(no subject)

[robbat2]

Ok, so I get on a Millenium line SkyTrain at Columbia, around 11.40pm Monday night. There are two other people in the car, a middle-aged asian female at one end, and a middle-aged male caucasian, seemingly white collar worker on the other. I'm sitting in the middle, minding my own business, reading a novel, absent-mindedly picking my nose and eating it like I do sometimes.

Just as that car comes into Sapperton station, the male stands up, moves toward the door and starts ranting at me about "how utterly disgusting picking my nose and eating it in a public place is". I tell him it is my right to do what I want, as it isn't doing anything to him. He responds with, "Fuck you man! FUCK YOU!" and gives me the finger. I return the gesture as he gets off the train which has now pulled into the station.

I believe I am right. If you find my personal behaviors off-putting, then don't look at me. I certianly didn't ask you to look at me, let alone criticize my behavior.

I don't do it in crowded place as it does make some people directly around me distinctly uncomfortable, but that is mainly because of the bio-hazardous nature of the material on my finger before I eat it.

Comments

[starsandgarters.livejournal.com]

It has nothing to do with the boogers.

For whatever reason, picking the nose is taboo. Why is not important. The rationality of this is not important. The lack of physical effect on other people is not important. It just is. I think you can agree with that. Just accept this and you'll follow.

If something is taboo, then people consider it, in this american culture of ours, impolite to do it. A female taking off her shirt on the bus is neither illegal nor hurtful to anyone else, but it is taboo. Even if you had a good reason to do it, for example if you were hot even in just your t-shirt, you wouldn't do it, for no other reason than out of respect, courtesy and politeness for others. It can be argued, "but there's no physical damage, and if people have a problem with it, they should just look away". But living by that policy all the time is ridiculous. It's based on the principle that your minor discomfort of hotness, even if equal to or greater than the discomfort of others at having to see this/turn away, is more important. It says "I'll do what I want, when I want, so long as it's not physically hurting or damaging anyone." He has just as much right to yell at you for making you uncomfortable as you have to pick your nose on a bus. You don't consider him, he needn't consider you. And for every guy it makes mad enough to yell, there are ten more behind him who are too uncomfortable to say anything.

And it's true, it's probably not hurtful or damaging, long run or short run. And it probably is their problem throughout life for not minding their own business and being prudish and therefore exposing themselves to unnecessary anguish. And you absent-mindedly picking your nose on the bus certainly wasn't with the intention of causing anyone any negative anything. But their feelings, justified or not, do exist, and are personal and a matter of opinion and therefore you have no right to judge them. Doing it involves consideration of no one but yourself. Personally, I don't care who's picking whose nose on a bus or anywhere else, but the fact is, if you do it, you're at the mercy of the world's traditions, not yours or mine, and breaking them will carry consequences whether you agree with them or not.

Just trying to explain.