The Smelly Towel Incident

Recently, I encountered a somewhat awkward situation. I'm currently attending a 1-month workshop at a school, and participants live on campus. I have two roommates: a teacher and a fellow classmate. One time, my classmate and I went back to our room. When we entered, we noticed the room was quite smelly. My roommate quickly found the source of the odor: my teacher's towel hanging in the room.

Icon Sources: 1, 2, 3

He said, "I think we should wash that towel for our teacher."

I said, "Hang on. I think you should get his permission first before touching his stuff."

He said, "The towel is very stinky. I think he'd be quite embarrassed if we said, 'Hi teacher, your towel is a bit smelly. Is it OK if I wash it for you?'"

I said, "But if you don't ask him, then he'll come back and wonder where his towel went. Then if you tell him, 'Oh your towel was stinky, so I washed it,' he'll still be embarrassed, and he might feel disrespected because you didn't get his permission before touching his stuff."

My roommate said, "All right, let's go ask him then."

We checked with our teacher, and he said it's fine for us to wash it.

Later, I asked our teacher if there's a better way to handle the situation than what we did. Before I share what my teacher said, why don't you take a moment to think about it? What would you do if you were in that situation?

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My teacher said, "It's good that you can put yourself in the other person's shoes and realize they might feel embarrassed by your words. To go a step further, you need to think of a way to get rid of or reduce that embarrassment. If I were you, I would just let that person come into the room and notice that smell himself. Then when he says, 'What's that smell?', I wouldn't say, 'It's your towel.' I would pretend like I don't know, and I'd let him find out the source himself. Then he'd go wash the towel himself."

I realized that my teacher's method reduces the amount of embarrassment since it seems like we didn't really notice the smell and weren't too bothered by it. From his reply, I can tell that he is highly proficient in empathy and interpersonal skills, and this comes from years of practice and accumulation. I still have long ways to go, and this was a great learning experience for me.

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Weekly Wisdom #301