So my spouse and I are walking back to the parking garage after a dinner out this week, and we encounter two young women standing in the middle of the sidewalk, chatting. Although we approach to within a couple of feet, neither of the women sees fit to move. I say, “Excuse us!” which does get their attention — but they respond not by stepping to one side so that we may pass, but by huddling a bit closer to each other in the middle of the sidewalk. This forces my spouse to pass them to their left while I go to the right.
Is it just me, or is oblivious the new pandemic? It certainly seems to be infectious.
Last weekend, while we were at a Hampton Inn in Ohio, I went to the breakfast area to make some toast to take to our room. A young man stood in front of the empty toaster, dutifully spreading cream cheese on his toasted bagel. I opened the bread keeper (right next to the toaster), tong-extracted a slice of whole wheat, and then stood a few socially-distanced feet away. The guy didn’t move, or even look up. I waited another respectful 10-15 seconds. Scrape, scrape, scrape went the plastic knife. I finally circled around the counter, dropped my slice in the toaster slot, and reached around the toaster to push the lever down. This, at last, served to elicit an “oh sorry” from the guy — but he still didn’t step away from the toaster until every smidgen* of his cream cheese had been spread.
I suppose I could have said “Excuse me!” in this situation as well, but why did I need to? Where are other people’s awareness skills? Are they no longer obligated to use them?
A few days before that, I was driving through a shopping/residential area on my way out of our neighborhood. As I approached the four-way stop, I had to pull up behind two cars whose drivers were having a window-to-window conversation, blocking both of the lanes. I sat there about a minute patiently waiting for them to finish. I didn’t tap my horn, but I was just about to.
I understand that car-to-car convos are the norm in some neighborhoods, and impatience with such is not welcome there. But this isn’t one of those neighborhoods. What may be street culture elsewhere was simple obliviousness here.
I am almost always looking around for someone I may be inconveniencing, as if points are awarded for Most Considerate Citizen. And whenever we are at a bar, my spouse keeps an eye on the empty barstools, ready to offer to switch seats to accommodate a larger party.
Are we throwbacks? I’m beginning to think so.
I am undecided whether rampant obliviousness is a product of phone-app absorption or the natural result of the internet’s distance and anonymity seeping into our everyday lives. Probably much of both. Either way, I keep waiting, waiting, for the other guy to look up, see me, and think of something other than the continued pursuit of his own agenda.
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I agree. Yes, we are throwback, but I’d add what I think is another dimension: there seems to be an intertwined lack of outer awareness predicated on self absorption and obliviousness. In my under age 40 high-rise in Center city Philly housing mainly medical professionals and students (and me, retired 74), they close elevators on me and each other, let doors fall closed, don’t register ‘morning’ in elevator — and I suspect they might not be aware they are doing or not doing this stuff. Yes, cellphones out but not always. Just focussed inwardly. I think they truly don’t pay attention to outward anything until it physically affects them.
On your wayward cream cheese, I’d go with chunk-let, bunch (to be cute) and in my life: eaten.
Not wanting to go all “Old Man Yells at Cloud”, but I see that behavior frequently whether on foot or while driving. I guess the least disparaging term for it that I can think of is being totally self-absorbed.
Not being a cream cheese kinda guy, I’d simply say that you can have the last little bit.
With very, very much due respect, I am not a throwback and yet I see and feel the exact same things as you, Craig. I, too, go through life afraid of inconveniencing others. Obliviousnesses like you described rankle me every day, and are magnified in intensity because of my own efforts to inconvenience myself to accommodate other people.
I chalk it up to several factors. Technological distraction may be one, but the guy at the toaster wasn’t on his phone, was he?
This is a big statement, but I wonder if our (North American) society breeds self-absorption because we feel it’s every man for himself out there, no one will give you a helping hand if you need it unless you are truly destitute, and even your best efforts to pull yourself up by your bootstraps will fail if you make one small mistake or aren’t in the right place at the right time or know the right people.
So that underlying insecurity breeds a sense of oneself as the priority in all situations. Even those as mundane as the breakfast room at the Hampton Inn or a sidewalk conversation or a chat with a friend you meet at an intersection.
I may be reading WAY too into this. Forgive me for my soapbox rampage. Carry on!
As someone who wrote and recorded a song called “Obliviosity,” I speak for the unintentionally and pre-smartphone oblivious. I don’t do the sorts of things you cite here (at least I don’t think I do), because I am still basically old-school courteous. But I will get distracted and yes, oblivious when I am absorbed in something. My wife has a favorite example from 20 years ago that she revisits every few months. We were in a museum, the Met in New York I think, and I apparently stood directly in front of someone to look at a painting. It was a popular painting with many people trying to look at it, so I don’t think I was unique in blocking someone’s view. Others blocked mine. It happens. I moved. But my wife considers that this was incredibly rude because she would never do such a thing. She says I did it for several paintings. Sorry! I’m sure I too get annoyed by others’ obliviosity at times, but I try not to, because it doesn’t do any good anyway. I’ve only recently gotten over being annoyed when people say “no problem” in response to “thank you.” I finally realized it’s just a speech habit and these change over time. It’s not the same thing as the obliviosity pandemic. But it annoyed me for a long time. Others might be annoyed that “obliviosity” is not a real word. It happens.