When is Being Polite Being Rude?

This picture is of Fergie peeing her pants at a concert. I’m sure she knows she peed her pants and I’m sure everyone else knew it too and no one had to point it out to her. Therefore this picture has nothing to do with my post, but it is interesting.

In the past few days I’ve experienced a few public situations that may or may not have required intervention, but came off being just very awkward. Now I’m wondering if being courteous in some situations can actually be rude/embarrassing.

Situation #1)

We went bowling for my dad’s birthday at 3pm on a Saturday, therefore we were stuck between two lanes of ‘tweens. The ones we were sharing the lane machine with were not actually that bad, they were just two chubby girls, but the ones behind us were a group of screaming guys and girls who literally would not sit down. They were on tween speed or something, crack hormones, I don’t know, but I don’t remember ever being THAT juiced up. Now, my parents take bowling VERY seriously. They bring their own monogrammed balls, have their own bowling shoes, relics of life before us (yeah, right, like that ever happened). My mom actually curled her hair before this I think just so that it did some Farrah Fawcet bounce when she bowled. They do the ankle twitch and the one leg flying in the air and everything. It was really embarrassing when my sister and I were but horribly self-conscious young’ns. Now it’s terribly entertaining.

My dad's bowling form.

Instead of just tuning out the kids next to us who were all standing up on the wood platform, my dad went over to them and gave them a little lecture about “bowling courtesy” and how only one person is supposed to be on the wooden area at a time. My sister and I were slightly mortified because reprimanding a large group of pre-teens including boys is just asking for them to be even more annoying. While my dad lectured them he wasn’t being particularly harsh, but he wasn’t being totally friendly. He did it with his eyes half closed like how he does when he lectures us, because I think he channels the devil to be really intimidating. When he does the eyes half closed thing you don’t mess with him.

So ok, they deserved to be put in their place a little bit for being terribly annoying, but for “bowling courtesy”? This wasn’t during a league, this was a family game in which some particular member of the family really sucks (moi) so we weren’t taking it seriously. The kids had also all paid for their time there too, so aren’t they entitled to be little raging jerks if they want to?

Then, my dad went up to one of the two girls and lectured her about “bowling courtesy.” That was awful, since I never even noticed that she was bowling when my parents were (you’re supposed to wait for the person next to you to bowl if they were up first so as not to distract them). She responded with “Oh I know, I’ve been on a team for four years. You’re supposed to consider the person to the left of you (I forget if she said right or left).” And my dad was all “No, it’s to both sides of you.” Now, I don’t know who is right in this situation because I could care less about bowling, but I’m pretty sure that my dad has not been on a bowling team since the 1970′s and it may be possible that he was actually wrong. Either way, I’m not sure that he should have lectured them anyway. It made her very flushed and uncomfortable, and it made me and my sister feel like we were 12 again and felt the urge to run as far away from our parents as possible.  So in this situation, is it more important to correct someone about something that doesn’t actually matter and embarrass them, or is it better to just keep your mouth shut and be courteous as to consider how this might actually put a damper on their day?

Situation # 2

I told my dad that Situation #1 meant he would not last a hot second on the LIRR. After two years and six months of commuting everyday, I lasted through an innumerable amount of social crimes without actually confronting them. Only one time I blew up (we’ll get to that later). There is an unspoken rule on the LIRR that no matter what kind of irritating behavior your fellow passenger is exhibiting, you are supposed to sit and seethe rather than confront them on behalf of you and your fellow men. Part of this is because most of these violators are kind of nuts and will probably blow up at you if you confront them, because chances are if they are playing their laptop on full volume and don’t care enough to think if it’s going to bother anyone, they’re not going to care very much about getting in your face about it. Honestly the reason no one confronts other people on the LIRR is because everyone is already so pissed off and tense that no confrontation could in any way, shape, or form come off as polite anyway. I’ve had people complain to a conductor, the conductor keep reminding these two kids that they had to turn their computer volume down (they taking up a four seater with their shoes on the seats and playing their entire itunes library at 8am because high school age kids think that they are so interesting and everyone secretly wants to experience their lives) and each time he walked away they just turned it back up again. I stood there for the entire 45 minutes fantasizing about smashing the laptop to pieces, but I said and did nothing. The only time that I ever EVER said anything was on the way home this summer when I was stuck standing, the train was moving super slow, and these three college aged guys decided it was the perfect time to beatbox. Even then, I made it twenty whole minutes before they hit some face paced highly irritating rhythm and I exploded with ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT but thankfully the gentleman standing across from me backed me up and told them that was enough. We were in cahoots about how ‘kids these days’ are almost socially brain dead and how annoying they were. I even told him I was trying to see how long I’d last. Game over.

Situation #3

My super awesome Stats professor this morning was wearing black spandex. She turned around for the first time and it was painfully obvious that she had a) a wedgie and b) a big piece of something white stuck to her butt (probably a gum wrapper). There is no question that everyone saw it and couldn’t stop looking at it. But did anyone say anything? No. Was everyone probably thinking the same thing? Yes. All of these people were probably thinking about how alerting her would probably embarrass her in front of 35 people. So the lesser evil in this situation was to just let her stand in front of everyone for three hours with something stuck on her butt instead of tell her. Finally, after an hour and a half, during our break some girl went up to her and told her that she had something on her butt. She was a little embarrassed. By that time I had honestly forgotten about it. But what do you do in that situation besides wait until the break? Is it more rude to implicate social embarrassment or to keep the subject in blissful ignorance?

I ask you this: Would you want someone to tell you you have a booger hanging out of your nose?

Yes. Please tell me if there is a booger stuck on my nose so I can quickly dispose of it, even if I am embarrassed in front of you. Boogers can happen to good people.

Second question: Would you want someone to tell you you have a huge booger hanging out of your nose if that person is a student and you are conducting a lecture in front of 100 people?

I DON’T KNOW. I don’t know. This is why I incessantly check my nose for boogers.

Any stories of secondhand embarrassment are welcome. And please let me know if you have ever laid the smackdown on someone on the LIRR or if you tried to point out common courtesy and they went all Cujo on your butt. I think it happens more often than not.

But whatever you do, do not bowl when my dad is bowling.