# Why do they do this? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 14, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540 "2016-10-14T18:55:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/21 "2016-10-14T23:07:28Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > On the day that you were born, the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true…😃 Okay… that caught me by surprise. I’m still snickering 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![slumtrimpet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@slumtrimpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slumtrimpet)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/22 "2016-10-15T00:24:04Z")
> [@mind\_the\_gap](#): > > I used to commute on a toll road. There were usually 2 toll booths open and almost without fail, all the cars would line up to go into one of them. I would change lanes upon approach and sail through the open booth. wtf? You live in the UK. You must with **mind the gap** as a user name. Brits love to queue. Brits **LOVE** to queue. I’ve seen the same phenomenon on tolls there. I even called my husband out on it. It didn’t change his behaviour though. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/23 "2016-10-15T00:29:50Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > This happens camping too. You get to an empty campground with 8 spots and select yours. Next person that arrives takes the spot next to you. Every single time! On my vacation last week I arrived second to the 8-spot camping location and I took the second best spot left so I wouldn’t be right next to them. Then an hour later it turns out he was just parking there to walk his dog :smack: and by then I’d already set up my tent. (I wanted to be close to a creek but not in a wet site and there were only 2 of those. I took the one with downed wild apples, which I didn’t want because I was afraid it would attract bears, and it was close to the road. Thankfully no bears.) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/24 "2016-10-15T00:41:26Z")
This always happens to me if I park my car in some completely desolate parking lot to eat lunch. There could be 1000 empty spaces and some random person will pull up right next to me and they won’t get out of the car they’ll just sit there. Maybe they think there is safety in numbers? ---
**Author:** ![Azeotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/0ea827/32.png) [@Azeotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azeotrope)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/25 "2016-10-15T01:22:54Z")
> [@Lucky\_Mike](#): > > I have no scientific evidence for this, but I have a personal opinion backed by some observational data. My conclusion: It is passive aggressive behavior. > > I drive 50-80 miles each way to work everyday, depending on my office location. I have a standard Crossover (CRV), my wife has a SMART car (yeah I know, let it go and read on). > > So, I drive 5 times a week, times 48 weeks a year ( 4 vacation), so I would like to say I am a good sample size of 200+ instances (in morning and in the evening) a year. > > Driving in my standard CRV, I have been passed maybe 10 times… in a year. (I drive a two lane country highway into the city, avoiding interstates like the plague). > > When I drive my wife’s SMART car, in rare circumstances, I am passed 3-7 times a DAY, driving the exact same speed. > > It is my opinion, and unscientific, folks see that little car and get some sort of crazy notion in their head they have to prove something. Men, women, it don’t freaking matter. They see that little car driving 62 in a 55 and lose their shit screaming cries of Valhalla and demanding blood for the blood God. > > In my CRV, almost every single person behind me accepts 62 in a 55. In the SMART car, they truly become tailgating road warriors yelling nonsensical rants as they pass me flinging feces upon my windows. > > So, my opinion… > > There are a LOT of people who have repressed their violent and aggressive tendencies in our society and have chosen to express them in odd ways. Online trolls, aggressive driving, voting for Trump… > > But, they are real and, in my humble opinion, it is not some random accident your small car gets surrounded by penile/vaginal enhancement vehicles. You may be on to something there. I do mostly town driving, and when I’m driving a larger car than my Accent I don’t seem to get cut off, passed (usually by someone who gets stuck at the next red light anyway, hehehe), honked at at stoplights, and other bullshit like that anywhere near as much. I think they’re all just jealous of my incredible gas mileage. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/26 "2016-10-15T01:33:34Z")
> [@Turpentine](#): > > I’ve been told that in a men’s room, it’s considered bad form to take the urinal right next to the one another man is using, unless it’s the only one available. Bad form? But how else am I going to check out the size of his dick? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/27 "2016-10-15T02:06:36Z")
> [@mind\_the\_gap](#): > > I used to commute on a toll road. There were usually 2 toll booths open and almost without fail, all the cars would line up to go into one of them. I would change lanes upon approach and sail through the open booth. wtf? Well, having been screwed by pulling into broken toll booths, I will pull into one I have actually watched another car successfully pull through. If other people do this, it could end up in lines at the one booth PROVED to be working. > [@Procrustus](#): > > I don’t bowl very often, but I would hate that too. I wonder if it’s an effort to keep a segment of the premises pristine to avoid having to clean the whole place when only 4 lanes are going to be used. They may do this so when people come in and want to be next to each other, they can be. Teams probably book ahead, and if enough are, that may be another reason. Anyway, it seems reasonable to me that lanes are assigned down the line. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/28 "2016-10-15T04:38:15Z")
> [@Vicsage](#): > > I go to play tennis. There are 8 courts. All empty. I take court #8. The next group of people come and take court #7. Happens all the time. Sometimes I take a jug of water and dump it on the court next to me just so idiots don’t use it. I go shopping. Park my car a long distance away so as not to have to worry about being crowded by other cars. I come out and find a SUV crowding my car. There are dozens of empty spot all around my car and this idiot has to park right next to me. I eat lunch in my car. I eat lunch in a huge vacant parking lot. Others do too. Yet with all this empty space, someone will always park right next to me. I like to bowl. By myself. I go when almost no one is there. They give me lane #17. Five minutes after I start, a mom comes in with 3 pre-teen kids. Guess what lane the guy gives them? #18. What is wrong with people? This tennis court thing has never happened to me. Never ever. But the parking lot thing? What’s even weirder is the reverse. I go to the store. Nobody is parked next to me. When I come out, not only is somebody parked next to me, but they are also leaving, at the same time I am, and they are opening doors that block my way to my door, putting their cart behind my car, etc. How did they even know? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/29 "2016-10-15T05:12:38Z")
They do it to piss you off. And it’s working. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/30 "2016-10-15T05:59:25Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > They may do this so when people come in and want to be next to each other, they can be. Teams probably book ahead, and if enough are, that may be another reason. Anyway, it seems reasonable to me that lanes are assigned down the line. Not to me. This is the “don’t crowd me” rant that makes the most sense. Two bowlers going at the same time in parallel lanes is a disaster, so both sides have to play the annoying sub-game of paying attention to when the bowler on the left must give way to the bowler on the right. The opportunity to bowl without neighbors is a rare and wondrous treat that no pimply-faced shoe-herder is going to cheat me out of. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/31 "2016-10-15T06:27:59Z")
> [@Lucky\_Mike](#): > > I have no scientific evidence for this, but I have a personal opinion backed by some observational data. My conclusion: It is passive aggressive behavior. > > I drive 50-80 miles each way to work everyday, depending on my office location. I have a standard Crossover (CRV), my wife has a SMART car (yeah I know, let it go and read on). > > So, I drive 5 times a week, times 48 weeks a year ( 4 vacation), so I would like to say I am a good sample size of 200+ instances (in morning and in the evening) a year. > > Driving in my standard CRV, I have been passed maybe 10 times… in a year. (I drive a two lane country highway into the city, avoiding interstates like the plague). > > When I drive my wife’s SMART car, in rare circumstances, I am passed 3-7 times a DAY, driving the exact same speed. > > It is my opinion, and unscientific, folks see that little car and get some sort of crazy notion in their head they have to prove something. Men, women, it don’t freaking matter. They see that little car driving 62 in a 55 and lose their shit screaming cries of Valhalla and demanding blood for the blood God. > > In my CRV, almost every single person behind me accepts 62 in a 55. In the SMART car, they truly become tailgating road warriors yelling nonsensical rants as they pass me flinging feces upon my windows. > > So, my opinion… > > There are a LOT of people who have repressed their violent and aggressive tendencies in our society and have chosen to express them in odd ways. Online trolls, aggressive driving, voting for Trump… > > But, they are real and, in my humble opinion, it is not some random accident your small car gets surrounded by penile/vaginal enhancement vehicles. You might be projecting quite a bit, here. An alternate hypothesis is that since the Honda CRV is a much larger vehicle than the Smartcar, it means that other drivers behind the CRV have less visibility of the road ahead (especially a two-lane road) and thus less certainty of when it is safe to pass, hence fewer of them do. Since it is relatively easy to see around a Smartcar, and the Smartcar is smaller so one can pass it with less concern of accidentally touching it, more people take the opportunity. Similarly, imagine putting two pylons fifteen feet apart. Drivers will casually pass between them without slowing. Put them ten feet apart, and even though this is still significantly wider than any car, drivers might slow considerably to make sure they clear the gap. It might not be that your smaller car inspires aggression - it’s that your larger car increases uncertainty. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/32 "2016-10-15T07:09:00Z")
I can’t be the only one who expected this thread to be about crappy thread titles and the excessive use of pronouns therein. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/33 "2016-10-15T07:55:57Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > I can’t be the only one who expected this thread to be about crappy thread titles and the excessive use of pronouns therein. Some also do something like. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/34 "2016-10-15T08:19:19Z")
Hell, I was driving home one night about 9:30 and wanted to do some texting so I pulled crosswise (not in a marked space) into the empty parking lot of a closed Chinese restaurant and before I’d been there five minutes three different cars had pulled in, all at somewhat different times and coming in from and parking in different directions, and every single one had a cell phone glowing inside. None of them parked right next to me, but still… There were plenty of other businesses with empty parking lots nearby so why did they all have to cluster around me? A couple other things that bug the crap out of me that isn’t the fault necessarily of the people who do them but due to the way the world for some reason seems to be wired, is that at least half the time when I go grocery shopping and come out to my car, the person who was in line ahead of or behind me is coming out too and despite the fact e’re in a huge parking lot with dozens of cars, they’re invariably parked either right next to my car or in front of it facing mine. This means one or the other of us has to wait while the other loads their car and closes their door, and then the one who went first has to wait on the second so as not to be rude and unsafe and back out while the party of the second part is still loading their car with the door open six inches from theirs. The second thing is that there is always somebody behind me on the damn road. It can be 3:30 in the morning and the streets utterly deserted and no one else in sight but there will be some asspipe behind me with his brights on, goading me to go faster even though I’m already doing five or ten miles over the speed limit. And if I turn into a housing addition they’ll turn right behind me and if I make a series of two or three turns within the addition they’ll turn behind me, and then just as I’m about to decide to make four rights in a row to see if they’re deliberately tailing me they’ll break off and go their own way. Never fucking fails. Harrumph!!! ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/35 "2016-10-15T11:43:53Z")
We don’t have lizard-brains, we have herdbeast brains. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/36 "2016-10-15T11:58:34Z")
When Mrs. Campp and I go food shopping, I always tend to mill around quietly while she peruses her selections. I try to pick the most mundane part of the store to stand and mind my own business. Only, EVERY SINGLE TIME, someone has to come up, and have the sudden need to get to the shelf I’m blocking. It’s always something ridiculous, like fermented pastrami in a jar, or marshmallow cream. The other day, I sat down onto a display of patio furniture. 30 seconds later some guy comes up, and tells me to move because he’s buying the whole set. Never fails. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/37 "2016-10-15T13:39:18Z")
“Sure, begorrah, and I’ll be going with you! Pleased to meet you, lad, I’m just in from County Cork, and the name is Paddy O’Furniture!” ---
**Author:** ![Vicsage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e68b1a/32.png) [@Vicsage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vicsage)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/38 "2016-10-15T14:05:16Z")
One thing I’ve tried on planes to not be crowed (hasn’t worked on my 2 attempts, plane was filled) is to book my wife’s seat on the aisle and mine by the window. Figured people hate the middle seat and if possible would never book it. Both times it failed, the stranger gladly switched seats so the wife and I could be together. What I do now is just book 2 aisle seats on the same row. At least we can both stretch out a bit. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/39 "2016-10-15T14:34:03Z")
> [@Vicsage](#): > > Yes, with bowling they are directed by the counter guy, I just don’t know why the counter guy does put people right next to other people. And I have gone back on occasion to get another lane, but they usually give you an attitude. I also get the feeling that they people you leave notice and can’t understand why I don’t like their 7 year old running into my lane while I’m bowling. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with all the other points in your Pitting … However, it takes time and effort to dress bowling lanes properly. It’s fairly common during open bowling to keep the noobs all on a few lanes. That’s less work for the oiler to do before the regular leagues start up in the evening. We can’t really blame the proprietors for catering to the leagues, that’s their bread and butter bowler. Yeah, it makes a big difference. The oil on the lanes moves around during the course of the evening and the better bowlers are constantly having to adjust their line. They’ll want to start out with a good even coating rather than waste a half game trying to figure out how the previous noob screwed things up. It’s a pisser when your ball swings from one gutter to the other, take the drive out and you’ll be leaving ten-pins all night long … ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540/40 "2016-10-15T14:40:11Z")
> [@Vicsage](#): > > I go to play tennis. There are 8 courts. All empty. I take court #8. The next group of people come and take court #7. Happens all the time. Sometimes I take a jug of water and dump it on the court next to me just so idiots don’t use it. I go shopping. Park my car a long distance away so as not to have to worry about being crowded by other cars. I come out and find a SUV crowding my car. There are dozens of empty spot all around my car and this idiot has to park right next to me. I eat lunch in my car. I eat lunch in a huge vacant parking lot. Others do too. Yet with all this empty space, someone will always park right next to me. I like to bowl. By myself. I go when almost no one is there. They give me lane #17. Five minutes after I start, a mom comes in with 3 pre-teen kids. Guess what lane the guy gives them? #18. What is wrong with people? I feel your pain – and that of other posters in the thread (though as I don’t drive, I can’t be altogether “on that particular page”). It often happens in pubs / bars / restaurants too: the establishment is almost empty; but some new patrons come in, and of all the places in which they could sit, they choose the table right next to yours. > [@saje](#): > > We don’t have lizard-brains, we have herdbeast brains. Along those lines: one could suspect that the majority of people are natural huddlers-together – as against the sizeable minority of us who value privacy and non-congestion. Perhaps the result of many millennia during which humans had to bunch together, for mutual protection in a dangerous world; it’s only in relatively recent times that civilised and ordered societies have developed, allowing us the luxury of preferring privacy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-do-this/768540.md?page=3)