Driving With Mr. Incel

     A few weeks ago, the internet coughed up quite the hairball of bad behavior at my feet.  There was a discussion of the cab/Uber/Lyft driver that wouldn't shut up and how it was mostly male drivers that wouldn't stop talking to female passengers.  Even if they paid for the “Hey, driver, shut the fuck up” upgrade.

     Several horror stories of women just trying to eke out an existence without being bothered were shared and I began to wonder how every woman on the planet doesn't have a heart condition from having to constantly be on alert.

     I prefer solitude and, keeping with the golden rule, have a tendency to leave people alone because I would like to be left alone.  Usually armed with headphones, books, notepads and/or a computer, I will try to find the farthest, emptiest corner of the coffee place so as to not be bothered.

     More often than not, some mouth breather will flop down next to me and make their presence known even if all of the other tables are empty.  This typically white male will then proceed to think he has invited me into his living room and try to start a conversation.

“What are you reading?”

Well, nothing now

“What are you listening to?”

Your dumb face.

     If I don't take their time wasting bait, out comes their cellphone and they'll start watching videos at a volume that is inappropriate for a public place.  Or they'll call someone who cares and have a conversation about nothing while yelling into their phone that's on speaker.

     I've even run into this at punk shows.  When I'm not taking pictures, I'm either standing near the closest exit or at the soundboard.  No matter what dark corner I'm standing in, somebody always thinks that I want to be their friend.  Does the expression on my face say “Please, talk to me because I would really like to be bothered while watching this band play” or do I have an internal magnet that's set to dipshit?

     If I'm there taking photographs, I still can't get away from randos that want to have a chat.  Ear plugs in and clearly in the middle of taking pictures I'll get, “Hey, whatcha doin'?”  I'm clearly stealing the essence of the band members.  Duh.

     Sometimes I can pretend that I can't hear them unless they get in front of me.  Then I have to play nice but since I'm half deaf from years of abusing my hearing, I can't make out half of what they're saying anyway.  The nodding and smiling commences until they hopefully go away.

     Are these people afraid of their own thoughts?  If they stop talking about nothing for five seconds, will they become overcome with existential dread and the meaninglessness of their own lives?  Is that why people feel the need to bother everyone around them by whistling?  Are they trying to keep their own demons at bay or is there nothing rattling around in their skulls and they're trying to fill the emptiness with noise?

     Even though I walk around with a backpack full of stuff in order to look as occupied as possible, this happens to me on a regular basis and I'm a rapidly aging and expanding white guy that no one has any interest in.  No one has ever leered at me as if I was their lunch, unlike every woman that has ever walked the face of the Earth so I couldn't come close to understanding what a woman's day to day must be like.

     I have never thought, “Hey, I'm going to bother this person that clearly doesn't want to be bothered in the off, off, off chance that they'll want to have sex with me.”  Having to deal with a constant barrage of assholes must be exhausting.

     Especially in the confined space of a car.  A woman has to put up with the endless word diarrhea falling out of the driver's mouth because if they say something it might set the asshole off.  Or at the very least, the woman might be seen as rude and society can't let that happen.  How dare a woman stick up for herself.

     In a very short amount of time, it has become very clear that these car services don't really care who drives around with their stickers on their cars as long as the driver is racking up the miles and the dollars for these tech companies.  They're making enough money off of someone else's labor to pay off the occasional legal settlement.

     This culture of male entitlement bullshit needs to stop.  There are Men's magazines with “tips” on how to approach a woman that's wearing headphones.  Here's a tip: why don't you leave her the fuck alone?  No one wants to talk to you and I can guarantee that you're not nearly as interesting as whatever it is that she's listening to.