I Hate People
A meditation on the death of common courtesy.
September 8, 2012 - 3:04 pm
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Of course, these are just a couple of examples in a day in a life, and thankfully not every day will have such encounters. Now this is where I’m supposed to tell you how polite and considerate I am of all people all the time, but that would just reinforce your initial belief that I’m a liar. Let’s face it, I’m old, ancient if you ask my children, so there may have been an incident or two in my past where I was less than stellar when it came to kindness.
That said, we all need to remember to take that whopping extra fifteen seconds it takes to say please and thank you, maybe even hold the door for another, me included.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t really hate people… okay, maybe sometimes.
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Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Kathy Shaidle: If I Were Queen: My First 3 Acts Upon Becoming Your Beloved Empress For Life
Megan Fox: 7 Laws for Public Decency When I Rule the World
John Hawkins: 5 Behaviors That Make You Trash
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High self esteem is the problem. These people you’re describing all have high self esteem, although not a single one of them deserves it. They clearly had lots about them to be critcized as they were growing up, but no one took the responsibilty to teach them right from wrong or to treat others as they’d like to be treated. Do not suffer in silence. Speak up when you see injustice, no matter how trivial or nitpicking it may seem. Good people will take your side. As Albert Einstein said, “The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.”
When they remodeled the old Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the management decided to include seats which had cup-holders built into them. I suppose some wiz-kid persuaded the management that the profit margin would increase if theater patrons were allowed to bring their drinks into the theater.
A woman and here two children were sitting behind me and my family during a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Naturally, she bought them large sodas with ice. And, naturally, the kids took to slurping these drinks. The slurping and the ice rattling increased as they reached the end of their drinks.
Well, you guessed it. This is how I endured Hamlet’s soliloquy:
“To be, or not to be? (SLURP. SLURP) That is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler (SLURP) in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms (SLURP) against a sea of troubles
And by opposing (SLURP) end them…..”
Recently, the Olympia, WA symphony had a concert in the park. Some yahoos brought their screaming, shrieking kids, who screamed and shrieked through the whole concert, running around as the parents ignored the music. Why TF do people like that even come to a concert, anyway?
I wasn’t feeling a whole lotta love for them. Sorry.
I get funny looks when I say that in the store, library or at the local gas station.
You can measure the tranquility of one’s life by the triviality of one’s criticisms. You’re doing just fine. Hopefully you’ll never have a friend who turned down a relationship with a man because he wore white socks with a black suit. Then there’s the sun – it never stops.
Oh you just wait a few billion years mister, that’ll show you!
I’m quite a placid personality and hold ill-will towards no-one, but I’m becoming convinced that the only option left to save America would be to select one-half of the population to be brutally murdered and to hold them up as warning and example to the other half……..
I’m beginning to suspect that old people are not grumpy or crotchety, they have just had the time to learn the truth about their fellow man.
Fry: “I must’ve really been acting like a jerk.”
Bender: “Yeah, but everybody’s a jerk. You, me, this jerk. That’s my philosophy.”
I think you just need to be more assertive when people are jerking you around. I hate rude people too but I refuse to be their doormat.
Funny Mom Adventures…look forward to hearing more from her
Sy
I’ve told folks for a long time I’m kind of misanthrope. I don’t hate people per se because let’s face it, some of the actually do useful things like keep the lights on, the water running, making things that make life liveable, etc. The thing is, I just hate being around them, at least for any length of time. That said, I do look forward to the time I can move to my country place full time well away from the the parties, booming cars and the barking dogs.
As for theaters, I haven’t been to one in years. My experiences weren’t as bad as those mentioned here but friends have have the cell phones, chatty yahoos, bawling brats and even people having sex in the theater.
Never had anyone ask to go in front of me though I have let some people by, though rarely.
So many peeves, so little time. So I’ll mention only one.
This town has allowed a few restaurants to set up a couple of tables and chairs alongside the sidewalk for outside dining. Big mistake, because the patrons of this establishment now consider the entire sidewalk to be theirs, dedicated to their consuming their overpriced cuisine. They will literally make all foot traffic halt on the sidewalk, because they’re blocking the sidewalk, waiting to sit and eat.
And, yes, I have grieved this directly to them, to receive answers ranging from the arrogant/elitist through the absurd (“the sidewalk belongs to the store, and pedestrians have no right to interrupt their business”).
Sheesh!
While I’m not fan of persons who have the intellectual capacity of a diced carrot, especially when I have to share the highway with them, I find myself considerably less troubled by such events. Namely as I don’t enable such idiocy and will often quite aggressively resist it when it happens.
“Let me go in front of you..”
“No.”
Uncivilized behavior in a theater? Stand up and yell at them. For most, the cloak of anonymity is what enables such nonsense. In most cases, a loud voice and a hard glare will put a stop to it, even if you’re a less than intimidating woman (I taught my girlfriend to do this– she was quite amazed at how well it works). If that doesn’t solve the problem, leave and get a refund. Is it worth enduring two plus hours of nonsense out of some odd sense of politeness? No, it is not. There are other theaters, find one.
Ignorant people tend to look for those they think they can manipulate. That’s why Grandma gets asked to be line-cut more than the 6’4 burly guy who looks as though he’s in no mood. In many such occurrences your own body language and disposition will do far more to prevent that kind of nonsense than anything else.
Bingo, Mr. Lion. You are absolutely correct!
Erma Bombeck is reborn!
More like Erma Bombeck meets Jerry Seinfeld.
love this stuff…keep it coming.
Miss Weiss, what you describe here is a large part of the force driving Americans out of public accommodations such as movie theaters, concert halls, and public parks, and into private equivalents or approximations. The tragedy is that we really miss those public accommodations, and would dearly love to have them as they were before the discourtesy plague got rolling.
For example: Once upon a time, I enjoyed going to the movies. No longer, for the very reasons you describe. But I wasn’t willing to give up the movies themselves, so I acquired a home-theater rig and sufficient patience to wait for the DVD to come out. This isn’t quite the same experience — for one thing, the men’s room is a lot cleaner — but it will do. However, if some farsighted entrepreneur with a will of steel and a backbone to match were to open a movie clubhouse, with its own big screen, strict rules of conduct for members, and big bouncers to keep order, I’d join in a hot second.
Grocery stores are a special problem. Checkout line jumpers can be blocked. Rude spratlings and their keepers can be ignored, though that’s sometimes a bit harder. And I’m not averse to body-checking a particularly rude obstruction head-first into a ziggurat of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup — be sure to try the recipes on the back of the label — but it does sour my mood when the blood flows into aisles that I haven’t yet traversed. So I tend to do my shopping very late at night, where the worst departures from civility involve hirsute men in long trench coats wearing an item of lingerie on their heads.
But worst of all are mass-transit systems. Subways are bad; trains are worse; but worst of all is the passenger airliner. An event on my last commercial flight exceeded the drama of the kickoff scene in the movie Anger Management. Fortunately, I wasn’t directly involved in it, but the flailing, shrieking, and ballistic propulsion of various small objects before the sky marshal managed to sort things out rather spoiled an experience I used to enjoy.
The sovereign remedy for all such indignities is to stay home. Staying home and conducting all your human intercourse over the Net makes it possible to block every aspect of Man’s inhumanity to Man we must suffer when we venture into a public venue. It’s getting easier all the time, if you’re willing to forgo friends, sex, sunlight and fresh air, and buy your groceries from Amazon. It also helps that claymore mines are as inexpensive as they are today, though admittedly my neighbors have expressed some dissatisfactions about my deployment patterns, to say nothing of the effects on the local wildlife.
A less restrictive version of the “stay home” rule is to follow John Derbyshire’s advice. I find it dramatically reduces the number of incidents involving rude or uncivil behavior, to say nothing of actual crimes and violence.
I rarely go to movies, so can’t comment there, but thankfully I live in a small town and a region where most people are pretty friendly in the grocery store. I hear things can be gnarly at Costco, but I don’t go there.
I don’t hate people, but I hate the KIND of people many have become. Like Ms. Porretto, I shop off hours, too. I’m retired so I’m able to shop early in the morning. I tell my wife I like to avoid traffic as much as I can, and that’s true, but I can also avoid crowds. My wife complains about what she calls “the quality” of people when she shops in the afternoon. Obviously, shopping before the “rudies” crawl out from under their rock has advantages. I’m sorry society has become so hateful, profane, and rude. I don’t believe societal attitudes will do anything but get worse.
I live in WA. Folks here are actually pleasant. I do not care for their politics, but at least the Libs here believe what they profess, rather than being cynical manipulators. So, I do not encounter things like this much.
The exception is always a black person. Voices loud, relating all their drama. Eating where they shouldn’t, dribbling their food, talking with their mouths full. Black ladies and gentlemen used to be common. I cannot remember the last time I saw one. Of course, white folks are beginning to decline to that level, too.
I don’t hate people. I hate feral people, a growing minority.
A relative left an apartment complex because () moving in. Couldn’t take the commotion and noise at all hours, since he had to sleep so as to get to a job every morning, about the same time the feral kids were pushed out the door for their school breakfasts, is my guess.
Oh, well…everything considered; for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of my country.
I’ve given this advise before, but bring a Maglite to the theatre. When someone gets on their phone and starts shining their light in the eyes of everyone behind them walk in front of them and shine your Maglite in their eyes. The ensuing conversation will go like this:
“Hey get your light out of my eyes bro!”
“Hey, I’m shining a light over here. Mind your business!”
If he tries to get physical … you have a Maglite! It not only works as a great flashlight, but also a blunt object to hit someone about the face and joints.
OTOH, I’ll take some yutz with the IQ of a kumquat over an effete, elite, intellectual snob leftist any day. At least the kumquat isn’t deliberately trying to be a jerk.
Life in small towns is not like that. Especially if your’e a guy. In fact, people cheerfully offer me to go ahead of them in line all the time.
Manners are a thing of the past. That is a simple statement of fact.
Case in point: until last year, I lived in a quiet neighborhood. Then the rednecks moved in. In some ways they seem like a nice family. Certainly they work hard and have improved their property a good bit. But they really should not have bought a home in a residential neighborhood, as their lifestyle is better suited for the deep woods or an industrial park.
Foe one thing, they are all avid ATVers and will zoom these things up and down the street at all hours of the night, going at times well past midnight, even on a work night. With a young kid on the handlebars and popping wheelies. It’s against the law. And even if it wasn’t, it makes more noise than is appropriate late at night. The police, we’ve learned, do not really want to enforce these laws.
Then, too, the rednecks own several big trucks, and one or more of them at any given time are likely to be running, idling, not going anywhere, just sitting there. Thrum thrum thrum thrum thrum… It shakes my entire house from the foundation on up with an irritating low-frequency rumble, especially when he’s idling his diesel.
Now, me, I follow two simple rules about vehicles: 1) I turn one on when I want to go somewhere, and 2) if I’m there already, I turn it off. But not these folks. I don’t know what benefit is derived from idling your trucks, but if there is one to get, I’m sure these folks get it.
Plus, he parks things on the street in front of his house. Big things. Against the zoning ords. For two weeks, he had a boat out there big enough to pull a freighter, on a trailer. He’s had smaller boats. Trailers play a big part in this fellow’s life. Sometimes he parks a trailer that looks like a rolling tool shed, and his co-workers visit it during the day, pulling stuff out and putting it back, apparently making his home essentially the overflow for his place of business. For a while, he was bringing in a small backhoe and doing his landscaping work in his front yard after 10 PM at night, when the rest of the working world wanted to get some sleep.
My theory is that they’re not really bad people. They may be nicer than me, in fact. Niceness is not the issue. They are just very inconsiderate. Good manners consists first and foremost of being considerate.
I think it’s training. Or lack thereof. My generation, boomers, believed that manners were phony and so they didn’t teach them to their kids, or the reasons for them. Today we are enjoying the fruits of that.
I’m glad the rednecks are basically nice people. It could be worse. They may be the only rednecks on the planet who own indoor cats instead of noisy, barking dogs. And at least it isn’t a crack house. I try to count my blessings.
I think you all are going a bit overboard here. There definitely is a percentage of the population that are certified jerks. What is that percentage? 5%? 20%? I do not believe that the percentage is a majority of the population.
How many times do you wait in line at the grocery store and the people in line in front of you and behind you are NOT jerks? At the movie theater, how many times are people are talking on their cell phones during the movie? 10% of the time? And of that 10% time of the time, how many of the 40 or so movie theater patrons are talking on their phone, 1, 2?
Again, my point is that there are jerks out there, but most folks are good people.
So good that they elected a racist, rabble rousing, statist, pos, that hates the US to be president of the US. They’re swell.
It’s time to stand up and not take it anymore. Time for Tawanda!!!!!!!