One of those days...

[dear giant]

If you haven't ever lost your cool but have instead always maintained a calm and collected, James-Bond-like demeanor regardless of the circumstances you've found yourself in, then I salute you. As for myself, I try -- but I occasionally fall short.

Here's a recent instance of a situation where I allowed a stranger to push my buttons a bit. I'm writing this post to get it off my chest. Please feel free to reply with your own experiences. I'd love to read them.

Recently, I was walking briskly through a (very wide) public space when a middle-aged local cut out from behind a throng of people approaching from the opposite direction and slammed into me. In the instant before he collided with me, I reflexively braced myself for the impact and, afterward, kept on walking.

Moments later, when I was already at least a couple of dozen meters away, I heard some shouting from the direction I'd come. I paused and turned and the guy that had walked into me ran towards me and began lecturing me in faltering English about how I had discriminated against him (he had the temerity to couch his complaint in terms of discrimination) by not going limp when he rammed me.

He was wagging his finger in my face and, when I told him that it wasn't a matter of discrimination and that he ought to watch where he was walking and follow the flow of foot traffic, he just got more incensed. As I turned to walk away, he gave me a hard shove and stepped closer. I gave him a shove back, which put some distance between us, and told him that I would be calling the police in a moment.

At that, he turned and scurried off.

Thanks for reading. I feel better having shared that.

[Sunfire]

Funny. I had almost the same experience today. Went to a jogging track in a park to do some running. I do about two laps before I see a middle-aged local and his kid walk onto the jogging track and start walking along it side by side, blocking the whole thing. It's funny what a hard time locals have with reading signs, arrows and huge yellow letters in english and chinese that spell out "FOR JOGGING ONLY". Anyway, I'm about to pass them, and at this point, the kid is climbing on a railing and the man is next to him, so there's about one person's width of space for me to pass them so I keep my running pace. Then, the guy decides to step backwards straight into my path, just as I'm about to pass, causing me to slam into him. Since I'm at speed and an estimated 20-30 pounds heavier, he goes crashing into the railing. An instinctive "what the fuck" comes flying out of my mouth and the dude gets up and starts yelling. He didn't try to push me though, and I just kept going.

[bookblogger]

A familiar scenario. Always annoying but don't let it ruin your day. I tend to walk in the road these days just to make progress -- I've given up on the pavements. All those bumbling, oblivious wanderers are welcome to them.

[cloudybay]

You wrote this presumably because it bothers you, which aspect of it bothers you? That you allowed yourself to get worked up? That you didn't respond to that man more forcefully? Maybe you should have called the cops?

It's one of those small things that's so insignificant you should just let it go. If I were you I would just learn from this and if this takes place again, do what I think I should have done.

A woman wearing an oddly furious expression followed me from a Starbucks all the way to my doctor's office recently. When I realized what was going on (she was literally keeping just one step behind me for 5 minutes) I asked her why she was tailing me. She angrily accused me of being crazy but resumed trailing me after I took off. I was really freaked out and after I entered the office, I asked the manager to call the police. By this time the woman was standing right behind me and when the manager asked her to leave she burst into a tirade of how I was the woman who's been sleeping with her husband and going to her house to have sex with her husband, blah blah... I was so stunned all I could do was asking who she was and who her husband was. Then the woman turned to the manager and demanded to know if my name was so and so--yes, it's a case of mistaken identity.

Still confused and upset, all I did was repeatedly asking her who she was but she pivoted and ran off when she saw the office staff calling the cops.

Yes, what I learned from this is if this ever happens again? (I seem to have one of those faces that everyone swears looks familiar) I will dig out my HKID and end the scene right there and then.

[Sunfire]

To be fair, it's practically impossible not to have a confrontation 'push your buttons.' When a situation gets aggressive, we're hard-wired to start preparing for a fight, physiologically and psychologically. That has consequences you can feel for a long while afterwards. So when someone tells you to just shrug it off, that's not exactly valid advice.

[jimbo]

Seems to be a habit with locals where they bump into you and look at you as if you're the culprit.

The number of times I've had my heels clipped and bashed into on the MTR is numerous and do I ever get an apology no freaking way.
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[dear giant]

Cloudybay, your experience was more trying than mine. Kudos to you because it sounds as though you probably handled it in the best way possible.

What bothers me about my experience, I think, is that I let it get to me. Some people genuinely seem imperturbable and, frankly, I'm a bit jealous of those folks.

I'm not really sure what I should have done differently or would do differently if something similar happened in the future.

Being more forceful is right out because (1.) I would not want to injure anyone (even a jerk like this guy) and (2.) anything exceeding self-defense wouldn't be legally defensible.

I would have called the police if he hadn't run off but would not have been too thrilled about doing so because my Cantonese is very poor and my very limited interactions with local police officers suggest that while they are generally helpful, hard-working, etc., their English isn't so hot. I can imagine my antagonist eloquently spinning out falsehoods about how I had threatened to cut his heart out of his chest and eat it with a jot of mustard, cast spells on him in dead languages, shot lightning bolts at him from my fingertips, etc. and so on and so forth while I struggled to communicate with the cop.

If I'd had someone with me, like my Cantonese-speaking wife, I'd have had fewer misgivings about making the call to the cops.

I've noticed that people who bump or run into me and then complain about it are much less vocal (usually silent, in fact), if I'm not alone. Hardly surprising, that.

[carang]

unfortunately idiocy does NOT discriminate, it comes in all shapes, sizes, colours, ethnicities, nationalities, creeds, religions, sexual orientations, genders (have i missed any?)....

sounds to me like you should count yourself lucky!

you met the poster-person for idiocy!

[cookie09]

When a situation gets aggressive, we're hard-wired to start preparing for a fight, physiologically and psychologically.

the basic psychological response to any such situation is either fight or flight. in today's society, fight is bad (rightly so as it causes all kind of negative consequences).

the key question you need to ask yourself is why your flight mechanism does not kick in and you rather resort to the fight one. is it some sort of wrongly perceived pride? i have never understood people who fight instead of walking or running away, honestly

[Sunfire]

the basic psychological response to any such situation is either fight or flight. in today's society, fight is bad (rightly so as it causes all kind of negative consequences).

the key question you need to ask yourself is why your flight mechanism does not kick in and you rather resort to the fight one. is it some sort of wrongly perceived pride? i have never understood people who fight instead of walking or running away, honestly

Very true. I must've forgotten to add flight. I would not resort to fighting unless I had no other option.