-{ redgeek.net }-

I give people the benefit of the doubt. I like to assume, given the opportunity, Joe Stranger is basically a good person, or at least, could rise to the occasion. This isn’t to say that I trust Joe Stranger - I don’t know him well enough to trust him completely - but then again, my typical interactions with him won’t require that. I will extend a something greater than indifference, but not more than necessity or comfort. Indifference is rude, and trust is earned (and dis-trust is earned), so I’ll give you something in between trust and indifference, at least as long as you’re still Joe Stranger.

If we end up with significant contact, he may very well stop being Joe Stranger and become Joe Friendly or Joe Asshole. This is the establishment of a relationship: developed through iterative feedback loops, or, on rare occasions, through one momentous action on the part of he or I.

People seem to take offense to this. They seem to have an unconscious sense of entitlement governing they’re day to day actions. Sometimes, you have to remind them that their sense of entitlement resides completely within the cavern of their own head.

Case in point: a few weeks ago, I was running into the local Mini-mart after martial arts class to pick up some water. I was going to run in, pay, and run out - not long at all. I could see through the window that there was no line. I hop out of my car, lock the door, grab the water, pay and walk back out to my door. As I’m unlocking my car door, the guy who was milling about outside the store calls out to me:

“Hey, buddy, what you have to lock your car for? You think I’m gonna steal your car?” He whips himself up some aggression, advancing toward me with his arms up like a threatened eagle. “I look like a thief? Huh? Can’t trust me? Huh?”

Did I make the implicit assumption that he was up to no good, just because he was loitering about? Was he, his clothes, his skin color, the impetus for my caution?

Or was it because I always lock my car, no matter how quickly I’ll return?

I look him square in the eyes: “Buddy, I don’t even know you.” I hold the look for a second, then continue to open my door. His attitude swiftly changes. He drops his hands, and backs toward his old position outside the store.

He cracks a smile. “Fair ‘nuff, fair ‘nuff.”

I dropped in my car and drove off. Was I bullying him with my stare and attitude? No, I was relaxed, and held my gaze just long enough to tell him I giving him a totally honest and straightforward answer without being aggressive, and asked him to look at himself - would he trust me with his car? No, he doesn’t even know me. I thought enough of him as a person that I wasn’t going to ignore him, but that doesn’t mean I leave the keys to the castle outside the moat.

I liked that guy, I don’t hold anything against him. He looked at himself, saw something amiss, and respectably changed that, at least for that moment. Someday, I might be on Joe Friendly terms with him, if we ever run into each other again.

Take into account the counter-example: the girl on the roadway last night sitting in the right hand turn lane, at a green arrow, filing her nails.

I pull up behind her, coming to a complete stop. She doesn’t move. I give polite little honk, indicating the arrow is green.

She looks up, left, right, around a bit, and goes back to filing her nails.

Another short little honk. Same response.

Longer, more aggressive honk. The cars are starting to pile up behind me.

She looks back, flips me off, mouths “Fuck You,” and drives off, without once looking at the stoplight (or it’s still-lit green arrow.)

Lady, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I understand you might be having a bad day, you might be distracted, you might not have noticed the two bright green arrows telling you to turn, so I let you know in a standard, friendly way that you should check out your environment. When you failed to notice, twice, and were starting to become a traffic hazard with cars barreling down on me from behind because the light is still green (as they typically stay green for a long time at night on this road), I let you know more insistently.

Now, if it was me in your situation, I would have issued a little “damn I feel stupid” apologetic wave with my turn. But you chose to (mis-)place the blame firmly on myself. Is it that hard to swallow your ego for some silly little mistake? One that I wasn’t even angry about, but wasn’t about to walk out into the middle of a busy street to knock on your car window as point politely to any of the two traffic light bulging aqua?

It’s not that I don’t trust you - I don’t, I don’t even know you - but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. But you didn’t rise to the occasion; you didn’t look at yourself. You looked at me. Just from this tiny little interaction, I can tell: if we ever meet again, you’ll probably do something else to move my opinion of you toward the Jane Asshole end of the spectrum. Why? It’s not about me. I don’t even know you. It’s about you.