I don't like people walking behind me, especially closely. It feels like I'm being followed. Of course I am not being followed. The persons walking behind? They are usually so absorbed by their iPhones or their music devices that they don't even know there is anyone there but themselves. Which is part of the problem. I know that I can be very irritable and that I can get really annoyed with people in public. I might also be equally aware that many people around me don't really have a clue. They are distracted by their phones, by their music. They don't seem to know where they are because in many cases they don't know where they are. They're too stuck and self-absorbed. But I still have to dance around them. So, as I turned the corner and the woman behind me turned the corner, I wandered over to the other side of the street to get away from her and enjoy a little privacy only to see this young man suddenly walking behind me. So urgent was my need for personal space and privacy that now my favourite method of dealing with this assault on my space is to simply stop and wait for the other person to pass me, then continue at a slow and measured pace. This generally works unless it's a smoker and then I have to cope with the downdraft of second hand smoke.
People are idiots in public, on top of being stupid.
I have spent this entire day dancing around idiots, slaloming around imbeciles, avoiding the toxicity of self-destructive morons. Today my enjoyment of confining myself with my sketchbook to a comfy chair in a nice café was shattered by the screaming baby of a woman who decided to share my table. I was on the phone at the time with a co-worker, so I had to move to the back of the café if I expected to be able to hear what she was saying. When I returned to my table I promptly swept up my sketchbook, pencil crayons, and half consumed iced Americano and chocolate cookie to move to a quiet table by the door. The woman apologized about her baby and I replied, or lied rather, that it wasn't a problem because of course it was. As I was just beginning to relax a friend of the woman seated behind me came in. Knowing that I was about to be subjected to two people talking right behind me I moved to the other side of the table. Then there was the young douchebag whose car straddled the crosswalk and completely ignored me when I signalled to him to back up (yes there was room for him to do it. He just didn't want to.)
I have long blamed myself for being irritable and selfish because of my strong reactions to the insensitivity of strangers. Now I am not going to be so kind. The fact of the matter is, nobody knows how to behave in public anymore. They get so wrapped up in their private listening devices and their phone conversations that their minds completely glaze over when it comes to knowing that they are among other people, people whose lives matter every bit as much as theirs. There was a time when walking among people was downright pleasant. No one had their own portable phone, no one wore a private listening device. People had to be aware of each other and interact. Now they don't have a clue. Technology has done a lot to enhance our lives and much to destroy the quality of our public and common life. It is time to reclaim it.
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