What she should do is pull that stick out of her ass and stop being such a passive-aggressive priss.
I'm on the side of the women who are "bullying" her, myself.
That's not even the best thread on metafilter.
Would someone please explain to me what passive-aggressive normally means to people?
If no one tells me what passive agressive normally means to people, I'm gonna have to beat someone up.
And obviously the answer is to open every single window on the bus. First one whose tears turn to icicles loses.
Passive-aggressive means acting like a fucking victim because you've got some axe to grind. It's always setting up the other person to be the "bad guy." In this case, the person with the query is clearly afraid of these women on the bus, or she'd have asked them to close the window. But instead of confronting her own racism (yeah, I'm gonna infer that), she takes the "high road" approach, which the women with the window read correctly and give her shit over.
Classic p-a behaviors: screw something up, then when someone complains about it, defend yourself by saying "I forgot." Be annoying and then when someone snaps at you, cry. That kind of crap.
I don't know, "I mind the window being open, but not enough to inconvenience the women who like it being open to close it when they're on the bus" doesn't seem passive-agressive. She's doing absolutely nothing that incoveniences them in any way. Stalling when someone asks you to close the window would seem to be more accurately passive-aggressive.
Laughing at her when the women make fun of her because you want the window to remain open but don't have the guts to say "Leave the window open" is also not passive-aggressive, but still irritating behavior.
But maybe I've just become inclined to believe that passive-aggressive is the phrase preferred among people who like to be able to express contempt for shy people without acknowledging that's what they're doing.
7: What did she screw up? What did she claim to forget? I guess I'll reread the post (and I didn't and won't read the comments, so maybe she turns out to be actually passive-aggressive there).
I'm looking for a way to shut them down and reclaim my power.
Never mind, that's really irritating. I won't defend the power-struggle/how do I show them up kind of attitude. But there's nothing wrong with closing a window after the people who've opened it up have left.
Anyway, an Unfogged thread probably would have mentioned Notes from Underground, and adapted the situation accordingly.
You know, it sort of sucks to read this blog only at night. I'll just go back to muttering to myself under my breath.
It's this that trips my p-a warning:
From where I sit, it's an artic blast that a) farks up the newspaper I'm reading, b) throws my hair into my face and c) freezes my nose off.
I've responded to this situation by bearing it, non-confrontationally
After that, saing "I mind the window being open, but not enough to inconvenience the women who like it being open to close it when they're on the bus" is totally p-a. "Oh, I'm a nice person, I don't want to inconvenience them even though they're so inconsiderate that they subject me to an arctic blast! But I'm being non-confrontational!
Gimme a break. How hard is it to say, "hey, it's freezing back here, can you close the window a bit?"
Oh crap, forgot how this site always screws up the html. that "I've responded to..." should be in italics.
That's the case for passive, self-absorbed. Where's the aggressive?
But no, closing the window isn't the problem in and of itself. It's not asking the other people to close it, and then making a show of how forbearing you're being.
The aggressive is building up enough resentment to (1) refuse to simply move seats; (2) feel like there's some kind of "power" that she needs to "reclaim." If she were being just passive, but not p-a, she'd respond to them hassling her with genuine confusion and/or surprise, rather than sudden fury--the result of built-up anger coming from the fact that she's too fucking uptight to just ask someone to shut a window.
Actually, continuing to not confront them, but still trying to get back at them, after they've begun humiliating her probably really is passive-aggressive. I maintain that simply closing the window after they've left is not.
17 before reading 15 and 16, which I agree with (as indicated in 10).
No, I agree with you: closing the window afterwards is fine. If she really had only a mild preference for the closed window, and therefore waited 'til they left, that would be cool. But it's obvious that she really dislikes the window being open ("arctic blast"), and kind of resents their implied lack of consideration ("bearing it").
I infer that the women who are hassling her are reading her correctly, in part b/c she gives the impression that she makes a point of closing the window *every day* as soon as they get to their stop, without ever having once actually spoken to them.
Yeah, I think we're in agreement. But we're the only ones here, so we gotta discuss *something.*
Well, I *did* get my sense of having participated in the blog today, so that worked out fine for me. I'm going to bed.
"Sitting in another seat isn't an answer as the bus seems to run on a sort of unspoken assigned seating arrangement (we're all regulars)"
I don'tknow anything about US public transport, but that sounds incredilble to me.
I see the 1st metafilter commenter reacted the same way, so maybe it's not that I'm ignorant. It reads more like a dream than like sometng that actually happened.
God, I already hate both sides here. The girl being "bullied" is an idiot for not just directly asking them if it would be ok to shut the window.
On the other hand, people who respond the way the older ladies did need a smackdown. "Look at Little Miss Thing" Jesus Christ. Are bus drivers allowed to taze all retarded parties involved? That would be sweet.
I suspect I'm with BPhd here. What's wrong with just asking them if they'd close the window?
If they say no, there's not much you can do. But if they say no and then try to make fun of you for shutting the window after they get up there's nothing wrong with something like:
"What's your fucking problem with me shutting the window?"
i.e. aggressive-aggressive and less of the whingeing.
Anyway, the whole story doesn't ring true to me anyway, it just doesn't sound believable.
FWIW, *actual* bullying -- as opposed to the metafilter story -- on public transport isn't that uncommon in my experience.
On inner-city night buses in London and in Glasgow I've seen biggish groups of young guys get on and proceed to systematically intimidate the whole bus. Verbally abusing people, staring them down, pushing and in some cases worse.
There's very little you can do in those circumstances other than keep quiet and hope it goes away unless you are *very* confident of your ability to wreak serious physical violence as there's pretty much no chance the other bus passengers will intervene.
It's easy. Either you're a bitch, or you're passive-aggressive. Anyone disagree? Then take it to BP.
I didn't think you would.
I think that BP's definition of passive-aggressive is a subset of the whole thing. It especially means anyone who never confronts anyone else, but sabotages them by fucking up and forgetting and sly little digs.
I think that the two mouthy, sarcastic ladies were insulted by the victim's obvious unwillingness to communicate verbally with them, and I bet that her body language was huffy too. The story sound to me like there might have been a racial angle too.
I've seen the kind of actual physical bullying McGrattan mentioned once in Portland OR. It was only two guys, but the riders tried to ignore them as much as possible and didn't even back up the driver when he kicked them off.
Well, in fairness, everyone's being passive aggressive. It is also passive-aggressive to make comments about someone when you're getting off the bus that the busload of people can hear, but that don't invite a response.
I think that the two women were aggressive-aggressive, but conceivably they would have been mellow if the victim had deigned to talk to them. If not, there would have been some mutual digs exchanged, but on about the same level of aggressivity.
My son loves to go to Brooklyn because everybody's completely up front about their aggression. You don't have to watch yourself and ask if you're being polite enough. You do have to think some about confronting the wrong person.
An American Jewsih friend also likes the Israelis for their up-front qualities. In both places people can start out loud and then suddenly become quite friendly.
29: I think the two women's behavior was on the line between passive=aggressive and aggressive-aggressive. You have to directly engage the aggressee to make it all the way into aggressive aggressive.
Before I read any of the comments on that thread, I thought, "Pepper spray." And then someone said it. That wouldn't be passive.
I'm on the side of the women who are "bullying" her, myself.
Just curious: even if the woman is being a whiny priss, why would you pick the side of the people behaving like childish assholes?
Everyone's being passive-aggressive in not telling alameida that her "best thread evar" choice blows. It shouldn't even be competing with the prior entry.
"Little Miss Thing". I like that one.
34: I still maintain I could stone fuck up a roomful of five-year-olds.
I think JE's got this one right. The ad hoc reasoning (assigned seating, etc.) too conveniently places getting back at them as the only dignified path available to her. In real life, there are all kinds of non-confrontational options for people whose aim is to be truly non-confrontational.
Also, "Easily The Best Comments Thread on The Internet That Didn't Happen at Unfogged."
Unless I have misconstrued your meaning.
There is the internet that happens at Unfogged, and the internet that doesn't matter.
Aside to w-lfs-n (or anybody sufficiently familiar with MeFi): Why are certain comments highlighted with a lighter-colored background?
Apo:
Unlike you, you lazy bastard, I actually did research. I'm good for no more than 23.
Notes from the killing field:
1. Five year-old chests: surprisingly fragile.
2. The kicking form is basically the same as in punting a football, and it's probably worth investing in a pair of laceless shoes. Otherwise - Laces Up!
3. Apo's is wont to kid himself on the number of children he could stop, unless he's stopped drinking and gone into training.
Properly trained, 5-year-olds can be unstoppable killing machines.
Highlighted comments have been marked, by the person who posted the question, as "best answers".
Also, "Easily The Best Comments Thread on The Internet That Didn't Happen at Unfogged."
This is a myth. Either "which" or "that" can be used to introduce either a restrictive or nonrestrictive clause, exactly as you please.
Why must you be such a little Charr hunter, w-lfs-n?
Either "which" or "that" can be used to introduce either a restrictive or nonrestrictive clause, exactly as you please.
I agree that you can use 'which' for restrictive clauses, but I don't think you can use 'that' with non-restrictive clauses. I don't think anyone is really tempted to, either.
Women like that should simply be tossed off the bus.
I only read the post and about a tenth of the comment thread, but I'm not willing to jump to concluding that the poster must be an awful racist, too rich and proud to talk to someone poor and black.
On the bus system in Calaville, there are pretty much three types of bus riders: poor black working class, foreign graduate student, and white American graduate student. Percentage breakdown is about 90/9/1.
Anything I do on that bus - sit in a seat, make small talk, stand up, close the window, ask for a copy of the bus schedule, admire someone's baby - is going to be intepreted as Little Miss Thing Slumming It On the Bus. If I'm nice, I'm Cute Liberal Co-Ed Obliging the People with Small Talk.
This is not something I worry about, as I'm not on the bus to make friends, but all small talk goes 'Oh, you must be a CalaU student, right?' It seems the assumptions go both ways in this one. She's too afraid to ask them to close the window, they're assuming it's because she's So Important She Must Hate Us.
The poster sounds passive, and self-absorbed, but a lot of people find it hard to make requests of strangers (or even of their husbands. Don't clean, girls, just let it pile up!) She's a regular on the bus, apparently commuting to work or school, probably young, probably wearing new yuppie clothing. She either needs to speak up, or wait till the bus has pulled away to close the window, or smile at them back with some sort of joke when they tease her.
This really shouldn't be hard.
unless he's stopped drinking and gone into training
Drinking is an integral part of the training regimen, Tim. Y'know how the drunk driver often walks away from the crash unhurt because he's extra relaxed? Also, my number is predicated on being allowed to wear a protective cup, which only seems fair.
laceless shoes
Golf spikes, baby.
#33: B/c, as I explained, I read between the lines that the two "bullies" are black and the whiner is white. And I read her getting up *every single day* and closing the window as soon as they get off the bus as a silent rebuke--especially since they wouldn't be able to respond to her unless she were, in fact, closing the window before they get off the bus, i.e., as soon as they stand up and move away.
So, my read of the situation is: here is a white woman who is too frightened to ask two black women to close a window. And she resents them for making her uncomfortable. So she's playing the "manners" card (and I think her subsequent comments, the ones ac cited, confirm that), which is really a "class" card.
In other words, she's the first offender, but she's setting it up so that she looks like their superior. I find that obnoxious.
B, that's ridiculous. So what if they're black? Why should they care if she closes the window after they get up from their seats? You honestly think they would respond better if she asked them to close the window?
Manners as a hidden class card: Fuck. That. If somebody is too common to have proper manners, then what they are is just that: unmannered louts. I grew up around plenty of poor people, both black and white, and I can assure you that having manners is not a manifestation of class. It's a manifestation of not being an inconsiderate jackass.
Yes, and by not simply asking them to please close the window, but snippily waiting until they leave the bus, the whiny woman is being rude.
1. Golf spikes, baby.
This is really a matter of strategy. If you are a stand and deliver sort of guy, maybe golf shoes are the way to go. If you are employing the "strike and run" strategy that I favor, you don't want slow shoes.
Dsquared or one of the other math guys that read (Bob?) should really be able to point out which strategies are likely to be optimal.
2. So she's playing the "manners" card (and I think her subsequent comments, the ones ac cited, confirm that), which is really a "class" card.
I think everyone's pretending that these sorts of situations are really easy to negotiate. There isn't, presumably, a default position on where the window should go. Presumably the rest of the bus is OK with the window position. She's in a social group where she's the minority (we assume) and she doesn't know the conventions. She's unsure of herself. This is appropriate, particularly if she's not very good in social situation. And even more if she's the sort of person that worries about having "the power" on a bus ride. None of this strikes me as wierd.
I don't really have a problem with her (a) asking for the window to be closed, or (b) closing it after they've left. And it's understandable if the two women leaving mis/understand what that signifies. Welcome to the modern world.
What is stupid is wanting to "win" your bus ride.
And making a snippy comment is being rude, too. "She hit me back first" isn't usually a good defense in these sorts of things.
SCMT, I do actually agree with your (2).
Also, Shani Davis is startlingly good looking. Apollo Ohno my ass.
The snippy comment is rude, but if I'm right and they're black and she's white, I'm inferring, from the "miss thing" part, that they're reading her passiveness as an assertion of superiority. And I think the way she writes about it confirms this. And if I were them, I'd resent that.
60 - have seen better pictures now. Retracted.
Except that once they're leaving the bus, they no longer have any claim over the window. Allowing somebody to have their way is not being rude. I agree that the woman's claim to martyrdom is nonsense, but it's no more rude to close a window than it is to open one.
I don't think B's saying that closing the window is rude. She's saying that it's at least understandable for the women leaving the bus to infer that the complainer has certain attitudes towards - poor people, black people, take your pick.
the complainer has certain attitudes towards
And vice versa. I don't see a moral high ground to be staked here.
No, I agree with that. I just don't think any of this is very uncommon, or that it's a great injury if two bus mates hate you. I note that this would have been a classic issue for the Dunking Persian to chew. If ever there was someone committed to the primacy of social nicities....
See, this gets back to Ogged's post about the college kid saying to the black maintenance worker, "you're sure earning your money today." The point is, these social interactions don't take place in a vacuum; they take place in a context in which, much as we all hate it, the participantts are *not* social equals. I really read the whiner's letter and statements about tolerance and restraint as signals that she does not think those other women are her equals, but her inferiors: to be tolerated and condescended to. Therefore, the "vice versa" response, which comes from an assumption that they *are*, is inadequate.
Now, I get that the "vice versa" response is an ideal to be aimed at; I just think it's a bit of willful blindness to pretend we're actually there.
Plus, yeah: I'd rather have someone just be rude to my face than condescend to me, any day of the week.
This probably isn't relevant to the bus situation, since it's the same people every day and there's more of a shared culture, but at least on the subways in New York, there is a real disincentive to make polite requests, becuase there's a not insignificant chance that you'll be greeted with nastiness or rage/insanity. I make polite requests sometimes, and usually am responded to politely, but there are those times when I get some other response. Then there's the category of people who make their legitimate request a reason to be far bitchier than is actually necessary (I was humiliated once to be with my aunt and a couple of her equally starved and sun-fried friends on a trip out to Jones Beach after they asked a guy to move his bike from the bank of seats opposite him, he immediately complied, and they wouldn't stop talking about it for practically the entire train ride even though we were in his hearing.) So asking something of people puts you in danger of being perceived as a member of this bitchy category too. At least in the context I'm familiar with, I can understand not wanting to engage with someone even enough to ask them to close a window if you've had bad experiences on public transit in the past.
And I read her getting up *every single day* and closing the window as soon as they get off the bus as a silent rebuke
I don't understand this, B. At some level we can talk about this as a complicated class/race negotiation between three people of different social temperaments, but it's still a window. And it's a reasonable indication of adult emotional maturity to acknowledge and suffer slight inconveniences that bring other people pleasure, are of limited duration, and take place in shared spaces.
Agreed, Armsmasher--but again, the "arctic" blast and tone of grievance in that particular paragraph indicates that she's not thinking it's a *slight* inconvenience, doesn't it?
the participantts are *not* social equals
Yes, they are. They are three people on a public bus. WhinyWoman is not their employer or landlord or anything remotely resembling a power relationship. They are all strangers to one another. No one has any advantage over anybody else; nobody has any power over the others. Unless you want to count WhinyWoman getting final say over the window by virtue of her later departure point.
I think it's not unreasonable to assume from the post that cior made the calculation that Tia describes. Sure, she might be a timid white girl afraid to make a simple request to two older black women, but these women might in fact be as obnoxious as they prove to be in response to what is at worst a perceived slight.
Yeah, this thread makes me miss Ogged. Sniff.
I agree. But it also seems clear from the description of the interactions that none of *them* perceive themselves as social equals. And I think that's relevant.
OT but apo, that Cheney song, "Go Fuck Yourself," is awesome.
Their misperceptions do not trump reality, so we're back to the actual situation. If you aren't asked to close a window, it isn't rude to leave it open. If the person has left the bus, it isn't rude to close the window. No matter what the circumstances, it's rude to make snippy remarks. All the rest is fine for discussion in a sociology seminar, but that's not happening on a city bus.
This whole thing just reminds me how much I hate buses.
75: It sure is. And Matthew Harvey and cw, thanks for the tips.
Wow, Standpipe must have seen the future.
It's brilliant, and I had to link it myself.
I hate to keep belaboring the point, b/c I know it's one of my more obnoxious qualities, but the thing is, apos, we're not on the bus. We are, in essence, a sociology seminar, or reasonable approximation thereof. And those impressions may not trump reality, but they are, in fact, part of reality.
Anyway, the person in that comment thread who advised the whiner to just respond by saying that "Little Miss Thing's Little ass is freezing off" is right: responding with good humor is the right way to deal with this kind of thing, rather than getting up on one's high horse about how those people are being rude.
My guess (supposing that the two women were black. which makes sense) is that there's a proper black way of dealing with stuff like this, and that Little Miss Thing didn't know how to use it. It would have involved saying something. Even that wouldn't necessarily have worked, but lots of things don't work.
I also suspect that whether she knew it or not, she was radiating huffiness and silent grievance all along, and that the other two perceived this.
There is a WASP sort of propriety which is offensive to almost everyone else, and I suspect that that is a factor here. I grew up WASP style and it takes awhile to get away from it. (As far as that goes, southern Wasps have a different style than northern. This lady sounds more northern. Also, AS is pretty much unnecessary -- White Protestant gets it.)
Apo, this is OT, but, as Tar Heel fan, you've got to check out the new Air Jordan commercial. (Enter at Jumpman and choose the commercial in the upper left-hand corner. Via Truehoop.) It actually made me tear up a little. If I watch it a few more times, I'm totally going to steal someone's kid.
It actually made me tear up a little.
Aww, dude. Goddamn, I miss him.
78: You're welcome, although I really should have posted it to this thread.
Tia, re: 68
I've been on the receiving end of that sort of thing a few times. Sometimes in dark moments I think that middle-class white women are just about the rudest people in the world.
Of course, I'm sure that's not true and this is partly a result of my own attitudes, but there's a particular type of smug and self-satisfied middle-class style of vocal disapproval that pushes all my 'class' buttons.
Gee, single woman on city bus chooses to avoid conflict, but nonetheless can't help but signal some displeasure with her neighbors who have opened a window in the middle of winter.
Clearly, the single woman is a racist. Her displeasure and discomfort have not been caused by the open window, but by the fact that the people who opened it were black. She didn't speak to these people because she felt superior to them, not because most single women on city buses have adopted a quite reasonable social strategy of avoiding conflict and attention. And obviously the Dynamic Duo were perfectly justified in i) ignoring the obvious fact that the single woman was freezing and in some discomfort and ii) instigating conflict by trying to humiliate her.
It's all clear now.
I think the racism is in this construction (which, I note, is not yours, Andrew, but hers): "chooses to avoid conflict." Why the presumption that saying, "can you close the window, it's freezing back here" is going to cause conflict?
Gee, two women on city bus have a preference for having an open window, but nonetheless can't help notice that this woman seems to dislike it but is unwilling to talk to them about it.
Clearly, the two women have no reason to think that the third is unwilling to talk to them for race-based reasons. It can't be that she doesn't respect them enough to talk to them like equals, but instead that she is forebearing because she is so awesome. And her closing of the window as soon as they get off, when they're guaranteed to notice, can't be a pointed statement that she thinks they're really rude, instead its just that she's in such a rush to close the window that she can't wait another second.
It's all so clear now.
"Would someone please explain to me what passive-aggressive normally means to people?"
Well, my immediate response to the query the woman wrote was along the lines of shit or get off the pot. Either avoid the whole thing by sitting somewhere else, or just closing the window after they're gone, or get upfront and confront the other two in their face. Deal with it, or avoid it. Half-assed gets you absolutely nowhere. Not seeing this fairly quickly, even if you have understandable trepidation the first few times, is sad. Getting as far as working out an elaborate regular program of deliberately being half-assed is pathetic.
But then I saw that the mysterious Alameida's post said that I should read the whole thread, which I most definitely amn't interested in doing, so my response probably isn't applicable.
But, yeah, sure, that woman is doing a classic passive-aggressive. And, jeez, people who do that drive me crazy.
12, 15: absolutely.
14: "That's the case for passive, self-absorbed. Where's the aggressive?"
Here: "mind you, I don't care that the window is open while they're on the bus but I'd like to be able to shut it while the bus is stopped as they're getting off, for reasons of balance."
"reasons of balance." There's the p-a bullshit. She wants to be able to be nasty back, but not have to admit to it or deal with the consequences. That's a lot creepier, in my book, than flat-out obnoxiousness such as the two women not caring about others are engaging in in the first place (and that's certainly nasty and anti-social, of course, let alone than mocking someone for daring to care about their own comfort).
Hmm, not going to read, at least just now, another 60+ comments here following this; apologies.
Why the presumption that saying, "can you close the window, it's freezing back here" is going to cause conflict?
Group of strangers, uncertainty as to whether one has a right to ask that someone else swelter because you find it too cold, early-morning commute general misanthropy. (I might find it difficult to ask a little old man to close a bus window, or to ask a teenager to turn down his blaring walkman. And no one chitchats.) We can look at it like a sociology class, but there's a number of plausible explanations, like she's passive-aggressive, self-absorbed, and believes she isn't permitted to assert herself verbally that don't imply she's scared of the black people on her commute. It might just mean she's a woman conditioned to act a certain way (we could totally blame the patriarchy for this.)
I just am loathe to assume that any time a situation involving a black person and a white person is unpleasant, it's because the white person is racist. I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here, but this just didn't strike me as anything but a self-absorbed young professional.
23, 92: Not exactly surreal. It happens on schoolbuses all the time. Never seen it on a public bus though, and I suspect that this points to the woman's seeming self-absorption. No one probably gives a damn where she sits, but to her, she'd be taking someone's seat.
I just am loathe to assume that any time a situation involving a black person and a white person is unpleasant, it's because the white person is racist.
Word, Cala. This is the unspoken assumption - often on full display here - that drives me nuts. And I say this as a southern white guy who grew up poor enough that I was on the free lunch program in an elementary school that was 90% black. Perhaps the whiny lady is operating out of prejudice, perhaps not, but saying that this situation gives the window women a pass on behaving like adults is the soft bigotry of low expectations in spades.
It's possible that the freezing woman was being racist, but I don't see any reason to assume she was. For some individuals, asking another to do something which, all things being equal, she'd rather not, is anxiety provoking. It's essentially saying "even though having the window open may make you comfortable, it makes me uncomfortable; I'm telling you this now; so close it." I don't have any problem doing that, but a single woman on a city bus might be more sensitive to imposing her wishes on two strangers, and thereby drawing the attention of the entire bus.
People do this all the time. They remain quiet, but look disapproving, when someone talks loudly on a cell phone, loudly makes tasteless jokes, reclines across several subway seats, and so forth. It's remarkable how much many people will endure to avoid even the possibility of conflict with a stranger.
Perhaps the woman avoids speaking up in most situations like this, due to deep-seated psychological reasons having nothing to do with race; perhaps she's had a bad experience or two on public transportation, and feels compelled to remain silent; perhaps she's heard some disturbing stories from friends, and chooses to remain silent/unassuming as a rule on public transit; perhaps opening a window on a bus, in the middle of winter, was so clearly inconsiderate as to be a signal of aggression to the freezing woman.
These are all plausible explanations, besides racism, for her silence. Simply assuming that the woman is racist, if that's what's really behind the Duo's comments, is simply another form of racism, i.e. "this white woman is annoyed at my keeping the window open during the winter, and snippily closes it every time I get off the bus; she doesn't speak to me because she's racist, and she's so snippy because she thinks she's better; I know this because she's white, and white people, especially white women, think they're God's special gift to this earth."
At best, the freezing woman is possibly racist. But we know for certain that the dynamic duo are rude assholes.
"This just didn't strike me as anything but a self-absorbed young professional".
You say that like that's not worse than just being a racist.
David Weman, the whole thing sounds perfectly plausible to me. What strikes you as off about it?
Also, as long as we're in sociology class, I'd like to point out that just because one or more people in an interaction are in classes that give them differential power in the broader society, it doesn't mean that those exact same power dynamics are in effect in every interaction or setting. I don't know what's really going on on the bus, but just the fact that the two women with the open window are friends and have the other to reinforce and validate them gives them one kind of power that the whiny woman doesn't have. Also, if, in a given setting, the white person is in the minority, the majority group might have power in that setting, even if that doesn't come near compensating for the privelege whites enjoy in broader society, and the way power dynamics play out in the small setting are informed by white power in the large setting.
Look at it this way -- suppose white ways of dealing with public space and black ways are different. So black people in white space are out of place unless they learn white ways, and likewise for white people.
But whose rules apply here?
Lots of assumptions in that. However, I've been in the out-of-place white-person position a few times, and basically what was wrong was that I didn't want to relate or involve myself with the social scene that was going on. There was no issue to have conflict about, it's just that everyone was having fun and I was ignoring them. I felt a bit uncomfortable and in one of the cases I found out afterwards from someone that the others did too.
I don't think there's enough in the post to be able to conclude this is about race (class/type of work, maybe, because she speculates about the other women's jobs) but as individuals all three are annoying. I have no sympathy for the women who are belittling her and no sympathy for the way the woman is interpreting the situation and thinking of a response ("reclaim my power", "witticisms", etc.).
The actual window behavior: opening it when you're on the bus (for the window women), closing it when the others have left (for the single woman) is not really objectionable. It's the meaning ascribed to the situation by the poster that's grating, even though that's no excuse for the other women to be so damn rude to her.
"The actual window behavior: opening it when you're on the bus (for the window women), closing it when the others have left (for the single woman) is not really objectionable."
Of course, she specifically said that's not at all what she's doing, so I'm not clear what the relevance of this is.
The window women aren't opening the window? The single woman isn't closing it after they get up to leave?
I didn't say she was necessarioy being racist; I said she was being passive-aggressive. She may be being p-a because she is scared of black people, or she may be being p-a because she's just p-a. The point is, it seems clear to me that the women who are calling her "miss thing" think she is being p-a because of race. They might be wrong, or they might not. But it's not completely unreasonable for them to make that assumption, even if they are mistaken in this particular instance.
What drives me nuts in arguments like this is the presumption that the only thing that matters is the intent of the white woman: that if she isn't being racist, the personal histories, cultural context, and social significance of race from the p.o.v. of the (presumably, because of this "miss thing" report) black women is irrelevant.
If they're wrong, they're wrong. But the whiner's getting her panties in a twist about being treated unfairly is not only obnoxious, it's counter-productive. It doesn't take a genius to assume that when a white person is p-a towards a black person, said black person might presume that the p-aness stems from racism, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the white person has as much responsibility to make clear that that's not the case as the black person does to give her the benefit of the doubt.
bitchphd, in 6 you did say she was being racist. I say that not to be p-a, but just to point out what it is that people might feel the need to argue with or respond to.
Fair enough--I said I would infer that. I could delve back into the thread and pull my evidence out, but I'm too lazy.
But even if I'm wrong (and the women on the bus are wrong), the point is it's not an inference that's completely out of left field. So I think it's a bit unfair to argue that people should never make it. Why do we want to extend the benefit of the doubt to Miss Thing, but not to the women she obviously offended?
The cultural context is irrelevant, for both sides. The only necessary responsibility is to behave like adults, regardless of the state of race relations in 21st century America, and they are all failing to do so. Everybody is free to assume that the others are acting totally out of bad faith, but they still could cut the petulance and junior high school crap.
Baloney, apostropher. At the risk of being an asshole liberal, it's uncool to be the white person saying "history doesn't matter." Agreed, the (presumably) black people are not rising above Miss Thing's passive-aggressive behavior; doubtless they would get the moral high ground if they did. On the other hand, these kinds of little power struggles do happen all the time, and Miss Thing describes the situation as a bus full of regulars, given the impression of an odd kind of social community, which she seems (in her p-aness) to be refusing to be part of. That *is* offensive, even if people choose not to respond to it.
I mean, I wouldn't make the "Miss Thing" remark myself, no. But then I also adhere to white middle-class norms of what one does and doesn't say in public. My *sympathies* are with the people who are verbalizing their eyeball roll, because if I were in their position (taking race entirely out of the picture), I'd roll my eyes at the p-aness of pointedly shutting the window *every single day* rather than just saying, "hey, I'm cold." And if I were in Miss Thing's position, I'd either say that, move, or--if I pushed it to the point she pushed it to, which I'm not above doing--I'd laugh when they called me "Miss Thing" as a way of acknowledging that I had been being kind of a twerp.
Whatever. Unless we come to common agreement to kill Whitey (I bet ogged would return for that!), this is a lot of discussion for an occurance of a type that is fairly common, and the sociological mysteries of which remain indeterminable. The real lesson here is for alameida: only Becks should do Becks-style blogging.
I actually don't think that anyone's behavior was especially bad. Shit like this happens all the time. The two people and the one person could be anyone. Without context (and we don't even know anyone's race really) we have no idea why they called her Little Miss Thing. As I said, her body language might have been hostile.
Her air of aggrievance was a bit much, but not the same as heading up a lynch mob. You feel she has a feeling of entitlement though.
What drives me nuts in arguments like this is the presumption that the only thing that matters is the intent of the white woman: that if she isn't being racist, the personal histories, cultural context, and social significance of race from the p.o.v. of the (presumably, because of this "miss thing" report) black women is irrelevant.
Oh, come on. No one's saying their opinions were irrelevant; they may have been wrong, though.
I can just see us analyzing this if she had politely asked them to shut the window and gotten a Little Miss Thing-type response, and I'm thinking that on the model you're proposing, being aware of the structure would mean she was asserting Her Privilege to dictate the temperature, in ignorance of Their Desires to feel comfortable.
it's uncool to be the white person saying "history doesn't matter."
I'm perfectly willing to be uncool. If you'd like to discuss vote suppression or hiring patterns or loaning practices, then history matters. When it comes to a stupid power struggle over a bus window of all things, then I'll gladly stand up and say that history doesn't matter and it's nothing more than a lame excuse to be obnoxious.
social community, which she seems (in her p-aness) to be refusing to be part of. That *is* offensive
It isn't offensive to keep to yourself on a city bus.
also adhere to white middle-class norms of what one does and doesn't say in public
Now I call baloney. There is nothing middle-class or white about not saying nasty things to people you don't know. That's just common courtesy.
They *could* be wrong, yes. But they also could be right. In fact, we also don't know if they *did* think she was being racist; but your response in #110, at least, concedes that you agree they might have been. If they were, then that's surely something that bears taking into consideration, no?
And come on. If she'd asked them to shut the window and gotten a Miss Thing response, then, no; I would not make that argument. It's unfair to set up a strawman.
It isn't offensive to keep to yourself on a city bus.
Hey! The Apostropher's shy!
Apos, I really think that at this point you're misreading me. I don't know whether this is b/c I'm not explaining myself well or b/c the argument has gotten too heated, but in either case, I'm gonna withdraw, since I've given my interpretaion as well as I can.
Not that much of a strawman, I don't think. Remember the earning pay thread? The speaker's body language was almost instantly under debate. If they respond with Little Miss Thing, it must have been something in her bearing, right?
Of course it bears taking into account; but hey, by comment #6 we'v already assumed they're black, she's racist, and they're justified in behaving like sixth-graders because she's closing a window as they get off the bus.
It's really the last I quibble with; a biting 'You could have asked us; we won't bite, I promise' would have dealt with it in a more mannered way. And maybe it's unfair to expect manners when one feels one has been insulted; but it seems more unfair to expect poor manners and celebrate it.
Well, okay. I don't feel that it's been particularly heated, so apologies if I've come across that way.
I don't feel it's been that heated. At least as not as much as the last one, where after a while I felt the conclusion was Never Talk To Anyone Ever You Might Insult Them.
Obviously, the clear thing to do here is buy a car and drive to work.
Note that when her friend did the exact same thing they paid no attention; that seems to clearly indicate that it was something about her specifically that set them off. Also, the fact that she found another seat then seems to clearly disprove her implication that she didn't have any other options.
Obviously, the clear thing to do here is buy a car and drive to work.
Which is, apparently, the moral of the MeFi thread as well. That, or quit your job.
The moral of the Olympics is: biathlon is teh pwn.
Isn't curling great? I can completely imagine the competitors all enjoying a beer and still getting the stones in the circle.
Yeah, curlers always seem so much more like ordinary people than Olympic athletes.
"The window women aren't opening the window? The single woman isn't closing it after they get up to leave?"
What you said was "closing it when the others have left (for the single woman) is not really objectionable."
And, no, she didn't wait until they'd left to close the window. That's pretty much one of the two main points of what she did wrong (by my view, and that of several others). If she'd just waited until they'd left to close the window, she wouldn't have been being passive-aggressive. Instead, she very deliberately made sure they hadn't left so that they'd see her ostentatiously closing the window.
"...but hey, by comment #6 we'v already assumed they're black, she's racist, and they're justified...."
We?
"Isn't curling great? I can completely imagine the competitors all enjoying a beer and still getting the stones in the circle."
Sure, but it doesn't beat extreme ironing, or bushkazi, or Zorbing, or yak-sking, does it?
123 was me. The ID fields keep coming up empty.
Hay! Curling isn't a sissy sport!
123: And, no, she didn't wait until they'd left to close the window.
From the metafilter post:
until both of the women get off the bus (at the same stop). I then, get up and close the window.
I got up and went across the aisle to close the window after they were out of their seats and towards the front of the bus.
Wow! the crowd's been gone for hours, but there sure are a lot of broken chairs and smashed bottles.
Like B, I read race in the original post. But I found myself feeling defensive and even a little hurt (while reading, of course) by B's original comments not because I disagreed, but simply because of the eruptive vituperation she managed to put into them.
I well know the annoyance the passive-aggressive causes some people; it's my mother's style, and I detest it. And because, having been raised in that style, I feel both inside and outside it and take direct attacks on it personally, even when I agree with them, as here.
The root cause of passive-aggression is a lack of self-knowledge and a refusal to come to terms with our own motives. This is because we have been raised to feel that certain motives, which of course are perfectly natural, such as anger, or our simple desire to please ourselves, to actually ask for what we want, are illegitimate, we shouldn't feel them at all. So we learn to deny them, to force them away. Of course they come back, since they really are our motives, in this disguised form as passive-aggression. Disguised above all from ourselves, even if, as is often the case, from no one else.
So my reading of our little bus drama has the narrator unable to ask for what she wants, yet wanting it very badly. And in many situations--I can't quite tell about this one--any honest assessment of one's feeling about race also is illegitimate, because we're not supposed to feel that way. So the comical (from the outside) way to try to get the window closed without asking, because we have no right to ask anyone for anything we want, least of all black women who have been working all night, is to telegraph how much she needs it to be closed. It's frigid! I'm freezing! Can't they see that?!
Now, the striking thing about the original post is how much of all this the writer displays apparently unaware. And this pushes all of B's buttons: lack of self-awareness, lack of the straightforwardness of a truly autonomous person, ineffectual weakness in a woman, refusal to engage in a social situation. Perfect storm. Pow!
As you can see, I can't help but feel a certain pity for the way this woman is tied in knots, is essentially stymied. Can't go forward, can't go back, can't go sideways. Is she, in a way, contemptable? Perhaps. By the time you're grown up, you should be aware of this, and engaged in the never-ending, uphill struggle to surmount it. But it is, as our president says, hard work. It's a lot easier for me when I'm up than when I'm down, depressed. I've heard that drugs like Prozac completely cure passive-aggression in some people. Maybe, and this is really reaching, the fact that it's winter in the story is a clue to why she's at her worst, seasonal depression and all. But I would hope she'd be a little more self-aware even so. I guess the thing for me is how unaware she is of what's really going on with herself.
"We're using different definitions of 'left.' I meant left their seats; you seem to mean left the bus."
Yes.
"Given the way she writes up the situation it's possible that this really is what she's doing, but I maintain the the simple act of non-ostentatiously closing a bus window adjacent to an empty seat is not objectionable behavior."
Is anyone here saying it is? Did I? Certainly I did not. What sane person would argue that closing a bus window is inherently objectionable?
But I don't find support for this in her post:
she very deliberately made sure they hadn't left so that they'd see her ostentatiously closing the window.From the MeFi account:
...but I'd like to be able to shut it while the bus is stopped as they're getting off, for reasons of balance.Not after they get off; instead, as they're getting off, for reasons of balance.
To me, the "reasons of balance" make perfect sense.
Moving busses lurch and sway, IME. The only time you can move around and be sure you won't get thrown on your ass or onto someone's lap is when the bus is stopped and the doors are open. That is, when someone is getting on or off.
Obviously this is more important if she's feeble, poorly coordinated, wearing high heels, or motor impaired; less if she's a trained gymnast in top form.
It's best you give up, Gary. "Balance" I take to mean, "I don't want to fall while closing the window so I close it when the bus has stopped. It just so happens that in order to do this I end up closing the window while people are still exiting the bus."
Balance I do not take to mean: "In order to get even."
This is the last time I participate seriously in one of these threads; I can't believe I ended up giving that post a closer reading.
In other words, what Michael said.
Although who knows, maybe, just maybe as soon as the two women get up, our heroine leaps to her feet, stomps her boots - real, weatherproof boots, the kind that emphasize how cold it is outside and how unpleasant it is - and then, with a flourish, she leans over the empty seats, all the while glaring with her cold blue eyes at the two women heading for the exit, clucking her tongue and smacking her lips, slams the window shut with her finely manicured fingers, making sure to display her pale hands, smooth from lack of hard labor, and then with a look of infinite disdain directed to all who were born beneath her contempt, but still subject to it, she walks back to her seat, twirls around - better to display the nimble moves she learned from her private dance lessons her father paid for when she was a young girl - flings off the scarf hitherto covering her cold and upturned nose and shakes her blonde hair free just the way she used to do when she rode back from the country club in her convertible, driven by her family's chauffeur, over open fields kept up by a private ground crew in such a way as to make it possible to enjoy the hunt year round (outside of polo season, that is), all of which was paid for from the proceeds of the black market sales of diamonds harvested by slave labor from a secret deposit her ancestors had discovered beneath an otherwise ordinary mountain -- yes, it must be in memory of this pampered upbringing that she does something so rude, so inconsiderate, so unsophisticaed in that sophisticated bourgeois way as to close - for reasons of balance (balance!) - a bus window next to a recently emptied seat while the bus is not in motion. Shame on her. Shame.
"The only time you can move around and be sure you won't get thrown on your ass or onto someone's lap is when the bus is stopped and the doors are open. That is, when someone is getting on or off."
I'd figure you can close a window without falling down by moving to sit in the now empty seat and then closing the window. God knows that's what I've always done under identical circumstances. (Have I mentioned that I've never had a driver's license?) So I'm pretty sure that, in fact, what you describe above is not "the only time" one can safely close a window without risking falling over. Why she couldn't do this and avoid confrontation, I have no idea, but, then, I didn't understand why she felt compelled to sit in the same seat every day so as to have this daily problem, either.
Alternatively, if she brought a gun along once, and shot the other two women, she'd never have the problem again. There are always alternative solutions available if one just thinks out of the box a little. I'm fairly sure she'd only even have to slightly wound one of them to never again have the same problem.
Another solution: set fire to a nearby seat for warmth. I bet you'd only have to do that once, as well, to not have the problem recur.
Cior, is that really you? Not all of us here are so convinced you're meaningfully at fault here, if it's of importance to you in considering whether to comment.
Yes, it's really me.
I'm shy and self-absorbed. Even more so at the break of dawn on frigid days. I'm not on the bus to make friends, I'm not chatty, I like my newspaper and my earphones.
Balance = footing.
I care that these women want the window open when they're riding. I suspect the work all night. In situations where I've been up all night I've had issues with body temp and general discomfort. Asking them to close the window not only puts me in the position of having to interact with a stranger, but also implies that I don't care about their comfort.
I'm not huffy when I close the window. If I'm shy enough not to want to confront them, I'm also shy enough to close the window in a completely normal and unoffending way.
Funny how my original problem (two women) has grown (hundreds! personal insults! accusations of racism!).
I drove my car to work last week, though I plan to ride the bus on Monday. Anyone in my region is welcome to join in on the ride. Coffee and breakfast is on me.
Get the villagers! Ready the pitchforks! Someone figure out where the fuck "Down There" is!
(I wouldn't worry too much about the commenters here, Cior. Interspersed with the discussion of your circs is one about best practices for offing five year olds.)
SomeCallMeTim: how many can you take at a time? I could probably take three. I'm a biter.
I'm claiming 23, on the theory that I could run through knots of them while picking up individuals to dispose of. Worth noting that apostropher is making much more extravagant claims.
Okay cior.
If you want to know what I think let you in for this onslaught, it was the way your query was phrased in the original mefi post, which isn't loading right now so I can't refer back to it. If you had put it just like that, I doubt as many people here would have been accusing you of passive-aggression. But since you mentioned how freezing you are and how your newspaper was getting all farked up, it sounded like you thought the women were being very inconsiderate when they had the window open, and you were being made unfairly to suffer at their hands, which then raised the questions--why didn't you just ask them to close the window? Why were you complaining about something they did possibly totally unaware of the inconvenience to you? Of course, I imagine that their later rudeness might have led you to look back on l'affaire bus window and complain about all their behavior more, even though you wouldn't have complained at the time, because you were generally pissed off. I'm just explaining how people got a negative impression.
I basically think the women's rudeness (the taunting, not the window opening) was pretty gross, and I'm sorry you have to deal with it. But it's definitely a good idea to try to project yourself into the mindframe of someone you're having a conflict with to figure out if you can deal with them, and the explanations offered here--they thought you were silently rebuking them without deigning to speak to them--are probably the most likely. I third the suggestion that the next time it happens you should say "Little Miss Thing's Little Miss Ass is freezing off." Or even just, "Look guys, I was cold, I didn't want to bother you by asking you to close the window, but when you got off the bus, I didn't think you'd have a problem." I don't think "reclaiming your power" is a great objective, but rectifying a miscommunication is.
As for the people on the internet, a word to the wise: the internets aren't your friend any more than bus riders are, unless you have a well-established community, like the one here, and even here drive by commenters can insult you or you can get linked to by other sites that have different sensibilities than the one you posted to. I take some risks in that regard on this site, but I save the truly personal for the comments, mostly, and I don't think I'd care what someone said about me on some other site. If you do, you should probably ask your real life friends for advice.
Cior, five-year-olds are easy. It's the toddlers you have to worry about; they do this arching-one's-back-whilst-turning-into-a-noodle manuever.
I bet you can't handle more than two toddlers. Maybe three.
Are we talking five-year-olds trained or untrained in how to fight? Also, are you taking into account and ingrained cultural unwillingness to hit a five-year-old?
Someone figure out where the fuck "Down There" is!
Uh, Tim, how high is your TiVo counter?
I was running about three or four months behind ogged, IIRC. I now, sadly, seem destined to win the race everyone wants to lose. But Mardi Gras is coming, so hope still lives. My beads will be excellent.
"Sitting in another seat isn't an answer as the bus seems to run on a sort of unspoken assigned seating arrangement (we're all regulars)"
I wasn't aware there were buses we're everyone's a regular. From the rest of the post, it seems like a regular bus; in that case it seems logistically impossible.
#140 Thank you, Tia
Look, we've all been responding to a piece of writing, what else are we supposed to do? #136 is so different in tone it's hard for me to believe it was written by the same person. And whether she-who-wrote #136 likes it or not, the original post presented a personality in action I'll make no apologies for criticizing.
John Tingley:
"so different in tone it's hard for me to believe it was written by the same person"
Write me at the address in my MeFi profile. I'll happily respond to prove it.
I'm not interested in, nor concerned about getting an apology. Never was.
Well, this isn't addressed to the real Cior, but let's construct a hypothetical C who is passive aggressive. I'm living with an extremely passive aggressive person right now. It seems to me (and maybe this is just my white middle-class values asserting themselves) that the two women could say the next morning something like. "We've been up all night and are really hot; we hope that you aren't too cold." And then C could say. "Well, I am a little cold, but I want you to be comfortable, and I may just close it once you get up to leave." And then the two women could say, "Would it help if we put it up a little? We're just boiling, but we don't want you to freeze either."
And whether she-who-wrote #136 likes it or not, the original post presented a personality in action I'll make no apologies for criticizing.
Now who's being passive aggressive? As she said, she didn't ask for an apology.
Cior, to close the window before they're gone is a bit passive aggressive. If they have a moral right to open it, as uou see to think, closing it before their gone is rude.
It could be argued that they should refrain from closing the window if you politely asked them to, but you haven't done so IIUYC. In that case, closing the window before they're gone is clearly somewhat rude.
OTOH, their reaction goes beyond what's reasonable, so and they're on balance more rude than you are.
Cior, to close the window before they're gone is a bit passive aggressive. If they have a moral right to open it, as uou see to think, closing it before their gone is rude.
I think I disagree with this. If someone on the subway has been taking up more than one seat, and as soon as they get up you sit down, making it evident that you would have liked to have been sitting, is that passive-aggressive? I don't think so.
The presence on this thread of the person who wrote the post, in the mood of #136, did seem to me to raise the question of apology as a matter of civility. And you'll notice I decided that I had been responding to the post, and didn't need to apologize.
That's a bad example, b/c in your example you are clearly not signaling disapproval (over the other person not giving you his seat). But cior isn't obviously signalling disapproval, so the wonen's reaction is quite rude.
Yes, I probably was too hard on Cior. It depends on how soon she closes the window, if she flies off her seat it's passive aggressive, and her facial expression.
Apologies, Cior, I was wrong.
Assuming you didn't make the whole thing up.
148 was I. Ityped my name into the comment box; I don't know why it didn't go through.
Weman, I'm having trouble parsing 153. But I basically agree with your conclusion I think: she can close the window after the women get up, even if they're not off the bus. It would only rise to passive-agression if her body language communicated that she thought she was being put upon.
Tingley, I actually agree with Tim that making that comment without directly addressing Cior, now present in the thread, has a tinge of passive aggression. See, it's hard to avoid! Let us all forgive each other our passive aggression. Confronting our anger, and each other, is scary.
Also, I'd defend the salutary quality of a bit of passivity, if not passive-aggression, on public transit. It's often quite fraught to negotiate in those spaces, and good faith attempts frequently end in conflict.
154: But jeez, Weman, let's not imply that people present are lying without damn good reason to. That's just rude.
I pretty much agree with Tia. The original post sounded very p-a, but that was probably tinged with recent annoyance. The post here? Sounds pretty normal, once 'reasons of balance' had been explained. (And yeah, I find it hard to close a bus window on a moving bus, especially if they're the kind with the push-in sliders that always stick.)
I do think some of the mefi posters have never been on a public bus or train, and that they think all buses are like the train in It happened one night with lots of camraderie, singing sailors, and nips of whiskey for all, and that someone who refuses to participate in the joyous singing must be cold, frigid, and racist, or else they'd accompany everyone on the accordion.
I was barely awake when I took the T on an early morning commute, but I really think I would have remember singing sailors.
156: Yes, that my conclusion.
BTw, why Tingley and Weman, rather than John and David?
Even when you responds to someone in a blog post, bloggers typically use a given name.
I'm curious, not offended. Social mores and all that.
#156: OK, I see it now.
Cior: I guess we'd like you to address the issues we see in your original post. The change in tone, language, images really are startling; it's all we have to go on.
"Balance = footing."
My humble apologies, then.
159: Oh, I guess it started with the convention of calling Weiner "Weiner." I also call Osner "Osner." It's supposed to read something like, "Weman, jolly old chap." Let me know if you'd prefer otherwise.
I certainly don't mind. Besides, on this blog John=Emerson.
I think it's because we have 600000 Matts here. And one Wehttam and one Ttam.
"Are we talking five-year-olds trained or untrained in how to fight? Also, are you taking into account and ingrained cultural unwillingness to hit a five-year-old?"
Also, ponies, or another species?
"Uh, Tim, how high is your TiVo counter?"
And how much did she or he pay for their high-inducer?
Cior: I guess we'd like you to address the issues we see in your original post. The change in tone, language, images really are startling; it's all we have to go on.
Change in tone? I haven't ridden the bus for over a week now. I'm not as irked today as I was that morning.
That morning I was going for blood, looking for the perfect thing to say or do in response -- something that would make me fee less humiliated.
I don't get the change in language. I write the way I write and see no big difference in what I've offered here vs. what I've offered at AskMeFi. Images? help me on this one.
I'm sticking with the pepper spray recommendation, Cior. Give 'em what for.
I don't think there was a change of tone.
"See, it's hard to avoid! Let us all forgive each other our passive aggression."
People who respond without stating the name of who they are responding to, or the number of the comment, are scum.
158: "...with lots of camraderie, singing sailors, and nips of whiskey for all, and that someone who refuses to participate in the joyous singing must be cold, frigid, and racist, or else they'd accompany everyone on the accordion."
When I grew up in Brooklyn, that's the way the D train always was. Not the F, though. Of course, they still had wicker seats in those days, and dining cars and sleepers.
"...but I really think I would have remember singing sailors."
You have to give the right answer when the conducter asks "singing or non-singing."
161: "Cior: I guess we'd like you to address the issues we see in your original post."
Tingley, do you have a mouse in your pocket?
"The change in tone, language, images really are startling; it's all we have to go on."
Unless you have whatever Tim's TiVo-counting friend is getting high on.
Cior, I think there was an important change.
One of them, the one who sits across the aisle from me likes to open her window. Mind you, this morning it was 25F outside. From where she sits, she gets a light dusting of fresh air. From where I sit, it's an artic blast that a) farks up the newspaper I'm reading, b) throws my hair into my face and c) freezes my nose off.
I've responded to this situation by bearing it, non-confrontationally until both of the women get off the bus (at the same stop).
You may not have meant to imply, but did, to some people, that you thought you were suffering undeservedly, you thought they were being inconsiderate just by having the window open, and that you deserved some special congratulations for your forbearance.
I care that these women want the window open when they're riding. I suspect the work all night. In situations where I've been up all night I've had issues with body temp and general discomfort. Asking them to close the window not only puts me in the position of having to interact with a stranger, but also implies that I don't care about their comfort.
Whereas here, you recognize that their comfort is as important as yours, and don't describe your reluctance to ask them to close the window as some sort of martyrdom, but as a reluctance to make them uncomfortable.
It creates a very different impression.
It's a crying shame that Metafilter isn't up this morning. In my OP, I clearly acknowledged that they had the right to have the window open while they were on the bus.
"What else can I do? What witticism can I lob in their direction? What should I do when my witticism provokes a tirade in response?"
Well, unfoggedtariat*?
* I know it's not the preferred spelling, but it's my preferred spelling.
#1:
"Mind you, I don't care that the window is open while they're on the bus but I'd like to be able to shut it while the bus is stopped as they're getting off, for reasons of balance."
#2
"I truly don't care that they want the window open while they're on the bus. I only started caring when they began to publicly humiliate me."
Twice.
Cior, "mind you, I don't care" seems undercut by your previous, freezing, farked up newspaper, and hair blowing in your face, and "I've responded to this situation by bearing it," which cast doubt on your later protestations of indifference, and make those protestations sound, well, passive-aggressive. "I don't like the open window, but I also care about their comfort" or "I don't care enougb about the open window that I need it closed while they're on the bus" sans description of what an inconvenience it is would have sounded more sincere.
I'm only explaining how it read to some people (obviously, not all people). It's not supposed to be a stable moral judgment about you, or an x-ray view into what you intended to write. It's easy, as Stanley Fish would tell you, to think you said one thing and get read another way. But it's useful to be aware of what creates certain impressions, on mefi threads and on buses, so you can avoid giving that impression when you don't mean to.
Speaking of being read wrong, I think that comment is even more messily structured than is usual for me. Let me know if anything's unclear.
It seems to me that when a group of people is happily generating wild conjectures about some mostly unknown person X, it's really rude of X to barge in and say, "Hey! I'm a real human being! Not just a function on an Unfogged thread."
And philosophically naive, too. "Il n'y a
pas de hors-texte." The "real world" is a reactionary imposition of patriarchal hegemony.
The number one google result for "Il n'y a pas de hors-texte."
179: Cior, Emerson was joking. But you were not enough part of our interpretive community to see that, as any regular reader immediately would. You see how how easy it is to be misread?
Taking Emerson's expressions as having any connection to what he thinks about the underlying subject matter, is, if I understand the term correctly, a category error.
Cior, since you're new, I'll go ahead and warn you that we are extremely dedicated to the one-liner here and any given comment has about 1 in 2 chance of being tongue-in-cheek. Also, we usually give new arrivals a fruit basket.
"The underlying subject matter" is a delusory projection of the Imaginary. We must work through this supposed "subject matter" in order to begin to approach The Real.
I didn't get a fruit basket; I got a tossed salad.
You know, not only does that link in 180 speak directly to this issue, it was very useful to me because some percentage of the times I've said I don't think you can meaningfully talk about authorial intent someone rolls their eyes at me and says, "Oh, so you're into New Criticism," and I've always suspected that wasn't the case, but I didn't really know what New Criticism was. Now I see that I am not, in fact, an New Critic. I think it's fine to consider cultural and historical context and associations and lots of stuff, I just don't think that once you get to the stage of lit crit, what the author wanted to do is any more priveleged than what the reader thinks she did, cuz ya know, there's a gap between intention and perception. So there eye-rollers!
176: I think you're right about the different ways of reading the comment. When I read Cior's original comment, I imagined her using words like "arctic blast" for a fun, dramatic effect. But then I come from a family of great kidders who are fond of tall tales.
Emerson:
There's a special place in Heaven for people like you. If I'm lucky, it won't be the same one I'm in.
"...and any given comment has about 1 in 2 chance of being tongue-in-cheek."
I'd suggest more like 6-to-1, though there's considerable variance via thread topic, thread drift, and the individual writing.
"Also, we usually give new arrivals a fruit basket."
Rank discrimination against those with seniority. And the pension plan stinks, too.
There's a special place in Heaven for people like you. If I'm lucky, it won't be the same one I'm in.
I'll speak to the Good Lord about this. However, I believe that he's generally reluctant to make custom arrangements to fit individual whims. Purgatory and Hell are closely fitted to individual needs, however.
However, I believe that he's generally reluctant to make custom arrangements to fit individual whims.
This suggests that God is something like a bus driver, and Heaven like public transit. However, Joan Osborne suggested that God might be one of us, just a stranger on a bus. Which theological view do we find more compelling?
I believe that he's generally reluctant to make custom arrangements to fit individual whims. Purgatory and Hell are closely fitted to individual needs, however.
I knew you were a communist at heart. Which, obviously, makes me suspicious of your pronouncements on religious matters.
For example, some people benefit from having red-hot pitchforks thrust into them for all eternity.
I think of God as more like my Mom:
"This isn't a restaurant. Eat what's on your plate."
"Which theological view do we find more compelling?"
Buddhist monks hitting people.
Non-sequituring, this seems vaguely Unfogged-ish. Although I'd be embarassed as regards saying this:
In the handwritten letter, he complimented the woman, Elizabeth Krum, for handling the resulting flap "as a trooper" and said he did not intentionally embarrass her.I rather thought that troupers handle flaps better than troopers, though maybe pilots handle them better than either.
I think of God as more like my Mom
So I fucked God last night? No wonder people have been looking at my aura. Say, my belly looks a bit bigger.
So I fucked God last night?
So how was it? overrated?
198: Mrs. Emerson, that is, Our Lord, was quite stern and commanding. She insisted on opening the bus windows, though I was naked while she was fully clothed, a bit like Tom Ford, and an arctic blast caused some parts of my body to stand at more rapt attention than usual. Then she gave me three plates of grits and lima beans and told me she was going to fatten me up, and I had to eat them all before I was unchained from the table. So yeah, what apo said.
195: One trooper managed Ogged's flaps--or Ogged's date's--pretty well.
You have to be mistaken. My Mom didn't do vegans. She was also a smoker.
You're right. I meant to say that Our Lord introduced Our Lord's self as Mrs. Emerson, but that was probably just Our Lord's common earthly disguise, chosen for the preexisting similarities between them. In other words, I didn't do Mrs. Emerson, but a deity of the same name.
And here's to you, Mrs. Emerson,?Jesus loves you more than you will know.?God bless you, please Mrs. Emerson.?Heaven holds a place for those who pray,?Hey, hey, hey??We'd like to know a little bit about your for our files?We'd like to help you learn to help yourself.?Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes,?Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.??And here's to you, Mrs. Emerson,?Jesus loves you more than you will know.?God bless you, please, Mrs. Emerson.?Heaven holds a place for those who pray,?Hey, hey, hey??Hide in the hiding place where no one ever goes.?Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes.?It's a little secret just the Emersons' affair.?Most of all you've got to hide it from the kids.??Koo-koo-ka-choo, Mrs. Emerson,?Jesus loves you more than you will know.?God bless you, please, Mrs. Emerson.?Heaven holds a place for those who pray,?Hey, hey, hey??Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.?Going to the candidate's debate.?Laugh about it, shout about it?When you've got to choose?Every way you look at this you lose.??Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio,?Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you.?What's that you say, Mrs. Emerson.?Jotting Joe has left and gone away,?Hey hey hey.
From buses to sociology to God-sex to lyrics, in under 205 posts.
I think you all are slipping.
198
So I fucked God last night?
So how was it? overrated? This would have been so much better with the first "t" removed from the response, and the "i" capitalized.
Hey Cior, kudos for showing up and clarifying. Good show.
Couple of things w/r/t my reading, rather than w/r/t "you," who I don't know from Adam (ok, I know Adam personally, so I probably do, but he tends to be a bit p-a too, by his own admission, so, whatever).
Asking them to close the window implies that I don't care about their comfort: No, honest to god, it does not. It's a request, not a command; it invites dialogue. "I'm cold, do you mind closing the window?" allows someone to say, "do you mind if I close it halfway, b/c I'm absolutely boiling?" This is the kind of thing that I, the professional hater-of-passive-aggression, get bugged by: instead of worrying so much about someone else's reaction to a perfectly valid request/feeling/response, why not assume that you can say what you want, they can say what they want, and you can work out an acceptable compromise?
Having said that, Tia's defense of the salutary quality of a bit of passivity, if not passive-aggression, on public transit. It's often quite fraught to negotiate in those spaces, and good faith attempts frequently end in conflict is totally valid, and in fact I agree. I have no problem, really, with not asking someone to close the window. My primary point is that it's not *unreasonable* for someone who hasn't been given the opportunity to be considerate to take offense if they perceive that they're being silently rebuked for not having read your mind. That may be--and I'm quite willing to accept this as fact--completely contrary to your *intent*, but they have no way of knowing this. I brought up the race thing b/c my reading of the original post was that the women in question were black, you're not (or, as someone said on Metafilter, maybe you're bourgie), and if that is the case, I think it might well explain *why* they'd make that assumption--wrong though it undoubtedly is in this case.
In other words, okay, they're being rude; however, they may think that *you* are being rude (albeit in a more subtle way). Why not extend them the benefit of the doubt? In which case, I strongly believe that laughing at being called "Miss Thing," or saying "little Miss Thing's little ass is freezing off," in a jokey kind of way, or saying "I'm sorry if you think I'm being a snot about closing the window, I'm really not, I'm just cold and I didn't want to ask you to close it b/c I figured you had it open for a reason" would defuse the situation nicely. Even if, in fact, said women are being total assholes and *are* leaving the window open on purpose, any of those responses will make it clear that they, not you, are the assholes, and will get the rest of the bus to stop glaring/laughing at you--which I infer is your goal.
I get that you don't want to talk to people on the bus. That's cool, generally speaking. But if someone is talking to you, or otherwise doing something that affects you, I think it's a basic social fact that it's incumbent on you to respond or communicate.