While driving to the office I'm currently working from, I saw a man holding a sign asking for gas money. I only had a dollar's worth of cash on me, so thought "why not?" However, right after digging said dollar from my pocket, and in the interest of not making the drivers behind me mad I decided to go through and not pass on the dollar.
I was still thinking about that dollar I was ready to give away, though. I had a debit card on me if I had an emergency situation that required money, and I couldn't think of anything that I wanted for less than a dollar, so I decided to be a charitable person and merely give it to the next person I saw when I got out of the car.
I got to the parking lot, pulled into a spot, and left to go cross the street to the office building. Waiting there, I saw a man and a woman waiting on the other side to cross to where I was. An excellent chance to give away my generous dollar. The light turned and we both started crossing the road, naturally meeting bout half way across. I extended my hand with the dollar dangling there and merely asked the man "What a dollar?"
The quickness of him saying "No" caught me a bit off guard and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I feel personally insulted for a moment. My brain when into overdrive trying to figure out why he might have responded the way he did. Was it the way I was dressed? The way I extended the dollar? Was he in a major rush? All of these seemed a bit unlikely, for I wasn't rude or in-your-face about it and the time it would have taken to grab it and say "Thank you" wouldn't even require slowing down.
At that point, I decided to make it into a bit of an experiment and see if I could figure out why it was initially refused. I mean, what could it hurt just to run a small test?
I offered it to four other people after that: two men disposing of what looked like some type of tile that had been removed, a man in a hard hat who I guessed was the one responsible for removing said tile, and a woman who was walking into the office.
All of them refused it. When the woman echoed the response I had heard from all the others, I asked her why she didn't want it. Her response; "Because it's weird."
I finally gave the dollar to the secretary of the division I was working in who actually knows me and, with a bit of initial shock and curiosity, finally helped me achieve my original of giving away the small bill.
Yet I still have to question why it is none of the other five people I offered it to took the bill so freely offered. My only conclusion is that people didn't trust me. I can understand how it's unusual for people to be handing out money while asking nothing in return, but the way everyone acted so suspicious of a kind gesture made me feel a bit sad for the society we live in; a society where we're almost force to be cautious to the point we won't even put trust in an innocent, friendly offering.
I think I may do something similar in the future when I have more time to ask people why they refuse the offer. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I'm a fairly stubborn person when it comes to figuring things out. I'll probably write something here when that time comes, so if the whole one person following me currently (yes, Kate,that would be you) wants to see what the results are, I'll most likely post them here.
Anyways, that's all for now.
Have a great day!
-Alex
(P.S. - If someone offers you a dollar, just take it. What's the worst that could happen?)
