On the bubble

There are people who don’t agree with me. Yeah, I had the same reaction – what? It’s true though. I realize that more and more when I try to talk sense into unreasonable people. How do I know they are unreasonable? Because well, they just are, that’s how.
This may be anecdotal, but I think more people disagree with me now than they used to. I have several theories as to why:
People (not me) have gotten dumberererer.
People have shorter attention spans and therefore forget that what I said yesterday, even if I directly contradict it today, was (and is) correct. Unless I say it no longer is pertinent.
Rude behavior is rewarded and encouraged, even tacitly.
I volunteer in my kids’ school (Sonoma County Super Pricey Preparatory Pre-University Charter Educational Co-Op) and for youth baseball. The other day I asked a girl who shall remain nameless to kindly get her mitt from behind her back while playing second base so she would have a better chance of fielding a ball should it happen to find its way to her. Naomi … shoot … looked up at me under her pink hat and said, and I think I got the quote correct, ‘No.’
That’s it, just ‘no.’ Well, as a former Grand Poobah in the Shriners I am not used to people saying ‘no’ to me. Well not since high school at least. I’m talking to you Kerrie Johnson! I think that was her name. Maybe it was Jeri Johnson … nope she said ‘no’ to me in college. It was Kerrie Johnson.
But I digress.
Anyway, controlling my urge to wrap her little split end pigtails around her smug face, I asked, very gently, if she would do that because, you know, ‘if a ball comes your way and your mitt is behind your back, it might just break your nose.’ Now I had her, I knew, appealing to her 7-year old’s vanity was the trick of course. This time, she looked at me, chewing gum (stupid gum I’m sure) and said, ‘no.’
So, again resisting the temptation to kick dirt on her sequenced sandals (who wears sandals playing baseball? Much less sequenced sandals?) I sighed and walked away. I confess, I did hope that a ball would scream toward her at that moment. I did not however wish her to get a broken nose, just a bruised shin. Really. Alas, the next ball skipped harmlessly past her as she was examining her pink nails.
So rudeness. From whence does it spring? Surprisingly, I have some ideas.
It is of course high impact irony that a society that can literally be connected 24/7/365 (366 every four years) is also woefully disconnected. If you have no hesitation about yakking on your %$#@ phone in the bank line, in the gym, while swimming, then you have no personal bubble anymore. And by personal bubble I mean that invisible force field which surrounds us all, and which to penetrate used to be an honor and privilege reserved for close friends, family, and your Labradoodle.
Where have all the bubbles gone? Nothing is personal, nothing is private, everything must be shared. Why? Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, said somebody far wiser than me. Than I. Somebody far wiser than I am. There.
I was at AT&T Park the other night with my 11-year old son. Sitting directly behind us was a slovenly couple of early 30-somethings. The game had barely started and the ‘woman’ started yelling charming crowd-pleasers such as ‘F_ _ _ this!’ and ‘What the f_ _ k!’, along with the classic ‘Mother f _ _ _er!’ The guy didn’t join in, but when I turned around and said, ‘Do you mind? I’ve got a kid here and there are kids all around you,’ she smirked back, ‘Sorry MY bad.’ Then she said something snide about me to her ‘man.’ Meant for me to hear of course. She held it in check and she, while pissy, did a little better before they both (thank God) left in the 6th.
To be fair, I don’t think she was doing it on purpose. It happened naturally without thinking or caring about anyone else. Her bubble was burst and it just didn’t matter anymore, what was hers is now the worlds. And that doesn’t work for me. Once those bubbles are gone, you can’t put them back. Without any filtering, everything is fair game. And the ‘social’ concept, already teetering on the edge, loses its real meaning completely. Social is not shoving things into my ears and down my throat. It’s a conscious interaction, a mutual interaction more importantly.
After all, if everything is social, nothing is social.
Steven welcomes your comments. You can reach him at [email protected].