Diary of a Boring Kid

I wish more women (especially feminists) would adhere to this rule. It's not that I think it's unladylike for a woman to swear, but so many of them act like they just discovered a new word and want attention just for using "fuck" or "pussy."

No one cares.

At least with little kids it's funny because they don't really know how to use the words naturally. But when it's clear that a grown adult is forcing the words out to try to be shocking, it's just sad.

I do this by instinct. If a person just holds doors open for women, they're expecting some sort of kudos for their awesome manners. If they hold it open for anyone, they're probably just polite.

This is a terrible rule, especially for grownups. When people ask you how you are, lie and say everything is great, or at least "fine." Telling the truth will just get you a lecture on how you expect a pity party and everything wrong in your life is your own damn fault, so shut the fuck up about it already, even though I asked!

 

Someone else on this board once explained it like this: "People from the South are nice on the outside. People from the North are nice on the inside." Those Texans may have charmed you up and down, but you better believe they were judging the shit out of you after you left. And don't think for one second that "Bless your heart" is a compliment in any remote fashion.

Blue Dog, back me up on this one.

 

Swearing is an art form and more than just the words you use - some people are good at swearing and others are bad at it. We all know that guy who swears and comes across as crude and vulgar while the other guy uses the same words and comes across as hilarious and expressive.

 

The phrase, "Bless his/her heart" is what is said before some sort of backhanded insult is thrown someones way. My boss at my restaurant job a few years would say that about this one guy who was a shitty waiter and was always rushing around and freaking out.

 

Yes, this is exactly what I tell the kids I have worked with and any students I hear cursing. I've had this exact conversation multiple times:

Kid: Fuck!
Me: Hey, watch the language.
Kid: Why? (I deal with teenagers, they like to challenge)
Me: Look, I couldn't care less if you swear with your friends. Outside this building, I curse like a sailor. I'm lecturing you for being dumb enough to do it in front of a teacher. I don't care if you swear to your heart's content, just don't be dumb about it. If you're at work and you start swearing in front of your boss or some customers, you'll get fired. We're just trying to get you used to it now.
Kid: Oh, okay.

It is naive, not to mention hypocritical, to tell a kid to never swear. They hear it all the time on TV, and if they attend a public school (and hell, probably most private schools) I'll guarantee they've heard every swear word in existence by the time they are 15, and they probably hear fuck and shit more times in a day than I could count.

The fact is that most teenagers are constantly pissed because adults don't treat them with any kind of respect, and they talk to them like they're still five. If you stop and actually explain WHY you're telling a teenager to do something, the vast majority of the time they'll accept the advice. They may not like it, but at least you gave them a reason that isn't "because I said so!" or "because it is a rule!" and they respect that you're giving them a reasonable explanation.

But yeah, most of those rules don't apply in public schools I've worked at. This has been my experience:

Most kids hold doors open. I found it surprising, but I think it is just a natural thing to hold the door for the person behind them.

Please and thank you? No, its "gimmie" and "gimmie now!" Also, Replace "excuse me" with "hey! hey! hey! hey!" to get someone's attention.

Don't call people mean names is a pipe dream. These are public schools, and bullying is not only a reality, it is exceptionally prevalent. That stuff won't stop any time soon. As long as there are big kids with no self-esteem or kids who get the shit beat out of them by drunken daddy, there will be bullying.

As for anything involving food or eating at a table, I highly recommend they never enter a middle or high school cafeteria. Just walk through one and you'll hear all kinds of insanity, and manners are right out the window.

 

In my philosophy* class, the professor said it's sexist to hold doors for women because it insinuates that they are incapable of doing so themselves.

*The crazy feminist professor took it upon herself to turn a course titled "Contemporary Moral Problems" to "Feminism 101"

 

My grandmother, a Texan, says this every time she is about to say something bad about my cousin. It's as if she believes it will soften the blow of whatever she is about to say. She might as well be saying, "He's such a piece of shit, bless his little heart".

Focus: My father is from New Orleans and is very southern. He made sure my brother and I knew all of these things at a young age. He drilled into us "yes ma'am/yes sir" and to never call an adult by their first name. This sometimes made people uncomfortable but my father insisted. He also made us call people mr., mrs., ms. even if they insisted that we call them by their first name so these people became Mr. Mike or Mrs. Mary, etc.

 

I think this feeling is a throwback to the 60's & 70's when the woman's rights movement was gearing up/exploding. Most of us (well, most women under 45) were not marching for our rights back then (if we were even born), so that was never a hot button issue for us. To us it's common courtesy, to the women that fought/marched it's an insult.

Focus: My three-year-old does most of the stuff on that list. Hopefully he will keep up with it & I think he will because he sees his parents showing common courtesy to the people around them. We even make a point to say things like 'please' and 'thank you' to each other because kids pick up SO DAMN MUCH from their parents. People with rude kids are usually rude themselves. That's just a general observation though, not a scientific study. Yet.

 

It's also ageist to hold doors open for old people.

But really, what a load of horseshit. If you're the first to the door, you hold it open for the rest of your party (unless the door opens away from you, and holding it would be impractical). If there's old people, or someone with their hands full, or with small children, you hold the door open for them too. If the door opens towards you, and someone is coming from the opposite direction, you hold the door open for them.

Opening the door doesn't insinuate that the other person isn't capable of doing it for themselves. All it insinuates is that you are a nice person who likes to do favors for other people. I should hope that women give men blowjobs because they like doing nice things for their men, not just because men are incapable of doing it themselves.

I wonder though if perhaps doors used to be heavier. I remember at NYU we had one door that was notoriously heavy and hard to open. The male students would almost always be commandeered to open it for female students because of our larger size and greater muscle mass. Not that your average male law student is that buff, but still bigger than the girls. If doors used to be a lot heavier, the custom of men opening doors for women makes sense, they actually couldn't do it for themselves.

 

I read that list and laughed at how I didn't do more than maybe 20% of those things listed. If you don't want to read my replies to that list, don't click the tags.

Spoiler

#23 for me was a fuck-up quite often. I hold my knife in my left hand when eating - apparently, this is a no-no in every single country outside the U.S., and every fucking adult I ate in front of tried to change it. I eat how I was taught to eat by my parents (my mom's a lefty, and my dad holds utensils the same way I do). Eventually, I just stopped eating in front of people I didn't know., i.e. I would not eat a friends' house if I was there for a day or something.

#22 is bullshit. Sometimes, no matter how nice you are, people won't help you again because they are assholes. Where's that on the list?

#17 was one I always practice to this day, despite often being met with a response similar to "Stay out of my way" or "Fuck off asswipe".

#16 I will not agree with. If I do not like a show, you best believe I'm walking out, but I do try to do that quickly and not slowly, creating a fuss. I've had to endure too many bullshit school assemblies for me to tolerate any of that decorum crap.

#15 is horseshit. I was made fun of EVERY SINGLE DAY at school, and quite a few days at college.

#14 is also bullshit. What other retort do I have? Smile and take it? Fuck off.

Related to those is, of course, #7. HAHAHA. What crap. I was mocked every day based on my physical characteristics (i.e. fatness), attitude, the way I speak, etc..

#6, as you can tell is my favourite. I do this as often as I see fit and I have stopped giving a fuck what people think of me for it, since most people don't like me anyway. I should be employed to crush morale - I'd make a killing at it.

#3? HAHAHAHA. When I do that, I was ignored. The only time I got to say my piece as a kid was when I interrupted. I quickly learned in my household that that was the only method of getting my point across. If I stand and wait, I'd be retired and greying (more) before I got to say anything about anything, since I was (am?) simply an inconvenience for my parents.

 

Fuck that. I would fire the shit out of any secretary that wasted my clients', colleagues' and family's time by demanding each of them shoot the shit with her before putting them through to me.

 

I get irrationally annoyed when I hold the door for people and they don't acknowledge me in any way. It turns me from a stranger being polite into an impromptu doorman. It usually shows me that the person thinks they're entitled to other people doing things for them, which is a trait I find frustrating.


As for the women/doors thing, while I'm not sure I agree with the FEMINAZI interpretation, I do UNDERSTAND it, and I feel like it's getting a bit of a strawman treatment here.

From a sociological perspective (which I'm not endorsing here, just explaining), all of these sorts of actions have context based on the society we live in. Even if you treat men and women in the exact same way -- which, in this case, I personally agree is the right thing to do -- the effect of those actions is different because of the history of sexism levied towards women. It's the same way that you might run into trouble if you called a Latina "fiesty" that you might not if you did the same towards an Asian person. Or, to use an example slightly closer to home, the same reason that catcalling a guy and catcalling a girl are functionally different, even if you say the same things.

ALL that being said, there's nothing wrong with opening the door for anybody, especially if you are clearly doing it as a matter of basic politeness. It's just a slightly more complicated issue than feminists = irrational.

 

I get pissed when I'm walking a fair distance from the door and the person a good 50 ft from me insists on holding the door but making it obvious it's a hassle.

 

Wait, have you held the door for someone and not been thanked? That's hilarious in the saddest way possible.

Yeah, I agree with this, every movement has its outliers, no reason to clump the rational, well meaning members in with the extremists. Whether you agree with feminism or not, there is no reason to shoot it down because a couple women think holding a door is chauvinistic.

 

Oh this happens constantly, although it's almost always with some well-dressed 23-35 year old in Manhattan with stupid sunglasses on.

Speaking of those types, I had a situation like that a couple years back, in Washington Square Park. Stupid lady carrying 8 shopping bags loses control of her little dog's leash and the thing shoots away. Maybe 30 yards away, I see it and lunge at the leash, and am able to grab it and secure the dog until she comes.

This goddamn lady, comes, takes the dog's leash and walks away without a break in her cell phone conversation.

I know! Self-centeredness. In New York of all places!

 

This is someone who has clearly never worked in a bureaucratic organization. If I have kid(s), they will know: if you ever plan to get anything done or have any fun with your life, you need to act first and ask questions / beg for forgiveness later.

 

I knew how to set the table, clear it, make the beds, etc. when I was very young. I was an only child, and I did LOTS more around the house than anybody else I knew. I was mowing my lawn and my grandmother's at age 10 (to be fair, SHE paid me). I always got allowance, but I had boundaries, strict ones. It was the eighties, where everybodywas a Stranger out ot rape your kid.

My wife eats pizza with a knife and fork. Is that because she's half British? Is that a thing over there or something?

 

Is there an acceptable distance? This area is very gray. At 50 feet, you let the door slam behind you. But what about 20 feet? If you make eye contact with the person but don't hold the door you feel like an asshole. If you hold the door and they start walking faster you feel like an asshole. I feel like Curb Your Enthusiasm should have covered this at some point.

Focus:
The purpose of a business dinner is not to shovel as much food as possible into your mouth on the company's dime. It is to conduct business. Therefore, chew with your mouth closed, be respectful to the server, and follow this video: