MetaChat - Stressed city dwellers

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23 April 2007

Stressed city dwellers - I had a slightly odd experience on the way home from work.

→[More:]So I'm walking down a busy street, about 5 minutes away from home. A woman walks towards me very quickly and seems to veer one direction. I walk in the other direction. She then veers towards me and we nearly bump into each other. "Oh sorry" I say.

She turns around, chases back after me and shouts "why do people always cut across my path? You're the second one today".

"I'm really sorry, I thought you were going one way and you went the other".

"No you didn't, you're just STUPID". This shouted at full volume. Passers-by stop and stare. She then marches off.

Clearly it's her with the problem but for some reason this has really depressed me. It sucks being shouted at, even by odd people in the street. Only afterwards did the ideal response to her first question come to me: "why do you scream at strangers in the street?". Ah well. I hope she hadn't had too horrible a day, anyway - something was clearly going on.

post by: greycap at: 12:54 | 10 comments

I can sympathize with the feeling, even though the action taken is absurd. Walking around in nyc is like a never ending parade of people jumping across your path, stepping directly in front of you and then stopping for whatever reason and walking really slowly while taking up an entire sidewalk. if you're having the kind of day that just breaks your spirit on top of that, i could see having that happen a few hundred times in a day be the breaking point.

posted by shmegegge 23 April | 13:10

There are days when I've been you, and there are days I've been the woman. Cities are full of crazy people; I just try to limit the number of days I'm one of them.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 23 April | 13:11

I know what you mean - I too have wanted to scream at people who get in my way, clearly I was just the trigger for this poor woman.

posted by greycap 23 April | 13:20

Getting blindingly angry at people on the sidewalk who are in my way is what I use as the #1 "Must Get Help NOW" signal that I'm stressed to the point of dysfunction. It's such an awful, helpless feeling.

Poor woman.

posted by occhiblu 23 April | 13:30

Someone did something similar to me Saturday. Only it wasn't me, it was my car. Which was parked on the street. And now has a lovely grey stripe to accentuate the new dent in the quarter panel and door.

Unfortunately we weren't home at the time and they didn't leave a note or anything.

posted by Doohickie 23 April | 13:41

I often have time on my hands, and a few people have found that yelling at me on the sidewalk or honking at me from cars is a mistake. I just turn right around and follow them, keeping a couple feet between us. I don't say anything to pedestrians, just walk right behind or alongside them for a few blocks, looking at them if they keep hollering, silently smelling their fear if they don't. If a car honks at me out of turn, or the driver yells something to me, and there's traffic, I'll walk alongside them, lecturing them about horn use and talking to strangers. If they try to get out of the car and confront me, I just shut their door as soon as they open it, and say: "You want to drive your car. You can't park here."

Sometimes they get really bent out of shape, but I don't let it get to me. I'm just walking around aimlessly, pissing people off.

posted by Hugh Janus 23 April | 15:28

Didn't some Transactional Analysis pop psychology guy claim that meant you wanted to have sex?

posted by StickyCarpet 23 April | 16:24

See, now, I have to wonder if hugh's responses change based on who yelled at them? I'm not short, but I'm kinda scrawny, so I don't fuck with ANYONE on the street if I can help it. If someone hassled me on the street, I'd just get the fuck away as fast as possible, and I certainly wouldn't lecture anyone in a car since they can likely kick my ass sideways.

posted by shmegegge 23 April | 16:59

The weekend before last, I got accosted by a woman trying to get me to vote in a runoff election for our city aldermen. I was walking up to my friend's apartment building and I swear she jumped out of the bushes and yelled, "You're going to vote on Tuesday!" She came out of nowhere! I was on the phone with the friend I was going to visit so I didn't have much of a chance to respond. My alderman ran unopposed in February, so I had no runoff candidate for which to vote. I just gave her an odd look, stepped out of her way and went into the apartment complex.

posted by youngergirl44 23 April | 19:57

I was once yelled at by a French chick for apparently walking too slowly down stairs in the tube.

I personally have never yelled at strangers in public, although I have sung drunkenly late at night in a carriage which, I think, may be worse.

posted by hugsnkisses 23 April | 20:27

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