Social Experiments to Make People Uncomfortable Without Causing Any Harm

Because you’re a decent human, you don’t want to cause any real harm to others, but you still have a slight desire to subject people to innocuous inconveniences for your own fleeting amusement. Or, maybe you’re an extra decent human and wonder why anyone would put even the feeblest of efforts into moderately inconveniencing someone. These experiments won’t be for you. For everyone else, though, here are three ways to make people uncomfortable without causing any real harm.

Dress for Your Daily Walk

Next time you stroll through your neighborhood, carry a clipboard while you wear khaki pants and a polo shirt. See if you can catch anyone ducking out of site from inside their living rooms. If you’re into statistics, you can even use the clipboard as more than a prop and keep a tally of how many people you see dodging who they perceive to be a salesperson.

Someone might burn toast because he dives to the floor and is too scared to get up and be spotted in time to save the toast. Someone else might pause some Netflix show that was about to reveal an incredible secret before she waits too long and the TV shuts itself off, requiring her to spend another 30 seconds restarting everything to see the big payoff, which is no longer as impactful as it would’ve been.

Even if all you do is give someone a brief sinking feeling, thinking he or she will have to answer to your satellite deal of a lifetime, you’ve done something to give yourself the demented satisfaction of inconveniencing someone. Plus, if your clipboard is heavy enough, you’ll tone your triceps.

Give a Real Answer to “How Are You?”

Asking people how they are used to be polite, then turned into a mere greeting with no expectation of anyone actually answering the question with anything of substance. By answering the question for real, you put unnecessarily gratifying pressure on the other person. Don’t say you’re fine, good or not bad. Don’t answer the question with another question, such as, “How’s it going?” or its bluegrass cousin, “How’s it goin’?”

Either give the person an honest answer (unless you’re honestly fine, good or not bad) or answer in the negative. People aren’t ready for you to tell them you’re not great. Suddenly, they’re trapped in the internal quandary of whether they’re supposed to follow up, risking getting potentially depressing news from you or if they’re supposed to act as if you said you were fine and move on.

A downside to this one is you risk getting trapped in a real conversation. If the other person truly cares how you are, you’re stuck. Thankfully, people don’t care about people, so the risk is low.

Wear Serviceman Booties

Polite professionals who work in your home often show up with their own shoe-covering cloth booties. This shows the HVAC guy has respect for your home as he’s not going to traipse through it in his boots that have been alternately inside and outside all day. Also, when he puts on his booties, he has no fear of the homeowner asking him to remove his boots. He’s already performed an accepted act between a serviceman and a footwear-banning homeowner, ironically by donning additional footwear.

Why can’t you, a guest in someone’s home do the same?

Main reasons not to visit other people’s homes:

1. Having to socialize.
2. Having to be near pets.
3. Having to remove one’s shoes (especially in a pet-infested house).

If you’ve somehow created a petless friends list with whom you don’t mind socializing, your only annoyance is being asked to remove your shoes. By stepping inside and pre-emptively putting booties over your shoes, you’ve created a situation in which your friends now have to behave as absolute scum to get your shoes off. Your clean booties won’t stain their nine-year-old carpet or crumbling tile and they have no legitimate argument against you wearing them.

Or, you’ve made yourself to be so weird that you never get invited over again, which renders all three reasons to avoid visiting people moot. You can’t lose.