. A person from the other end of the building comes by and starts casually chatting, initially with just the other person you're working with side-by-side. Someone comes out of an office nearby and joins in the conversation.

The questions:

Is it rude for you, the other person in the open area, to also join in on the conversation?

Is it rude for you to acknowledge the conversation that had been held out in the open when chatting with the first participant later on?

or...

Is it rude for one of the people involved in the conversation to randomly exclude you even though they were holding the conversation right under your nose?

Please advise.

Comments

[gailg.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, any conversation out loud in a public place is public. If you want to talk privately, go to another room.

I have no problem with commenting on conversations within earshot if I think I have something to add. On the other hand, it is possible to be annoying to people having a conversation in a public place that doesn't concern you. Sometimes it's a fine line and different have different ideas about where the line is.

Unless I know the people involved and feel like I can continue to add to the conversation, I don't join in for more than a comment or two.

For example, sometimes I sit in the cafeteria between classes, by myself with my laptop (e.g., right now). I can hear other conversations going on around me and sometimes they attract my attention. The other day, I overheard a woman I didn't know at an adjacent table telling another woman I didn't know about this thing called Feliway that helps cats feel comfortable in their environment. I know something about it because I have it in two forms: spray and diffuser, and I used it when I moved to my apartment in Portland. I was just getting up to leave anyway, so I interrupted and told them about my experience with it, and then I left. I would not have felt comfortable about just sitting down at their table.

However, sometimes I overhear some of my classmates that I know well talking about, say, a topic we've been discussing in class, and I feel completely comfortable about pulling up a chair and joining in.

In a more intermediate example, a little while ago, some of my classmates that I know were sitting at the table next to me. At times, they talked about school subjects that we shared, and I joined in the conversation. At other times, they talked about their shared experience as Reed students, and I stayed out of it.

In any of these situations, even in the case of the strangers, I would be surprised to be obviously excluded. In the last example, if I had started talking about Reed, they might have felt intruded upon, but they would have been polite and let me speak. Then again, law school is perhaps an unusual environment.