Reversion to the Mean

 

I consider myself as having thick skin, trained by many years of having to slough off negativity and anchored by a willingness to stand by my principles regardless of the blowback. I pride myself on not shying away from saying or doing the hard thing, even when I know I will be met with opposition, whether in my work life or my home life.

But, naturally, I can be sensitive. I'm just like most everyone else, who doesn't want to rock the boat and who does want to be liked or at least not hated. So random meanness I can shake off, but it can shake me a bit at first.

They say things come in threes, and maybe that's just us humans looking for patterns where there aren't, but recently I've had not one and not two but three random acts of meanness. For the purpose of elaborating on the point of today's post, and perhaps as a form of personal release, I will describe them below, all occurring in the past week:

1. At my local CVS, there are two lines next to each other, one for human cashiers and one for automated machines. As I was heading to checkout, a guy was right in front of me and got into the human cashier line, while I got into the automated machine line. But when the next automated machine became available, he quickly strode toward it. In a split second, I decided to not do nothing or to angrily confront him, but rather used a level affect in indicating he was in the wrong line for self-checkout. But before I could get a few words out, he loudly snarled at me, "You got in the wrong line and I was ahead of you." Which, forget about who was right and who was wrong, the tone of the response was way out of proportion to my words. I honestly didn't mind waiting for the next machine, and I also didn't mind him not being aware that he was in the wrong line. But I did mind being yelled at so harshly.

2. I was pushing my shopping cart at the local grocery store. A long line had already formed in front of the cashier, and usually when this happens folks who are waiting are mindful of other shoppers trying to get past. I was approaching a woman whose cart was planted squarely in the aisle, and who saw me but didn't make any motion to move out of the way, so I slowed down and then as I got close to her I quietly said, "excuse me," knowing that anything louder than that might've come across as confrontational. She looked at me dismissively, paused for a beat, and then said "two words, that's all you have to say." Confused, I just stood there for a moment. She repeated, in a harsher tone, "two words, just say 'excuse me.'" Biting my tongue, and maintaining a low and quiet tone so as not to escalate things, I said "I'm sorry, I did say 'excuse me,'" to which she barked at me, "well I guess I didn't hear you" and then let me through. As I passed by, I heard a few other shoppers try to come to my defense, saying "I think he did say 'excuse me,' but she refused to budge, responding angrily with "well I didn't hear him." I have to say it took me a while to distance myself emotionally from her negativity.

3. Where a bus stops is always a bit of mystery to me. Is it the corner? Where the sign is? Where the bench is? For safety's sake, I tend to think it's where there's room for the bus to safely pull over to board and deboard riders. So I was waiting in that general vicinity as a bus neared. But it stopped way short of me, so I fast-walked forward to get on as others were getting off. No harm, no foul. But the driver took the opportunity to say, "the bus stops where the sign is." Aha! I smiled and said, "Got it, thanks." But then she continued: "Nowhere else." Her second statement was said louder and sharper than the first. I smiled and nodded, while reaching into my pocket for my pass. Yet she wasn't done. "Ever." Louder and sharper still. I lowered my eyes and headed for a seat, trying desperately to avoid a fourth statement from her.

I sure hope I did nothing to instigate any of these outbursts. Indeed, I was doing everything I could to de-escalate matters, to avoid coming off as threatening or entitled or pushy. These incidents didn't ruin my day. But, the fact that I've recounted every detail days later tells you they left an impression on me. Meanness sucks.

Ah, but people are mean sometimes. And, try as we might to avoid or shrug off, we will be adversely affected by the meanness. Are we becoming meaner as a society? Social media isn't real life, so it's not hard to find meanness online, and it's not hard to discount such meanness as a function of the artificial and toxic environment that is too many online platforms. But, when in the space of a week I'm confronted with three separate instances of people being unnecessarily mean to me, it's hard not to wonder and worry that meanness is on the rise in person too. Would that there was more kindness in this world. May it start with me, and if my kindness is met with meanness, may I be able to walk away with my desire to be kind intact.