I used to be pretty mean. I was insecure and felt I had nothing to offer, so I tried to intimidate people into thinking I had lots to offer, but would never deign to show them. I have no idea if it worked on anyone, but if it worked on you, you were a sucker. Sorry about that.
Not anymore. Now I am really nice. I try to be at least. Sometimes my urge is to be mean, and sometimes I am slightly mean in a subtle way that only my friends can pick up on. But it’s not a serious mean. Often, it’s a way to entertain myself because the person I’m being mean to is getting on my nerves and has no sense of humour. Since they have no sense of humour, they don’t realize I’m being mean, so it’s a victimless crime. It’s not a hard and fast mean, either, because I would rather like people than not like them. If the person I was being subtly mean to picked up on my meanness and got into the mean game, I would probably start to like them.
You have to admit that being mean is fun. The idea, though, is to be mean while still respecting other people’s human dignity. Often the meanness is more about riffing with friends than actually being mean. Like last weekend, my friend and I started being mean about some guy who we thought had bilked us out of a seat by pretending he had already been sitting there; it was more fun than giving him the benefit of the doubt. We thought maybe his name was Frank. I went up and asked him if his name was Phil and whether we had met at Danny’s house. He was really nice and told me his name was Lewis. I felt terrible.
If everyone were basically goodhearted and considerate, but occasionally irritating and humourless, being mostly nice would be a cinch. Unfortunately, this is not the case. There’s a shitty person on every street corner who doesn’t want to play by the rules of society or who was never told that society had rules to begin with. For example, the other day I was at a cafe. It was full, but for a couple of stools by the window and approximately 3/4 of a table for four. Unfortunately, all four spaces were being occupied by one guy.
Although his laptop was small, he had propped it up on some kind of stand and let his wires run free across the tabletop. To the left of him were some papers and to the right of him was a weird array of tchotchkes that no reasonable person would bring to a coffee shop. Not even a crazy person would bring them to a coffee shop. They may have included a penlight and an empty velcro pouch.
The guy had his feet splayed out under the table, as though his delicate privates needed room to breathe. The feet were swaddled in wool socks and stuffed into loafers. They were only the fourth worst part of his person, though. The third worst part was his face. I don’t remember what it looked like, but I know I hated it. The second worst part was his set of cold, cruel eyes. And the absolute worst part was his crazy hair. There’s nothing wrong with crazy hair, but his hair didn’t go with his loafers and his cold eyes. It was like he was so uptight that his hair had no choice but to party.
I could have just gone up to him and said, “Excuse me, could you move your laptop and your papers and your tchotchkes so I can sit?” But instead, I took a stool by the window and kept craning my neck to hate him. Hatefulness emanated from him like fumes from a magic marker. I wanted to go over there and be meaner than I’d ever been. I wanted to make fun of his loafers and then ball up his papers and stuff them in his coffee. I wanted to start tossing his tchotchkes back and forth to the other patrons and make him leap for them in mid-air until he exhausted himself. Then we would all chuck them at him.
But I didn’t do any of that stuff. Instead, when I left, I caught his eye and gave him a stern look. He didn’t even register my disapproval. He didn’t look sheepish, or scowl back indignantly. He just looked on with his cold eyes and then turned back to his laptop.
It was then I realized that being nice might actually be selfish. Life is way easier when you’re mostly nice to people. You get to be around people you like all the time, because you have chosen to like rather than hate them. You aren’t looking over your shoulder for all the people who hate you because you hate them. When conflicts do arise, you get to feel good about yourself for having taken the high road. Everything feels pure and clean and right when you’re nice. But some people deserve to be treated mean, at least until they learn the rules of society. They won’t learn any other way.
Actually, I don’t know that for sure. Maybe if I had asked the guy to move his stuff, he would have said, “Oh, sorry. I forgot about all the other people in the world. Please, take a quarter of my table.” I choose not to believe that because it’s more fun this way.
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Alexandra Molotkow writes about life and stuff for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @alexmolotkow.
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