Chivalry really is dead

[Rapscallion]

Must mention that to Emoboy. He's very, very single right now.

Rapscallion, amused

[HappyCthulhu]

Raps, it was almost equivalent to taking a club, bopping her on the head and dragging her back to my cave by the hair.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

This young man came into Kinko's once and took off his hat to me. Yeah, you read that right. TOOK IT OFF. The whole exchange was "Yes, ma'am" and "Please, ma'am" and "thank you kindly, ma'am." He couldn't have been older than 22 or so.

He was sending sweets and stuffed toys to his girl for Valentine's Day. I felt like dropping a note into the box that said, "Girl, you better treat this boy right, you have a gem."

I actually felt all fluttery over him. I think I actually had a little crush on him by the time he left.

[Rapscallion]

Raps, it was almost equivalent to taking a club, bopping her on the head and dragging her back to my cave by the hair.

Yup - about the only thing that will work for him.

Rapscallion

[Kilamon]

I went to the bank the other day and an elderly woman in her Jeep SUV became a problem in the parking lot. It was a T intersection deal and I was at the north/bottom of the T trying to turn left. I was in my half of the 2-way and there was plenty of room for a normal person to turn. Not for her, though. Oh. no. She was in the center of the crossing e/w/top of the T and wanted to turn where I was apparently in her way. I sat there and did not budge (where the hell was I supposed to go, backwards?) while she tried to motion me to move. I gave her the "Are you insane?" arm gestures along with a "hurry the hell up, I haven't got all day" gesture. Finally she mashed the gas ped and went past to the next aisle. I am not sure, but I think she flipped me off. If this had been a situation where I was on my bike (I was in my car that day cause it was expected to be 97 and I wanted the A/C), I would have followed her and given her a lesson on how an SUV is still the same, maximum width as all other cars on the road and that I hoped she was going to the optometrist in the building.

[blas]

Oh my Lord, an old woman in a Jeep?

I would have gotten away ASAP.

It's bad enough when you see Crown Victorias and Buicks crawling down the road at 10 mph with nothing but two hands and a nose at the steering wheel......

There is an elderly woman who works the same shift as me at the factory. She has a Ford Excursion. This woman CANNOT handle the power nor the size of the vehicle. Many occasions has she spent 10-15 minutes trying to park the damn thing, and ignoring other cars around her while doing so. She's nearly hit every car around her multiple times.

[Dips]

I wasn't even in a close spot. What was so special about that spot?

I'll take a stab at that one. The spot was special because you were using it at the time. He gets two outcomes: either he has to wait extra time for you to finish and he gets to act the put-upon martyr or he gets to make you hurry up and he gets the satisfaction inconveniencing another person because his needs are more important than yours.

I wondered the same thing when I was in Wal-Mart and a lady with a scooter cruised past two empty, unobstructed aisles and chose the one with several shopping carts, three utility poles and twelve people as a pass-through to another section of the store. She definitely planned it that way and did not need anything from that aisle.

Why? It couldn't have been faster, considering nobody was even aware of her presence until she started sighing and muttering. And it certainly wasn't easier for everyone to make a path for her, which took a while because of the poles and carts.

I think maybe some people are just assholes and like confrontation even when it isn't necessary. I call them passhole-agressholes (I saw that term in an article). Because unlike a passive-aggessive (who reacts to situations others have made), they go around needlessly creating situations so they can react to them.

[ditchdj]

My mother, who's now 72, grew up during WWII. She tells me that the decline in manners and behavior started back in the 60's with the "hippies and the druggers". She mainly blames it on the drug addicts that were so drugged up then that they basically didnt care about anything or anybody. And now that they have kids and their kids act just like them. It's funny that she told me when she grew up that if you took drugs you were ostracized and people didnt want anything to do with you. I believe it. My dad was known to be pretty wild kid in the neighborhood and was a heathen at times, but if someone around him was a druggie he flat out refused to have anything to do with them.

[trunks2k]

I try to be very polite. My parents taught me to give up my seat on a bus/train/etc for people that need it, hold doors open for people, etc. I even try to pay most of the time when going out on dates with people but a lot of people don't seem to like the other person paying for everything which I certainly understand.

The only problem with holding doors open for people is that I've been stuck holding doors open for seemingly incredibly long periods of time. I was at the mall during the christmas rush. At the KoP mall in Pennsylvania there's essentially two malls that have a walkway between them. At christmas time, there's just a constant stream of people going between the malls. I walked out of one mall to the other one and held the door open for some people behind me. Which led to more people taking advantage of me holding the door open, which led to more people, etc. etc. I felt like Wilt in that episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends when the all go to the mall and Wilt ends up spending the entire time holding the door open for people.

[cinema guy]

When out shopping, I hold the door open for the person just behind me. Once they have their hand on the door, whether they hold the door open or not is upto them.

[Andara Bledin]

My mother, who's now 72, grew up during WWII. She tells me that the decline in manners and behavior started back in the 60's with the "hippies and the druggers". She mainly blames it on the drug addicts that were so drugged up then that they basically didnt care about anything or anybody. And now that they have kids and their kids act just like them. It's funny that she told me when she grew up that if you took drugs you were ostracized and people didnt want anything to do with you. I believe it. My dad was known to be pretty wild kid in the neighborhood and was a heathen at times, but if someone around him was a druggie he flat out refused to have anything to do with them.

Ok, I'll have to stamp on this misconception.

Freaks (hippies is a term the establishment came up with, actually) were all about community and "love thy neighbor."

My mother, aunt, father, and uncle were all major hippies and they all did a wide variety of recreational pharmaceuticals at least up until I graduated high school. When we were young, my mother would constantly get compliments on how well behaved my brother and I were in public. My brother is so charming he's had times where his friends' parents would give him things and ignore their own children. No joke.

None of the druggie people I was raised by can ever even remotely come close to being as uppity, rude, and unpleasant to be around as my oldest aunt, who is a complete and utter self-centered man-hating bitch.

Or my former mother-in-law, who was straight laced, hard working, bigoted, sexist, and has a serious martyr complex going on.

If you want to point fingers at why people are less likely to be polite now than they used to be, point it squarely at the situation that requires that both parents in a family have to work in order to support itself. My former MiL would complain that things started falling apart when women went to work, and in some things, she's not entirely wrong.

^-.-^

[ditchdj]

Andara I dont know where you grew up but where I did, most people in the neighborhood were white-trash drug addicts. And it did NOT (and still doesnt today) lead up to a happy, productive, working-class neighborhood. Actually the opposite: drug busts, fighting in the streets and random assaults, bastard children being born left and right, stealing, vandalism, and arrests. Most of the kids I grew up with are today either dead or in prison. That's why most of the people with their heads screwed on right did the right thing and moved out. And I'm glad I left and am not raising a family in that crap.

[JustADude]

Andara I dont know where you grew up but where I did, most people in the neighborhood were white-trash drug addicts.

<CUT>

That's why most of the people with their heads screwed on right did the right thing and moved out.

Everyone who isn't stupid-as-hell white trash moving out is why the neighborhood went to hell, DitchDJ, not the drugs themselves.

I've hung around with people who have PhDs in social-work fields thanks to my mom and it's been called many things, though my favorite its "Broken Window Syndrome". Basically, someone throws a rock and breaks a window. Instead of fixing it they board it up, or they put up bars after they fix it. That makes the neighborhood feel less inviting and makes other residents more likely to do similar if something breaks in THEIR house.

From there it's a downward spiral into the kind of ghetto you grew up in, because people bail rather than try to reverse the trend and leave only those people causing the mess, and those who are willing to put up, or participate in, that kind of crap.

[ditchdj]

From there it's a downward spiral into the kind of ghetto you grew up in, because people bail rather than try to reverse the trend and leave only those people causing the mess, and those who are willing to put up, or participate in, that kind of crap.

See Detroit, MI. I think it just comes a point as to where whether it's worth it to keep trying to "changes things from within" or you'd be better off just cutting your losses and licking your wounds and finding another place to live.

[protege]

See Detroit, MI. I think it just comes a point as to where whether it's worth it to keep trying to "changes things from within" or you'd be better off just cutting your losses and licking your wounds and finding another place to live.

Not all neighborhoods are like that though. We don't have problems like that out in the 'burbs. We have pride in our neighborhoods, and take care of them.

Sadly though, many "inner city" residents (and even some idiots in the 'burbs) simply are lazy and/or don't care about their neighborhoods. It has nothing to do about being poor--my parents didn't have much cash growing up, and their house *never* looked like shit. A little worn paint here and there, but that was it. The grass was always cut, and we didn't have junk lying around.

However, not all people are like that. Some are simply lazy, and do not care about their neighborhood, or even their neighbors.