Needs To Learn To Say, “None Of Your Business”

I work at a store in the Bible belt. I am an eighteen-year-old female. The customer I am helping to purchase a computer is a sour-faced, very conservative- and old-fashioned looking woman of around fifty. She begins telling me that she has just started to try to date again after her husband passed.

Customer: “I don’t know where to meet good men. I never dated except my husband. All these men on the dating websites want to go to bed with me right away. I am not that kind of woman and they don’t understand that.”

Me: “I understand. I haven’t tried online dating, but my friends talk about how awful people are on there.”

Customer: “I am a good Christian woman. I have only been with my husband, and I don’t plan on being with anyone until I have my next husband. The Lord doesn’t want you going to bed with a bunch of people. These men say they are Christian, but they’re sinners.”

I am nodding along in agreement, because all I can do is try to get through the interaction.

Customer: “You aren’t married, are you?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Are you a virgin?”

Me: *Honestly, but awkwardly* “Yes.”

Customer: “Good girl! You are living a good Christian lifestyle. You will be rewarded with a good husband. I was.”

I am not religious, but I know it’s better to play along than say anything. I’m whoever I need to be on the clock. I have had pamphlets about churches shoved in my hand, I’ve been tipped with fake money with proverbs on it, and I’ve had several different people ask me if I’d found Jesus and if He was in my heart, all while I was just trying to do my job, but she is the only one to question my chastity and purity.

I have no issue with people’s beliefs, but please don’t put service people on the spot. They are being paid to give good customer service and this puts them in a very awkward spot.