Common Courtesy Is Not So Common!
Hi all!
Welcome to the pilot article for a new section on my blog. I’ve got a lot of thoughts rattling around in my massive head (that’s not hyperbole. You ask anyone, it’s massive — physically that is) thoughts which have nothing to do with art or art related topics so… I’ve created this new section on my blog for rants and other articles which are non-art related.
Now, there may be a few topics in here that I discuss which might be described as inflammatory or that might be designated as a little controversial and I may, from time to time, use some strong language that one might consider to be ‘adult’. Be forewarned. If you are easily frightened, have a heart condition, are not 18 years of age or have the I.Q. of a grapefruit (not to put down grapefruits. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them) then perhaps this section of my blog is not for you. If you’re an intrepid explorer, have a curiousity like mine which is now piqued or are just up late, drunk on the computer and have nothing better to do, then please read on.
I consider myself to be more than just an artist. I’m also a sociologist. Cath is too. I think we’d consider ourselves to be avid people watchers. We’re fascinated with the society outside our windows and we’re always analyzing it, breaking it down trying to understand how the insanity that is the modern world hasn’t led the way to full scale anarchy. Give it time.
Although I’ve never formally studied sociology, I find my curiosity drawn to humans and human systems and today I saw something that I thought was noteworthy.
Cath and I went out to see the new Roland Emmerich film 2012 tonight. It was actually quite good. I’ve read a few reviews of the movie and they weren’t glowing but after having seen the movie both Cath and I thought it was very well put together. If you get the chance to see it on the silver screen, do so. It’s the type of movie that will lose a lot of it’s impact when it hits your television.
While we were waiting for the movie to start we watched as the theatre filled up quickly. It was a smaller theatre and therefore there weren’t a lot of seats. We were sitting in the upper section of seats. The lower section of seats (where you have to crane your neck upwards to enjoy the film, if you can from that angle) was still empty.
As it is with people who are strangers, when they enter a common seating area they generally won’t sit directly beside each other. They’ll at least leave one seat between themselves and the next patron. This happens everywhere. On city buses and the subway, at movie theatres, even in public bathrooms. You know what I mean. Why stand hip to hip with another man at the urinals getting a birds-eye view of his junk when you can stand comfortably at another urinal, abashed perhaps but separate from this other relief driven stranger? Go ahead stand hip to hip with him if you like. One of two things will happen. You’ll walk away ashamed at the minute stature of you penis or you’ll walk away questioning your sexuality – again.
Well, this “seating phenomenon” was in full swing as we awaited the digital Apocalypse. People were coming into the theatre in two’s and three’s and finding somewhere to sit without having to sit hip to hip with a total stranger. This had the result of giving both parties more adequate armrest space but it also resulted in a lot of single seats with no one to fill them because, lets be honest, who goes to the movies alone? I’ll tell you who! The asshole who is the subject of this article, that’s who!
There was a single man sitting directly in front of us. Due to the etiquette of the seating phenomenon he had, on either side of him, a single empty seat. He had about as much armrest space as any man could expect to have at the theatre. Lucky guy.
While he sat there munching on his nacho chips that he no doubt purchased from the concession stand this very evening, he was approached by a lady who was sitting in the lower section having been forced there due to a lack of seating in the upper section. She asked this man a simple question, “Would you mind moving over one seat so that I and my date might sit together?” She was looking to move to the upper section so that she might enjoy her movie going experience just a little bit more. This man’s response? “No. I’m comfortable where I am.” Yep. A simple man with a simple answer, “No.”
I overheard the verbal exchange and found myself galled by this dickhead’s total lack of courtesy. She wasn’t asking him to change rows. She wasn’t asking if he minded waiting to see the next movie at 8 o’clock. She didn’t need a kidney from him. All she wanted was for him to move over one seat — one seat! What an asshole! I’m sorry for the strong language (you were warned) but there’s nothing else to be said here. It was such a simple request, one that wouldn’t inconvenience him and would make all the difference to her and her partners evening out.
I can only guess at his motives. He was caucasian, she looked east indian. Perhaps he was a racist? Maybe he didn’t want to give up all that luxurious armrest space? Perhaps he was the antithesis to Jim Carrey’s character in Yes Man and had to say no to everything? I shrug my shoulders. I’m not going to be arrogant enough to understand the trappings of a mind that seemed to be as sharp as an avocado.
To add insult to injury, he leaned over the empty chair directly to his right and started to talk to the next gentleman about how rude that lady’s request had been! I had to start laughing. I was baffled. What would cause this guy to be such a douchebag?
Whatever his motives, they didn’t work. She moved with her date and they took the two seats, one on either side of this guy so they could at least enjoy the movie from a better angle even if it was separately. I laughed a little louder. I couldn’t contain myself. What really tickled me was when the lady and her date started having a conversation across their discourteous seatmate’s lap. Ha! Ha! If he didn’t feel like a heel at that time I don’t care to wonder what might shame him.
What the hell has happened to common courtesy? There used to be a time that society was built on it. When a lady walked into the room everyone stood. You pushed in her chair, threw your jacket over a muddy puddle so she wouldn’t get her shoes dirty and you’d for sure open a door for her should she require the assistance. That man tonight, had he done that in an earlier day, half a dozen other men would have stood up and made him move and probably have given him a slap or two to smarten him up for good measure. I see so little of that these days that I don’t wonder if courtesy hasn’t been pronounced dead.
“Doctor?”
“We did everything we could, but we lost it. Okay everyone, I’m calling it. Common Courtesy died at 2:10 am from an overwhelming case of societal malaise“
There’s an aloofness that has been swiftly pervading our society. Cath and I see it on a daily basis and we discuss it at great length time and time again. We see it when we get doors slammed in our faces. We see it when a teenager won’t stand up and give his seat to an elderly gentleman. We see it in co-workers that constantly talk behind each others backs. We see it in the supermarket, on the street and at the movie theatre as we witnessed tonight.
What causes it? I can’t be sure. Maybe it’s the faster pace of society, we have so much to do that there just isn’t time to think about the feelings of others. Maybe due to the greed based nature of the Free Market “grab as much as you can” System we can’t think about others because we’re too busy thinking about our own wants and desires. Perhaps the use of technologies just like this one where we can choose to be anonymous so easily has got us believing that everyone is anonymous, separate and distinct from ourselves so it doesn’t matter if we’re courteous or not. How could it possibly hurt us to be discourteous to a total stranger?
If we can’t be civil to each other then we may as well just throw in the towel now. We won’t need Roland Emmerich and his computer generated holocaust to end the world, our own ridiculousness will do it for us. It’s time that we stepped back a little from our own sense of self-importance and put ourselves in other peoples shoes for a change. What would that man have done had his request for another patron to move one seat to the left been rebuffed with a no? Based on his attitude tonight I’m sure he would have started an argument to try and get his way. Would he have appreciated the awkwardness of the situation he created had he been forced to sit apart from his date by some beligerent prick? What would his reaction have been? Did he even think about this when he said no?
It’s time for us all to start thinking less about ourselves and more about others. We don’t have to give away everything but we could give a little. Just enough to hold a door for the next person or say thank you when it’s being held for us; a small amount of assistance given that might see us aid a neighbour with the snow in their driveway this winter; a little bit of understanding and a small amount of leg power to shift one seat to the left perhaps? It’s not hard and it can make all the difference to someone’s day. To know that a total stranger sees you as more than nothing can really give you a boost and I think that type of behaviour strengthens us individually as well as a society. It spurs us all to pay that courtesy forward, making us and everyone around us better people.
To finish the story, when the movie was over that ignorant gentleman of whom I have nothing but glowing things to say was one of the first people to leave the theatre. What happened next? Well of course the couple that decided to sit apart from each other started to complain about the asshole they’d just shared their movie experience with. He had taken his bile and passed it on to them. That makes me sad. One man’s discourteous behaviour had infected two other people – but it didn’t have to be that way.
It makes me wonder what that couple is going to do now. Will they take that infectious lack of generosity and pass it on to the next people they meet? I hope not. It would be a shame if they let that man not only ruin the film for them but for the next people too. If so, then we are all in big trouble folks – or are we? The choice is yours.
P.S. During the movie that dickheads cellphone went off. What a reprobate.
For now, that is all. Goodnight.
