Is it ever OK to deal with verbal aggression by more in kind?

In My Humble Opinion
41

When people park on the street its often the case that you have to manouvere against the direction of traffic to achieve your end,its even a part of the U.K. driving test for gods sake.
So its no different for a parking lot.

So all the mealy mouthed rationalisation for and abrogation of responsibility of your drivers actions being those of a total and utter jerk are total nonsense.

He would have had to be an actual saint incarnate NOT to have said anything after your friend behaved like an arsehole who if they’d acted as they did where I live would most probably have been the subject of physical as opposed to just verbal violence.

What I find worrying is that not only do you find it quite normal for your friend to act indefencibly and behave as though he is the aggrieved party but you feel hurt and offended enough to castigate the driver who was actually the victim of your drivers offensive behaviour on a MB no less.

And THEN you are surprised to find that most people have a cosensus that your driver was an offensive little douchebag in the way he behaved.

It may be difficult for you, but try to visualise your friend waiting patiently,politely and very visibly to occupy a parking space after a safe enough space has opened up and then some repulsive little snot bag screams in dangerously early(It would have to be to beat a waiting car into the space) leaving you there .
Would you have felt that the other driver was right in their actions?
Yeah I’ll bet !

You couldn’t make it up.

42

Based on police and CCTV videos, plus news reports of ‘road rage’, I’d agree with all this.

Defuse these situations, walk away and calm yourself.
Otherwise you’re going to be spending a lot of time feeling annoyed…

43

The scenario I’m invisioning is one where the parking is angled with one-way isles. Going down the wrong way to snag a spot is 100% a dick move.

44

Have you never seen parking lots in which the spots are aligned towards you on your right but away from you on your left, making it acceptable to go either way down the aisle, but nearly impossible to pull into a space on your left? Invariably, some blockhead will try to pull into a spot on their left anyway and manage to block the entire lane as they execute an excessive and time-consuming 5-point-turn in order to maneuver into the spot.

I’ve never understood the benefits of designing lots in this manner.

45

If there is, I wish I could figure out what it is.

No. That’s why these incidents are so shocking, and repulsive, and memorable.

Tell me, please, where is “Barack County” and how do its norms of courtesy differ from Los Angeles?

People in SDMB post from around the world. Why then do people assume that their experience will be the same as everyone else’s experience? I bet it would not take a lot of anecdotal research to find plenty of examples of fat people being abused by total strangers. Reality shows have done “experiments” about it. I haven’t seen it yet on John Quinones’ program “What Would You Do?”, but I’m hoping.

So please don’t belittle my lifetime’s experiences simply because you have not had those experiences yourself. That’s a narrow perspective.

46

As in reversing back a few feet ?
Or reversing into a parking bay ?

Or are you imagining people who can just about, or not at all manage that?

If they have trouble managing that then what else do they have difficulties with?

Reaction time?
Braking?
All round awareness on the road?

If that is the case then it raises the question why they’re driving legally at all.
No sorry it doesn’t let the O.Ps driver or even the O.P. off the hook,his driver was a complete and utter arsehole and probably knows it.

And as for there being different driving customs around the world,yes there are but if it was the custom in his own part of the world for people to steal parking spaces then the other driver wouldn’t have been offended would he?
There are people in this world who go through life selfishly and ignorantly who often get away with it because of their sheer effrontary and other peoples good manners.
And when they get called on their behaviour its never their fault,they’re being picked on because they’re fat,or Free Masons or members of a chess club(No they’re not real examples,fill in the spaces yourself).
As I said in my previous,you couldn’t make it up.

47

Response to Cheesesteak and Lust4Life

What troubles me about your responses is that both of you seem to think physical violence is an acceptable response to driving discourtesy.

I didn’t start this thread with foul language, not even about the other driver, since I was ashamed of calling them foul names in the first place and my whole point is that I know that’s not acceptable. But, since others have entered this thread parading around their “dick” and “arsehole,” we’ll go ahead and adopt those terms for this conversation.

Let’s all accept that my driver did the wrong thing, even a “dick move.” Let’s all assume that painted arrows on the pavement mean absolutely nothing, and since we’re not dicks to go against the arrows, the lot owner must have been a dick to paint them there. Let’s especially accept that the other driver had a right to be angry. (However, I won’t be calling my driver a “dick” or an “arsehole,” since I know him better than you and I’m sure you’ve never done anything “arsehole-worthy” in your entire life.)

My point here is: My driver was wrong to snatch the parking space. I was wrong to engage the other driver in a cussing match. The other driver was REALLY WRONG to try/pretend to ram us, even coming up a few inches short. I insist that that risky and potentially homicidal behavior is way worse than the behavior of the other two jerks.

Once you intentionally collide with another car, you have crossed the line. You have endangered not only the other driver and everyone in his car, but also yourself and everyone in your own car, and everyone in the vicinity. It is a “dick move” to end all “dick moves,” and it makes everything that happened before pale in importance. Kind of like shooting someone for cheating you at cards, who’s going to jail first and longest?

Once you intentionally cause a collision, all bets are off. It’s a new situation. Once you do that, I don’t care how provoked you were, and I don’t care what happens to you next, because the next thing you’re likely to see – whether you’re male or female, short or tall, fat or thin, young, old, tough, strong, armed, whatever – is me, hobbling over and reaching out with my sprained bloody wrists to yank your driver’s-side door open and get you out of there, hang all consequences.

Would I feel ashamed about it later? Probably, but I might not be able to control it. A simple fight-or-flight response.

I think the ramming part, more than anything else, is probably what set me off. The other car would have rammed my side of the vehicle.

48

Memorize this phrase: “Build a bridge, get over it.” (accompanied by this special sort of move where you pivot on your heel and start walking in the other direction).

49

Meaning what, exactly? If you’re implying that this thread is a waste of time, well…you took the time to post in it, didn’t you?

You get over it. Go to another thread if you don’t like this one. Memorize this phrase: “Physician, heal thyself.”

50

Ummm… I gave you a phrase to use instead of being all verbally aggressive and saying “fuck you”, etc. You found it as an excuse to take affront. I think the pattern is making itself clear here… the problem is you.

51

You say you have problems with the aggression. Leaving out the whole question of who’s to blame in the specific incident you describe; and as somebody who tries to keep my temper down myself, I can offer you the following tips:

  1. Generally, as the others have said, responding in kinds only escalates the situation and makes both angry.

  2. It’s not your job to educate other people. You have no chance at all educating or changing people who don’t want to be changed (even if you were in the right in this situation, which you can see is disputed).
    Moreover, put yourself in the other person’s shoes for a moment: you do something and get yelled at. Will that make you accept that criticism and try and change, or won’t your automatic instinct be to think “Asshole, leave me alone” even if you don’t say it?
    Furthermore, in situations between strangers, don’t assume that people are jerks that need to be taught their way or replied in kind. If you put yourself into the other person’s shoes, a lot of things are done out of carelessness, misunderstanding, not knowing the rules, instead of the jerkish “fuck you world, here I come, the rest doesn’t matter” attitude.
    But if the other person isn’T a jerk intentionally, then a polite “Sorry, that was my parking space”, or “I thought I could take that because you faced the other way” or whatever reason you have to think the did wrong has the best chance of educating that person. If the other person still doesn’t change, that’s their problem, you’ve done the best; but if you shout at them reacting in kind, you don’t have a chance to get through.

  3. think of yourself first, your stomach and your heart (esp. if you’re overweight). People today yelling at you as adults aren’t doing it for the same reason that kids did.
    Learn to not take all this stuff as important. It’s your body you’re damaging by getting upset; by walking away saying “This isn’t as important as world hunger or cancer” you’re one-upping the other guy who now has to deal with his anger on his own.
    Or to put it another way: when I let another person make me angry for more than 10 minutes when I can walk away and forget it, then I’m giving that person power over my life and my time and my mood; and why I should I do that? It’s my time and my life and my decision to take a deep breath, hit a cushion and then think of fluffy bunnies on a green meadow with white fluffly clouds etc.

Now, in private or work life, with people you know well, some people are rude, some are jerks, and need to be responded to firmly. But still, firmly doesn’T mean resulting in kind. It’s the old internet advice “If you get into a shouting discussion with an idiot, bystanders won’t be able to tell who is who”. Firmly but calmly tell the other person you don’t want to tolerate that language atttitude towards you. Freeze them, as said upthread. You can’t shout some people down, they’re oblivious or even thrive on this.

I hope you find a way to put things into proper perspective and get on with your life better.

52

True… one realization that I found helpful is that creating a self-serving narrative is central to the human experience. In practical terms, everyone always thinks they’re right. Nobody will ever accept correction except from a person in a direct position of authority, a clear position of physical domination, or whose good will they cannot afford to lose. So as far as correcting a random asshole on the street, just forget it. Find a way to disengage and get on with your life.

We reflexively think it will be rewarding to “win” such a confrontation, but in reality, it’s virtually guaranteed that you will get no satisfaction even from the best-case scenario. What’s the guy going to do? “Oh, you’re right, fuck me, not fuck you”. More likely he’ll just stomp off fuming and give you the finger.

53

Yes, you simply can’T win shouting. You can loose dangerously against a stranger, though, given past stories about road rages when people go crazy with a gun or similar.

Personally, I find it easier to see in others eg my friend getting all upset over nothing, than in myself. But whenever I catch myself, I try to pull the brake conciously before I get into a loop of anger, and instead think of the good day ahead of me still. (If you read the teen book “Futretrack Five”, by Robert Westall, about a controlled society and a computer, you’ll understand the reference to fluffy Bunnies. ;))

54

If you go back and read this thread, you will not find that I have been the angriest or most affronted person here. But you’re entitled to your opinion.

Here’s a clue: If you don’t want to be misinterpreted, just say what you mean instead of trying to be cute.

55

Some very good food for thought from constanze. I also liked what this person said, upthread:

Even if I don’t always fulfill that, it will help to keep my mind on it. Just as Muslims know that even if they can’t fulfill some of God’s injunctions (like daily prayer or handwashing), at least they can be conscious of what they should be doing.

56

The poster who came up with the Four Agreements is Yeticus Rex. I did not properly credit him/her in my last post.

Whether YR got it somewhere else or wrote it, the FA are simple, yet profound.

57

Apology to Cosmic Relief

Now that I have seen your post agreeing with constanze, I realize that your “bridge” aphorism was meant as something I could say in an escalating situation. I misinterpreted it as a comment on the thread itself. It’s possible that I misinterpreted it this way because of all the posts using words like “dick,” “douchebag,” “arsehole” etc., but then again, if I’m automatically interpreting things as having aggressive intent, isn’t that part of my problem? As you so correctly pointed out, and as I partially admitted in my OP: yes.

Guess I learned a little bit about myself from this discussion. Sorry again, and thanks again.

58

Apology accepted, no worries.

59

From this book, The Four Agreements. Kind of a new-ageish approach, but still some good advice that anyone can benefit from. A quick read; about 2-3 hours, and worth reading again annually or after some traumatic incident in one’s life. It’s helped me over the last couple of years, which have been kind of a wake-up call for me. It will definitely help you find the inner calm/peace that you are seeking. Good Luck!

Here’s his website, although I don’t know why the pages are shrunk down. Maybe it will be fixed soon.

60

I’m not really sure what’s so difficult to understand or why you think driving ability has anything to do with this situation? I might be wrong, but this is the type of parking scenario I read the OP to experience:

\   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \   \  
            <--normal traffic flow
 /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /
   op-->           <--dick
 \   \   \   \   \ **X** \   \   \   \   \
      <--normal traffic flow
 /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /  /

The other driver wanting to reverse into the spot is irrelevant and the OP already stated that the other driver was coming down the wrong way, so we know it wasn’t a case where she was a little ways past the soon to be open spot and wanted to back up.

Who is really the parking spot thief/arsehole here? The other driver intentionally (we assume) drove down the WRONG WAY to grab a spot that the OP’s friend was likely to use. I believe the OP’s friend escalated the situation by taking the spot knowing the other driver was waiting, but it wasn’t the other driver’s to begin with (in as much as one can “own” or “claim” a parking spot).

How funny…you just described the wrong-way parker exactly.

“Good manners” the the OPs situation would dictate that in a 1-way angled parking situation, you don’t turn down the isle the wrong way just to grab a closer spot. Doing so disrupts the traffic flow when you park and also when you try to leave. And the isles in an angled parking situation are often more narrow since they are designed for one lane of traffic, not two. Going both ways makes it hard for people to get past.

Brown Eyed Girl, I have driven in parking lots as you describe:

 \  \  \  \  \  \  \  \  \  \
 _  _  _  _  _  _  _  _                   <--dick
 op-->
 \  \  \  \  \  \ **X**\  \  \  \

In that case, I think it’s still a little out of line for the other driver to lay claim to a spot that is intentionally designed to be entered from the opposite direction. Doing so means she’d have to pull in and back out and pull in again to get the car straight or execute almost a full u-turn, holding up the flow of traffic in either case. It is simply a rude thing to do in a busy parking lot.