Carolyn Hax: Calling out public offenders
Dear Carolyn: I was wondering how you felt about speaking up to strangers who commit minor but nagging offenses against common courtesy. Is a gentle public shaming still appropriate?
Almost every day, I encounter people who litter, block entrances while they talk on their cell phones, wantonly cut lines. Last week I saw a man (not apparently homeless) urinating in the street in broad daylight on my own block, and said nothing. How do the bounds of public order get set and maintained, if not by people speaking up (respectfully) when those bounds are crossed?
Last week I turned around in an airplane seat and said politely but firmly to the woman behind me, who continued blathering on her cell phone even as the emergency video started playing, “You need to hang up now.” She did.
I felt terrific! That leads me to wonder: What, if anything, should I say to the public urinator or the candy-wrapper- tosser?
— R. M.
A: I’m all for gentle public shaming, but only for those who don’t know or care that they’re committing an offense. Not that you’ve suggested this, but license to shame is often mistaken for license to take down everybody, even those who are clearly apologetic and/or overburdened. That’s just high-road rage.
Even where civic shame is well deserved, it’s important to navigate carefully between two boundaries: personal safety on one side, and personal nudg-ety on the other.
The former is obvious. A realistic calculation of your vulnerability has to precede anyone’s decision to intervene. True for men and women, big and small. Remember, we’re addressing only “minor” offenses here.
The latter boundary is fuzzier, but requires a similar, on-the-spot, gut calculation: Is this my battle to fight? As a rule, keep your crusades close to home — when the offenses are against you or your patch of sidewalk, or when you’ve just got the angle. Like the yakker on your flight. Good choice, as is “Excuse me, the back of the line is here,” to a proximate line-cutter, or “Excuse me, I think you dropped this” to trash-droppers.
Breaking up is hard to do
Dear Carolyn: Why am I having such a hard time breaking up with someone I’m not very happy with? My friends all say he’s a really nice, funny, stable guy. But he has really poor relationship skills, such as putting me last, flirting with other girls, not being there for me emotionally. Also, I’ve met someone else who seems to be really cool, my type, and attentive. I just can’t seem to break up with my current guy.
— Help?
A: How are your relationship skills? Just from one short letter, it sounds like you’re looking to others to help you form your opinions, looking for emotional satisfaction from a person who withholds it from you, seeing one guy as grounds to leave another, and hesitating to act in your own best interests.
I don’t mean to be cruel. It’s just that I suspect, given your brief but very familiar account, that this or any other new guy isn’t going to resolve any of your frustrations (except maybe temporarily), and in fact will probably intensify them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the old guy had also been attentive, too, at first.
So, I’d suggest learning to stand c onfidently on your own before you get involved in another relationship — an amorphous and highly personal process that has a clear, uniform start: Ending the unhappy relationship. Tonight.
