How horrible for both of you, Erika and Sophia! People can be truly awful sometimes.

Yeah don't understand the mentality. I don't understand thinking that way. But I also don't understand saying it. I mean when the guy ahead of me is wearing this awful shirt with mixed purple, yellow and lime green, my not saying anything to him is not just a matter of tact or politeness. Its a matter of his fashion sense is none of my freakin business. Boundaries, these people don't have boundaries.

It only happens to me once or twice a year, and I am not really bothered by it personally-- I became immune to being called ugly by high school, and frankly, I don't think I am ugly, just a little unconventional/slightly ethnic. I get just as many people calling me the "nice Italian/Jewish girl who looks like my cousin/aunt/sister".

What bothers/interests me is that I cannot fathom why someone takes the time to do something like that or really feels that urge First because I have enough anger/frustration with the people I actually know or who are actually doing something annoying to give myself additional issues with people standing on the street, second because I am so darn polite that when a random man was sleeping in my car and scared the crap out of me I said "excuse me, you are scaring me, do you mind if I exit the vehicle". I mean, sometimes I want to yell at people who, say, get off the bus and stop short to open their stroller, causing everyone else to be stuck on the bus when we only have 3 minutes to transfer, but I hold it in-- but the people are actually doing something that effects me!

I've come to the conclusion that by and large, people suck. It's simplistic, yes, but frankly, I don't have the time or energy to waste on trying to figure out what trauma may have caused them to become sucky humans. Everyone's got shit to deal with, very, very few people lead perfectly charmed lives. It's how you choose to cope with the shit that defines you as a person-- either you find a way to deal and hopefully become if not a more compassionate person, then one who's at least self-aware enough to realize others don't have it easy either and behave accordingly, or you suck.

Ergo, by and large, people suck.

Present company excluded, natch.

I'm hip. Sophia, damn, that's harsh.as Ron White says "You can't fix stupid." And I wish the whole disability-faker meme would die too. (For a million reasons, not least people watching to see you "break character". But it's not the golden ticket. Far from it. Because every malaka out there acts like he pays your salary.)

Yeah, Sophia, that's a special kind of misogyny and I hope their balls fall off. They're not using them, anyway. (Did I really say that?)

I don't understand thinking that way. But I also don't understand saying it.

Seriously. Fucking people.

Happy Birthday Fred Pete! Congrats Tamara!

"You may have all day. I don't."

I guess it shouldn't but this does surprise me. I need to go watch that youtube video of the girls on the softball team carrying Sara Tucholsky around the bases [link] or the video of the Free Hugs guy.

I didn't realize how young we learn to be so mean until I worked with pre-schoolers. It is there very early in life. Then again, I've been around 80 year olds that took special pleasure in the pain they could cause.

I was with a group of people the other day who were sharing anti-semetic slur stories. That, this conversation, and a post I just read on LJ from a guy who got hassled walking on the Brooklyn Bridge with his boyfriend, remind me how lucky I am -- both in circumstance and in surroundings. I think the only time anyone's ever yelled anything at me was in high school when some guy called me and my mother (!!) lesbians!

I don't think there's any way to win. Some people just don't get boundaries. Some of the times I've been yelled at it's some twisted compliment--I'm a bitch because I won't sleep with the stranger in question.

People need to know when to shut up.