Child Adults are so damned irritating.

In which I eviscerate an asshole I encountered recently

So I was at the symphony the other night. Settling into my seat with my sippy cup full of gin & tonic (no, I am not the Child Adult in this post) (this was an adult-sanctioned, adults-only sippy cup), trying to get my lightweight jacket over the back of my auditorium seat. As I have done in the past.

The man behind me said, “Your jacket is touching my knees.”

“Oh!” I said, smiling, thinking he was joshing with me. I pulled my jacket up so it wouldn’t touch his knees. “Is this better?”

“It’s still touching my knees!” he whined, even though it most demonstrably was not touching his knees. “Why can’t you just be considerate?”

I’m sure my smile morphed into a look of absolute bewilderment. I thought I was being considerate! I was pulling my jacket away from his freakin’ (creakin’) knees!

My husband intervened and directed me to just put my jacket inside my seat where I could sit on it. Which I did. And turned around to face the back of the seat in front of me, where a woman had draped her bulky shawl — which touched my knees.

This little interaction kinda blew my mind. Here was a man I had never seen before bitching at me about what one of my NYC friends calls “theater real estate.” I was utterly ignorant of the territorial rights this man (but apparently not the woman in front of me) took for granted. And I, apparently, was the bad guy.

Nope. Step back, asshole.

Child Adults

Just to get this out of the way so I can return to the sheer delight of being outraged: We can all become Child Adults. We can all regress to early stages of our development, of our life experiences, and act like children. Even when we’re oodles of years old, like the guy at the symphony was.

There are all kinds of manifestations of this type of assholism. Let’s call this one the Magical Thinker (blended with a healthy streak of entitlement, but that’s a topic for another day.) The Magical Thinker expects the world to read his mind. To just know what needs to be known — especially about the Magical Thinker. The Magical Thinker stands at the center of the universe, and the universe adapts to his needs and desires. Automatically. With no prompting.

Magic!

And I had bought into the role. I (as a deeply considerate human being) was trying to adapt to the Magical Thinker’s needs and desires. Those being, apparently, to not have a jacket touching his knees. Okay. Weird. Niche. But OK. I’ll get my jacket off your knees.

But no. This was not what the Magical Thinker needed or desired.

What he could have and arguably should have said was something like, “I’m sorry, but do you mind keeping your jacket on your side of the seat? I’m averse to jackets draped over seat backs.” Smiling the whole time. With a hint of humor. Like changing “averse” to “allergic.” Hunh! Funny (ish)!

But that’s not what he said. What he said was, “Why can’t you just be considerate?” Uh-oh. Now he has shut down the conversation. He has determined that I and my efforts to appease him did not count. I was erased and replaced with the person he defined as inconsiderate.

Fighting words.

Where’s your compassion?

UHHH. Do I have to? Get to compassion? When it’s so enjoyable to rage about fuckin’ people?

Yep.

Because, when I took some time to think about this interaction, I had to admit that I resonate with our Magical Thinker’s question. Why, I often wonder, aren’t people more considerate? Why do they stand in the middle of a busy sidewalk or cut in front of me (in person or in a car) or skip lines or otherwise broadcast that they are utterly and unconsciously oblivious?

One possible answer is that they’re not thinking about me. They’re not watching my every move and concentrating really hard to figure out what I need them to do. They have the gall to think that they have the right to exist in their very own worlds.

Why might this human right piss me and my guy at the symphony off so badly?

Some guesses:

• Because, maybe, we both abhor being erased

• Because, maybe, we both think of our existence under certain stressful circumstances as a zero-sum game. If you take up any of my space, you’ve taken it all up. If you don’t take me into consideration, I have disappeared.

If I picture my guy as a child who was being treated in ways that taught him these lessons — let’s say his needs were consistently overlooked or ridiculed or dismissed, so much so that he now needs to protect his (and his knees’) rights assiduously; or maybe his every need, every discomfort or dissatisfaction or disappointment, was fussed over and apologized for, so much so that he expects everyone he now encounters to do the same (and can’t handle it when they don’t) — then I start to feel sorry for him. Whether he was neglected or over-indulged, he didn’t develop the skills that allow him to live as an Adult Adult.

An Adult Adult being a person who can manage their emotions and the relationships that activate them. Not necessarily to stop the emotions. But to manage them. To refrain from blurting shit. To be patient and civil even when they don’t want to be. To go home and work through their activated feelings. To lean on friends, partners, and therapists for reality checks. To own their shit, repair, show up with wisdom (or at least provisional understanding), and face others bravely.

So sad. My guy at the symphony was not able to be an Adult Adult because of my despicable lightweight Patagonia jacket.

Bummer. For me, certainly. But here I am, having worked through my outrage and now having a blast writing this Fuckin’ People blog post. And bummer for him. Forever. Cuz he’s not going to do his work. He’s going to continue regressing whenever he needs to, showing himself to be an unfortunate, underdeveloped, entitled and, yes, inconsiderate asshole.

God, I wish people like him would figure this shit out and grow the fuck up.

I mean: God bless him!