Episode 164 — Rudeness with Sassy Bluff

[Kickpuncher 5012]

I'm of the lady variety, and honestly, may have never held a door for myself in my life before moving to Los Angeles at age 22, thus, my first time at a convenience store in LA resulted in me yelling at a very confused stranger for not holding the door for me.

 

Are you sure you're from Austin, Texas, and not a Jane Austen novel?

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

 

Are you sure you're from Austin, Texas, and not a Jane Austen novel?

 

Comment of the year.

[AndyPacheco-Fores 437]

Fairness is more important than politeness.

[NicWhydubBhak 1]

I understand Matt when he says it's not in his personality to do the specific acts of kindness that Amy Alkon suggested, but it's very presumptuous for him to say that he's somehow representative of most people.

 

I don't have too many massively heartwarming stories of altruism on the street from personal experience, but once I took a hard spill on my skateboard while late for something in Humboldt Park, Chicago, and I can remember clear as day that the majority of people in the vicinity (and there were a lot, I think there was a Puerto Rican music/culture event going on) at least started towards me to help. This included a couple of elderly ladies, some contractors who were just getting out of their truck, and a group of hipsters. I heard several "are you OK's." And not a single person laughed, until they saw me laugh at myself.

 

This very small moment still sticks out in my head and makes me smile when I think about it. Along with a time where this lady stopped the bus I had just exited and literally ran out towards me yelling (I had my headphones on) because I dropped my wallet. And when a friend of mine told me one day that on his way to the rehearsal we were having, a very flamboyantly gay dude got on the bus and some asshole started yelling slurs at him, and within two stops the crowd (which he proudly said, as a lifelong Chicago south sider, was a healthy mix of what he believed to be south siders and north siders all across the demographic spectrum) had forced the homophobe out the bus, and furthermore offered words of kindness to the gay dude afterward.

 

I know these are just small anecdotes. But it's enough for me to think it's a huuuge logical leap to assume that just because it's not in Matt's blood to do those very external gestures of kindness means it's not in the majority of humans'. Not necessarily that he's wrong, but that he's jumping to conclusions. Especially because he mentioned specifically how it feels "phony" to him. Not to state the obvious, but everybody's different. And whether a given action feels genuine or phony for him to perform can easily be precisely the opposite for someone else.

 

I mean, just imagine this. You're at a party full of strangers. You lose your keys right away, before you get to know anyone. You start asking people if they've seen them. Don't you think the majority of people, these people you don't know, will at the very least, take a sec to give you a sympathetic look when they say, "Sorry, haven't seen them"? Maybe add a "good luck?" Even with regard to the people who don't do that, do you really think most people at the party would find that sort of expression of concern phony?

 

Also, I'm sure there are concrete acts of kindness that are much more up Matt's alley. Maybe swiping someone onto public transit whose transit card ran dry (although that's probably less of a thing in LA), or taking a sec to let a parallel parker know when they've backed up enough. How about starting a goddamn improv school? The mere fact that he felt the need to share his knowledge, to the point of opening a school, instead of focusing solely on performance, or just teaching classes somewhere else, lends me to believe there's a strong giving element to his personality. Just not necessarily one that manifests itself in the specific examples Alkon raised.

 

EDIT: I just remembered a few (honestly, kind of major) acts of kindness from strangers from when I lived in New Zealand for a while. Mostly in the category of helping me get from point A to point B. But I'm not going to go through them in detail because I think there are maybe some major cultural differences to account for in those cases.

[SridharRamesh 3]

A random note of no particular importance: it's "smegma", not "shmegma". (I only bring this up because it was mentioned over and over...)