Old People and ladies and buses.

So as I returned from my VOLUNTEER WORK because I'm such a Good Samaritan, I was taking the bus home to my town. There's this nice lil' ol' lady sat next to me and we spend time chatting slightly, as you do when sweet old ladies begin to chat to you at the bus stop! We were catching the same bus so notified one another if we thought it was coming. She saw that I have a return ticket in my hand and as the bus doors open, I was kind of waiting for her to get on as I usually let everyone else get on (I'm useless on buses and didn't want to cause a queue) but tells me that she wants to sort out her change before getting on. I accept this and go to take my seat on the bus as any normal person.

Listening to the highly brilliant Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when all of a sudden, some elderly gentleman asks me to remove my headphones so he may chat to me. I agreed, not wanting to be rude when this gentleman starts saying something and I ask him to repeat. And thus, the following piece of what I would consider misogynistic, self-righteousness followed:

"Excuse me but next time you get on a bus and there's a lady waiting, you wait for her to go on first." OK. Fine. Right. I have to be careful here. The problem with the teens attacking the 60+ generation is that it can simply be executed as us being "stropy teenagers" who say "fuck you" to the "man." But here's the thing: I do think I have a lot of respect for my elders as they're people who've got a lot more life experience on their shoulders and generally are trying to help me if offering advice. HOWEVER, no matter how fucking old you are if you decide that its your right to patronise me with something then I will hold it against you. And it wasn't until 30 seconds after that my brain processed what had just happened.

So what are my beefs with it? I'll go through it below:

It was a misogynistic comment - Oh, she's a "lady" thus automatically I must let her go first. Look, okay I can get a lot of flack for that because it's easy (supposedly) to decipher being condescending towards women and being a gentleman but how about we go off the idea that she is a bit older then me and I should let her go first? I mean, I don't mind that almost. I do it with school staff all the time, it's just the done thing. We shouldn't do things based off gender (as I explained in another recent post), we should something because it's the nice and respectable thing to do.

MORAL SUPERIORITY, THY NAME IS MAJORITY OF HUMANS! - People love being morally superior. They love telling people what to do and what's not right, basking in the glory of the immoral. And I get the impression, simply from the man's tone and the way he just turned around and did that he was doing it so he could be all smug by "correcting 'dem young folk!" I felt that I'd be subjected and he'd done it because he could feel all good about himself and his supposed Golden Generation as he'd just "saved the day from asshole teenager!" And to be honest? We come from the Ipads-everywhere youth culture and I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud that there's a lack of respect for elders and for other cultures and that in such a diverse world there's a division by our youth. By the youth to which I'm a part of.

But to be honest? I thought that bloke was bang out of line. I don't see WHY complete strangers get to do shit like that but if a teenager ever dared to point out a stranger's mishap or something then it'd be considered completely disrespectful and as a smart-alec comment or something. I just get angry that people feel the need to do this and that people feel like they have the right to do it! I'd get it if I was his son or Grandson or friend or neighbour but he was just no one I know. He'd done it because he felt I needed correcting and to be honest, it didn't make me feel rude - it made me feel like old people can be assholes.

The context - I've explained earlier in the story she wanted me to go on so she could sort out her change. As I just had to flash a bus ticket to a driver, it was easy. He didn't even know the bloody context of the story, didn't check obviously and did that. Just - what an asshole move. Thinking about it irks me! The nerve that people hold just because of their age. I'm a cognisant young fellow, though I lack life experience and am still learning I admit, I can't believe some of the treatment that young people get. Like the beeping outside shops or something: that's just bloody wrong. If I wanted to get rid of old people and started using a foghorn into their ears there'd be much discontent.

NOW, I'm going back to my great productive weekend of sorting out my calendar, revision, washing clothes and volunteering and writing. Stupidass old people.