It’s Thursday, so I’m Crafting my Life! This year, I’m just writing about whatever is currently on my mind. I invite you to do the same. If you would like to chime in and contribute a guest post about your own journey, please drop me a line.
Last Sunday my daughter Hannah attended a birthday party in Vancouver’s Commercial Drive neighbourhood. If you’re not a local, I can sum up the area with these words – way cooler than my neighbourhood. There are hip cafés, cool clothing stores, great little antique and consignment shops and really just a whole lot of amazing life happening at street level. And, after dropping Hannah off, I had an hour to explore, all on my own.
It was lunchtime, so my friend and the mother of the birthday girl suggested a restaurant to check out. It was a vegetarian Mexican place, and I was in. But things went badly when I tried to get there. It was just across the street, so I left my car where it was and crossed on the green. I thought I had to cross the street the other way as well, and so when the walk signal lit up I started, and then faltered. I looked over my shoulder and saw the restaurant behind me, so I turned around and headed back.
This sounds confusing. Let me borrow a page from the fabulous Amber Dusick and illustrate:
As you can see in the image, there was a car waiting to turn right. The guy in the car did not approve of my waffling and turning back. I can understand that on some level, since I was holding him up, and even if it was only 20 seconds out of his life, nobody likes to be held up in traffic by some woman who doesn’t know where she’s going. However, he didn’t let it slide. No way was he letting me off the hook, I had to be chastised. So he yelled at me out his open window.
“You’re going to get yourself killed, lady! You can’t stop walking in the intersection! Figure out where you’re going, for f##k’s sake! Geez!”
* He may not have actually said Geez, he may have used a particular name. I’m sure you know what it is.
Typing it out, it doesn’t look that bad, somehow. But when he was leaning out his car window, wagging his head and yelling full volume it left me rattled. I got back to the sidewalk, all the while avoiding making eye contact at all costs, and had to take a minute to breathe. It’s not fun to be called out on a busy public street, especially when you’re already a little nervous because you feel like a country mouse in the city, and you actually don’t really know where you’re going. I felt more anxious following that encounter than I normally feel when I’m speaking in public.
The good news is that I made it to my lunch, and that was fabulous. Enchiladas topped with salsa verde and melted cheese, with beans and rice on the side. After eating I felt considerably calmer.
Once I was calmer, I was able to think about the situation more clearly. I could see that, likely, the guy was annoyed by the delay. But maybe, also, he hadn’t seen me at first or had been startled or frightened by my actions in some way, and that was what led to his outburst. On some level, he may have even been trying to help me avoid harm. However, I think his methods were completely misguided.
The reality is that I am far less receptive to someone’s message when it’s yelled out a car window at me, accompanied by expletives. My first impulse, on being yelled at, was to think of all sorts of reasons that the guy was a grade-A moron. My second impulse was to walk over and kick him in the shins. I did not follow up on the second impulse, because his shins were hidden inside his car, and also because I am not really a fan of violence. But I think my reaction is understandable. You freak me out, I go into fight or flight mode, I don’t carefully consider your argument, looking for take-aways that I can use to improve my future behaviour.
Now, I am definitely not given to yelling at people out my car window. I don’t even yell at people inside my car window, because I usually have two kids in the back seat and I don’t need them to hear Mama saying bad words. But I can be very testy with others. And the truth is that the people I am most testy with are the people closest to me – my husband and my children. They are most likely to bear the brunt of an outburst, they are most likely to hear me raise my voice, and they are most likely to see behaviour that I’m embarrassed by in retrospect.
It’s understandable that I reserve my worse behaviour for the people I’m closest to, because I’m most comfortable with them. I suspect we all do that, on some level. But after making a genuine mistake and being yelled at in public, I had to stop and think about the way I respond when other people scare or annoy me without meaning to. If I want them to understand, then I need to think about how I share information. Because I want to be heard – not kicked in the shins.
Have you ever been yelled at in public by a stranger? Tell me all about it, and we can commiserate!
PS – I am giving away a free advertising spot starting on September 1 to one of my Strocel.com Advertising email list subscribers. If this sounds like your thing, subscribe to the list before 6:00pm Pacific this Sunday, August 28, and you could win!
I was the type of kid who instinctively burst into tears when someone yelled at me. Parent, teacher, stranger…it didn’t matter. And by “kid” I mean that I was in COLLEGE before I was able to listen to someone yell at me and not cry uncontrollably. I was mortified whenever it happened. I wished my body didn’t react that way, but it did. I still get upset when it happens, but I can control my emotions.
For whatever reason, I’m just not really comfortable with my own anger. Maybe because I was taught to “be a nice girl.” Maybe it’s just pure genetics. A lot of people are comfortable with their anger and share it with the world…frequently. That guy who yelled at you clearly was. Maybe he comes from a family where yelling and using those words is a typical dinner table conversation and happens on a daily basis. Maybe he was having a bad day. Neither excuses his behavior. It was still really rude. I’m about to start my 14th year of teaching and the longer I teach the more I’m astounded by what constitutes “normal” human interaction for different people.
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I’d give anything to see you have an outburst. I seriously cannot imagine. You seem so completely calm and collected on every occasion. I see you as Zen Super Mom. Me, I’m having outbursts all day long. Okay, not ALL day, that’s unfair to myself. But I have them often. I’m exasperated, never knowing how to stop the children from doing something awful except by using LOUD MOMMY CUT IT OUT voice. Then I let things slide with the husband until I’m YELLING ABOUT THAT INCONSIDERATE SHIT he did. But I’m sure you can picture me doing all this. I think I write as an exasperated person. But you? Naw. You’re cool as a cuke. Video, please!
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I do my fair share of yelling, I promise you. Maybe MORE than my fair share, given how much my kids yell themselves. They have to be learning it somewhere. But NO WAY am I going to allow video of that to surface.
Yikes! I don’t think I ever have been yelled at in public, other than the panhandler who harassed me in Gastown 20 years ago. It’s very likely that people have yelled at me from inside their cars and I have not heard them. I agree, the yelling is not going to help you make better decisions about crossing the street (that restaurant sounds delicious) but then I don’t think it’s meant to, it’s just the dude’s expression of his own frustration, which has probably been building for a while and has nothing to do with you.
I did a lot of driving yesterday and whenever I do a lot of driving I notice how tense I get.
But I would never yell at someone from within my car. I do yell ABOUT them. And then explain to my children why I’m yelling. Like yesterday, within a two block stretch that I was driving, I had another car cut in front of me at a right angle, then someone jumped the yellow light and almost hit me, then a pedestrian stepped out from between a bus and a van (jaywalking..at a street where someone was killed jaywalking six months ago) and finally, a huge SUV didn’t stop at a stop sign and made a right turn in front of me. By the time we got to the SUV I was very proud of myself for not swearing, but I sure as hell was yelling. I felt like I was about to lose a video game.
Once I’ve released the tension, I can carry on driving and explaining to the kids why it’s a bad idea to step out from between two large vehicles and run across a busy street, and why we stop at stop signs, etc. etc.
Anyway, like Audra said, that dude was rude. There’s no need to call names. Just wait, get around the corner, and tell your steering wheel all about it.
WOW! That guy was an ass. Also he’s an idiot because, “You can’t stop walking in the intersection!” doesn’t even make sense.
Fifteen years ago I was at a very busy coffee house with a friend. We finished our drinks and snacks and (because we both worked at restaurants and were programmed to do so) stacked up our plates, napkins, cups, and carried them over to the table by the counter where a half filled washing tub sat. Another customer started yelling at us. “How dare we clean off our table. What if everyone cleaned up after themselves? Then the owner wouldn’t need to pay someone to do that job. We were taking money away from the hard working employees of that cafe by being the assholes who made them redundant. We were screwing up the system.” I wish even now we had told him off, because all we were doing is clearing a table for the next customer when we knew the staff were too busy to bus the table in a timely fashion. *sigh* Okay. It felt better just typing that out — I’ve held it in side since 1996.
That lunch looks AMAZING, by the way.
Nan | wrathofmom’s last post … Toe The Line.
Really? Now cleaning up after yourself isn’t allowed? Please, don’t tell my kids!
Ohhhh I hate being yelled at so much. One time, in Philadelphia, I was edged out in the intersection waiting to make a left turn when the light turned red. Of course I didn’t see that it was red, because it was above my car (they don’t design intersections very well out there). And I couldn’t guess, because the cars coming the other way didn’t slow down at all. Instead they just pulled to a halt very suddenly when they got there … because this is Philly.
Anyway, when I saw they were stopping, I pulled out of the intersection as safely as I could. But someone felt the need to roll down his window and yell out, “Red light, sweetheart!” (Imagine a really sarcastic tone here). I was so upset I could barely drive!
I learned years ago that the best way to win an argument when you KNOW you’re right is to give the other person a way out. They know you’re right too. They just don’t know how to admit it without embarrassing themselves. My dad is famous for this. So it’s best if you a) don’t make it a fight in the first place or b) give them an “out.” Mine is usually saying, “Well, you don’t have to do it my way, but it would be really helpful if you did.” Or, “Oh, I see, you thought I meant X when I really meant Y. So I guess we’re both right.” (When, really, I actually meant Y, so you are WRONG WRONG WRONG! But does it ever help to say that? No.)
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I have been yelled at in public, but it’s nothing that I would want to type out here as all incidents were sexist and/or racist. In the cases of the sexist comments, I was angry and reacted as such. In the case of the racist comments, I was scared and had no idea how to react – my goal in that case was to get myself out of that situation as quickly as possible. How nice it would be if people would keep comments like that to themselves. I mean really, 20 seconds.
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