Maybe

Nicole posted about a—holes the other day. Wait, no. That came out wrong. She didn’t talk about body parts, and she wasn’t talking about opinions (although it is certainly true that everyone has one). 

She talked about some recent – or not so recent – encounters with people out in the world. I’d like to say that like Nicole, I am not THAT easily bothered by people and I do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify people’s behaviors. I come up with scenarios and explanations, and always tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.  But sometimes you wonder, are some people a—holes after all? 

When I was out on a run around my neighborhood recently, I was running on the sidewalk and I was approaching an intersection. I saw three women coming from the side street on the right, one of them was pushing a stroller. There were leisurely walking and chatting, they turned their heads and saw me approaching, and I thought they were for sure (!) let me pass before taking a right and  continuing their walk on the main road. 

Imagine my surprise, when the woman with the stroller just looked at me, turned right and continued to completely cut me off and block the sidewalk with her stroller while continuing the conversation with her two friends. I mean, WHAT? 

So I thought, maybe she was so absent-minded, read: so absorbed in the conversation, that I didn’t even “register” on her radar, even though she looked at me as I was approaching. Maybe she has a problem with spatial awareness and thought I’d be able to pass by her and her stroller and her two friends easily (NOT THE CASE, I had to swerve into the street), or maybe she had bad encounters with other runners and she wasn’t going to give an inch for any runner anymore. 

When I relayed the encounter to Jon, he – like Nicole’s Rob – is a little more pragmatic – or jaded, you decide – and he suggested that maybe they were just “assholes”. Touché.

Then there is the situation at my office. In my suite, there are some offices with doors and there are cubicles. I am not paid enough to “deserve“ an office with a door according to the (only loosely applied!) rules, so I am stuck in the main suite in one of the cubicles. At least, I have a window! But I also have to take my Teams Calls with headphones and make sure that I am not bothering other people. (Sometimes I take my laptop and take calls in conference rooms, but that’s a hassle, so I usually stay at my desk.) 

Of course, there are noise-canceling headphones and all that jazz, and I am usually not bothered by background noise, but it feels to me that if you do have the privilege of an office with a door and you are on a Teams Call, maybe out of courtesy, you should close that door so the people in the main suite, who don’t have that option, don’t have added background noise to their own work/meetings. But apparently, that is not something that automatically comes to  the minds of people with office doors. I appreciate when they generally keep their doors open (to encourage socializing), but the difference is that they can close the door for privacy, but I don’t have that option. So when they don’t close their doors when they are in meetings, I am trying hard not to think that they’re doing this because they’re a—holes. I think they just don’t think about the situation the way I do as someone without a door. But a little consideration goes a long way.

And then last weekend, when I finally got rid of the Zio patch, I took advantage of the nice weather and spent the afternoon at the neighborhood pool. It was a weekend, the weather was gorgeous and the pool was crowded. Our neighborhood pool is a decent-sized (half-olympic) pool, so plenty of room for plenty of people. Plus, there’s a kiddy pool and a hot tub.

There are usually two lanes sectioned off for people who like to swim laps. Well, I wanted to swim a few laps but there was a guy with two kids  splashing around and blocking the two lanes from being accessible. I thought, “NBD, I am going to swim my laps just on the other side of the lane divider. I wasn’t going for speed or anything and was fine slowing down or even swimming “around” people, but then kids, people with toddlers in their arms, and other adults – with or without floating devices – constantly kept drifting into or crossing my lane, and I was wondering at some point if they were doing this on purpose. I know kids can have a hard time with spatial awareness and don’t necessarily “see you” until you’re right in front of them, but adults? Shouldn’t they be a little bit more considerate? Again, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but maybe… [you finish the sentence]. 

I am trying really hard not to be an a—hole to anybody, but I am sure I am not perfect either. But life can be hard enough, and I aim not to make it harder.

Nicole wrote, “…other people exist, and when we leave the confines of our own four walls, we have to figure out how to live in the world as it is.”

Well, isn’t that the truth.

I don’t know if this was a message to inconsiderate people (to try and step out into the world with a little bit more kindness and awareness), or a message to herself (to always try and remember to give people the benefit of the doubt), but one thing is true: we all have to coexist.