This is the malignant narcissist again.
I'm exploring the shame/sociopathy thing. I thought you might have some thoughts on it.
I was hungry and tired as I shopped at a big-box discount store. There was just one counter open. I wanted to check out. There weren't any customers in line. Then I saw two fat women pull up with their cart to the counter, ahead of me. They were starting to unload. It was clear it would take a long time for them to put the contents of their cart on the belt. I decided that I just didn't want to wait.
The belt was quite long - there was a 10 foot gap between the women unloading their stuff and the clerk. Rather than wait behind them or ask them if I could go ahead, I impulsively ran up to the cashier (10 feet ahead of the fat women) and handed her my stuff. She started to ring me up.
After a few seconds, the women behind me figured out what had happened. They wound up taking their stuff off the belt and moving to another clerk (also fat). They complained to themselves and the clerk about my behavior. As I heard them talking, I started to feel a bit ashamed.
As I left, one of the women I'd bothered said, "thanks for the chivalry." I said to her, "you're welcome." I was feeling nasty. Perhaps in the future I'll take a tip from you and giver someone like her a rage-filled glare.
When it was all over, I was a bit shocked at how selfishly I'd behaved. But then I realized, I didn't feel any guilt. I still don't - I don't figure that I did anything wrong. I didn't want to wait behind the hippos as they unloaded their stuff.
If I'd done something illegal, they'd have called the police. If I'd done something against the rules of the store, the store personnel would have done something - but they did nothing. In the end, all that happened was that I was rude and some fatties got some ruffled feathers. I've broken laws in public before. Sometimes people say something to me about them. When that happens, I tell them that if they don't like it, they should call the police. In the same vein, if the women don't like what I'm doing, they should call the police or talk to the store management.
Later I reflected on things. My action was a bit unfortunate. Perhaps I should feel some guilt about the action (I don't). I do feel a bit like a bad person - but only because they called me on it. Had they not noticed, had they been blind or had I been anonymous, I just wouldn't have cared.
I figure this case is an example of why people assume sociopaths are a danger to society. If everyone acted the way I do, our civilization would fall apart.
I responded: I am usually am not full of rage unless I feel like I have been attempting to comply with the strictures of good social behavior and people still give me a hard time about things.
I very much identify with this thought that if you weren't called on it, you wouldn't feel badly at all. Although I am starting to wonder more and more if neurotypicals also identify with this feeling and it's not unique to the "dark triad". Shall we publish it and see what they say?
the one and only....
ReplyDelete1st
Delete(what's your game)
Deleteit's funny that ppl make up rules and expect others to folow them. the only rules are the once you make up for yourself. the only limitation is my imagination. (and i'm very outside the box)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I agree with this guy. Those damn hippos were selfish bitches to begin with. They should have let this guy go ahead of them, since he only had a handful of items and they had a full cart. It's just common courtesy. Then, instead of confronting him, they put on the great big passive-aggressive show of going to another counter and complaining to them. People like this drive me berserk. I really don't see any reason to feel any guilt over what happened. They were the ones being inconsiderate and weak.
ReplyDeleteI've done some fun and illegal things in public too. Never felt any guilt about it, either. Although, if there was a serious danger of repercussions, I would pretend to feel guilt. Usually nobody even commented, although plenty of people saw. Got to love the bystander effect.
If the person just said "excuse me, lovely hippos, I could not help but notice it will take you a considerably long time to put your items there..would you mind terribly if the cashier took my items while you are bending over?" problem would have been solved.
Deleteol. Asking a lovely hippo to wait for an extra few minutes to purchase and eat said food is just suicide, anon.
DeleteNot to mention what happens if they say no: then you're stuck looking at those two repeatedly bending over... or you'll look even more of a bastard when you barge in anyway.
Better to ask for forgiveness (or give a wink and great big 'fuck you' smile) than ask for permission, I say.
@Anon: If the obese cretins had any real concept of existence/self/universal harmony or perhaps even the smallest capacity for objective reasoning, they would have realized that it would be most logical to allow the person with fewer groceries to check-out first. After all, he probably would have been finished by the time the landwhales were done unloading their tractor-trailer onto the conveyer belt.
DeleteTheir inobservance of the flow of their environment and their subsequent reactions tell me this:
1) These were selfish, inconsiderate, internally disharmonious people.
2) These people probably had a very shallow sense of self and were almost definitely ruled by their emotions
3) Because they were fucking imbeciles, just a few rungs above the common beast on an IQ scale
4) These people lack the capacity for objective reasoning. They likely pay no mind to the their thoughts and actions, nor the origins or reasons behind their thoughts and actions. As such, the do not know themselves, and have absolutely no capacity to truly know others. Any value, opinion, ideal or insight they hold will be heavily skewed based on their subjective (and animalistic) understanding of the world, and their understanding of others will be in terms of themselves (if that makes sense). They will not be able to recognize their subjective biases as biases, and they will probably never become truly self aware. They are a living ego, a physical manifestation of instinct and impulse.
Feel guilty? God no. I'd have been pissed off that I didn't fuck with them more. I regard people like this as lower than animals.
What a boring post.
ReplyDeletei cut in line all the time
ReplyDeletebecause i can
^You wouldn't in front of me - I would have them
Deletecall the manager before that happened.
Sorry.......
you can be anywhere in line you like. the clerk would still serve me next. :)
DeleteAre you very beautiful, Zoe?
Deletei am very cute.
Deletebut that's not what i meant. what i meant was that i would point out that i was there first and insist - very nicely - that the clerk serves me.
Go Gurl from a Friend <3
DeleteI push to the front of the line all the time but then I'm a middle aged White man who's going to dare to challange me?
DeleteHe lyin, y'all, that's ma baby daddy. How you doin Whitey? You got ma money, right bitch?
Deletehippos LOL
ReplyDeleteThey're "hungry hungry hippos" leave them alone.
ReplyDeleteFuck fat people
ReplyDeleteYou know if you are morbidly obese you can sue for almost anything?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the nature of the deed and ones coping mechanisms as to how much shame a neurotypical will feel.
ReplyDeleteSomeone bitched me out for letting my dog go near her two yapping little fuckers. It was "not the first time {I} had let it happen" I wanted my dog to have a sniff, y'know? Mingya's day is fucking boring as fucking hell. I thought what does this bitch lady care! That's the highlight of my Mingya's day. If that lady can't keep calm, she should have a sign on her chest that says "I have dogs but I shouldn't because I don't allow them to have any fun and I can't hold onto the leash so good, so they're liable to run in the street and get run over" She did not get a death glare from me. She had rubbed me the wrong way once before and she knew it. I killed her with a smile and a "sorry". Then she kept saying hello to me. She knew she was nuts. I think lots of people know they're nuts.
ReplyDeleteI wanted my dog to have a sniff, y'know? Mingya's day is fucking boring as fucking hell. I thought what does this bitch lady care! That's the highlight of my Mingya's day.
ReplyDeletelol
I hate waiting in lines. Instead of doing this, I find it rather effective to charm the person in front of me (usually a compliment or asking the time) and they usually beg me to go in front of them.
ReplyDeleteI personally would try to con them out of their spot online either using the situation (it'll take me less time to check out than it will for you to put all of this on the belt) or by complementing them, something like "what a nice circus tent you are wearing". But in the end if I didn't get what I wanted, I quite possibly would take what I wanted anyways, however I wouldn't feel bad about it simply because I knew full well it would upset those around me. I generally only have the illusion of what could be called guilt if I was trying to do something with out being noticed and was caught, in which case "guilt" would have been the appropriate response for a normal person. This being as an attempt to not be noticed for what I am. As for anger, I agree entirely, I only get flustered if I'm trying to play by the rules of society but I am still not winning the game, I just can't understand why, so the natural response is anger.
ReplyDeleteIf I play by the rules of society, I expect to either be congratulated or simply left the fuck alone. If that isn't good enough for you, you had best keep that shit to yourself, lest you become my next game.
DeleteSociety's rules are suffocating and so limiting that when I play by them, I feel like a caged animal. Nobody understands how much of a sacrifice I feel like I have to make to be considered a good person. So... when my sacrifice goes unappreciated... I just see red.
I don't know if being a rule-bound line-waiter or being a hippo-trumping me-first asswad is preferable, but I do know that I would like to have been at your "big box" store to see the hippos kick the shit out of you in the parking lot after, and sit on your head with their massive asses until you suffocated, you self-important misogynist ta-wat.
ReplyDeleteI live in Costa Rica. The service in a restaurant is comparable to the service at the post office in the U.S.A. There are always lines and I always cut in line. Their culture encourages passivity and non interference so no one will even say anything to me. If you act like a sheep then you deserve to be shorn.
ReplyDeleteIf the two women had been thin, but had the same number of items, would the writer still feel justified in cutting in front of them, and would the commenters still be so supportive? There seems to be a lot of irrelevant fat-shaming in this post. Why is it okay to shame fat people but not sociopaths?
ReplyDeleteI prefer the smile say hi approach, wave my few items basket and I always get offered to go ahead... You catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.
ReplyDelete~Lunar~