Less-Than-Constructive Criticism

[ladysprite]

So there I was last night, driving home from work. I was stopped at a traffic light, and nobody was moving, so I picked up my MP3 player that was connected to my radio and, since it was a little too loud, turned the volume down (this involved pushing one small button on the side, and didn't mean taking my eyes off the road).

And suddenly a bicyclist who was riding by in the next lane over decided to Hulk out and throw a screaming temper tantrum. He leaned down to stare into my car and started screaming an expletive-laden tirade that was loud enough to hurt my ears through the closed car windows and over both my radio and the traffic noise, asserting that I should "not (censored) play with my (censored) phone while I was (censored) driving." I think there were a few more F-bombs in there for good measure, but honestly I lost count because I was busy wondering what the blue hell was going on and whether I was going to need to deal with him trying to break through my window and assault me.

And.... I know this upset me more than it should have, because I have a personal issue with people being mad at me, but honestly, I have to wonder - what was he honestly trying to accomplish? (Leaving aside the facts that I wasn't playing with a phone, that I was being a responsible driver, and that he took his eyes and attention off the road for a lot longer to rage out at me than the imagined offense he was raging at.)

Did he honestly think that verbal assault would make me blink widely in shock and surprise, suddenly realizing the error of my ways, and that I would gratefully go on, a wiser and chastened person, to never use a phone while driving again? Did he feel that my offense was so egregious that I needed to be attacked to punish my heinous crime?

Honestly, I just wonder about mean people in general. I mean, I know that everyone loses their temper from time to time, and everyone says hurtful things, and I can understand that. In the heat of the moment, in the middle of an argument, when you're hurting yourself, it's easy to lash out. But... this was utterly unprovoked. And there are people who just seem to pride themselves in being rude, or hurtful, or nasty, and there's a part of me that just always wants to ask them why. What is their reason for behaving that way - to what purpose do they do it? What do they hope to achieve by hurting other people?

Because deep down inside I'm pretty sure that the answer is that they don't care, or that it amuses them, and that kind of bothers me more than the initial offense itself....

Comments

[darxus.livejournal.com]

I'm really concerned about how much people seem to be paying more attention to their phones and less to reality going on around them. And I think it could be productive, on a small scale, to incoherently scream at a few strangers who are doing it dangerously.

But the part about you being stopped at a light doesn't make any sense. Maybe you could have helped him recognize his error by screaming back at him.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Screaming back is a dangerous thing for a woman to do to a man she knows nothing about -- it's not that rare for escalation to commence, and a lot of men feel justified in doing just about anything to a woman they don't know.

[zombie-dog.livejournal.com]

also, if you've ever screamed in an enclosed vehicle, you know that it really hurts your ears!