Rudeness

January.  I am a small child.  I begin to say a twelve-word sentence, fully-formed inside my head.  Five and three-quarter words in, my mother interrupts to begin a sentence of her own.  I politely wait for her to finish, holding my own sentence in my mind as I take in hers and formulate a response to it.  Once she stops speaking, I finish what I was saying and respond to what she said.

She talks at me at length about how infuriating that is and to stop doing it.

---

February.  My mother has wronged me in a certain way, not for the first time, and I am siting alone in my room, unhappy, wondering if this will repeat forever.  My mother knocks on the door, comes in, and talks to me quietly.  She says that she knows that she has wronged me, and asks if I can forgive her.  I am touched, and feel hope for a brighter future.  I let go of my resentment, and nobly tell her that I forgive her, and ask that she try not to do the same thing again.

My mother yells at me in fury for half an hour about how I should have told her there was nothing to forgive.  My eardrums hurt, I cannot leave the room and nothing I say makes a difference.

---

March.  I am talking with my mother, and she is going against what I am saying.  I am attending school now, and I know that when someone does this they must be told not to talk back.  I tell her not to talk back and she strikes me across the face.

---

April.  I am at a one-day summer camp, and am sorely thirsty, but the supervisor is now standing close to the only source of water, overseeing it, and has earlier bullied me horribly in front of all the other children.  I am thirsty, but I will endure if the alternative is asking the supervisor for water.  I sit alone.

Another child comes up to me and asks me if I would like to some water.  I am truly grateful, express that gratitude with my expression and say "Yes, please.".  The child leaves.

Some time later, another child come and asks me the same question.  I am even thirsy now, and feel confused and hurt that the first child never returned, but am grateful and say "Yes, please.".
[...]
The sixth child comes and asks me the exact same question, would I like some water.  As I cry, in hurt and frustration, knowing that this child also cannot be trusted, I still force out the appropriate words of gratitude in return for such generous words.  "Y-Yes, p-please."

None of the children return, with water or without.  I am left numb, wondering why their words didn't sound like taunts if taunts, wondering why they would ask such a thing if not willing to take responsibility for their words, wonderin why so many of them asked the same thing and did nothing.

---

May.  I am thirsty and very hot, but my mother will not obtain fluid for me and insists that I acquire it myself from a person selling fluid.  I approach the counter, waiting for previous customers to be served.  I hold the money in my hand.  When the way is clear and the seller is unoccupied, I walk up to the counter with steady legs.  I am now immediately in front of the seller, hold out the money and with a clear voice make my request.  I am certain that I am in the seller's field of vision, that my voice could be clearly heard by the seller.  I wait, hot and thirsty, to respond.

After many minutes of patient waiting, someone else cuts in line ahead of me and says the same sort of thing I did, wanting to buy fluid from the seller.  The seller immediately sells fluid to the person who cut in line.

---

June.  I am walking through a major city's crowded subway station.  I acknowledge the usefulness of the station, and do not dislike it, but as my eyes flick through the faces of all those who gets close to me, giving miniscule nods of acknowledgement and respect to each, I see that none of them so much as glance at me, moving like a torrent of faceless shadows, or as if I were a faceless shadow to them.

---

July.  I am walking through the main subway station of a smaller major city.  There are large gaps between the people, and when I glance at and acknowledge those who pass within two metres of me I also see them glancing at and acknowledging me.  I remember my previous experience, and enjoy this.

---

August.  Someone has wronged me, and I immerse myself in the soothing mental image of smashing their brains out of their skull with a crowbar, one smash at a time.  Both pragmatically and ethically I am strongly opposed to killing, but the experience as a coping mechanism is pleasant.

---

September.  My girlfriend has invited to her dormitory as a guest to play card games with her friends, and I am talking happily with her friends.  A large male resident of the dormitory approaches, speaking a different language from us.  I cannot reply to him and ask one of the nearby people if they could translate and explain that I can't speak his language.  He grows agitated, evidently wanting me to speak his language.  He shoves his face right next to mine, and when I try to scoot back he grabs my shoulder hard, shakes me back and forth, and begins yelling into my face at point-blank range.

I feel my nerves screaming at me to dig my nails into his arm and try to tear it from my shoulder.  I want to lunge at his throat and tear it out with my teeth before he can react, citing self-defense in the face of clear and present danger.

I control my impulses, control my breathing, and without letting my thoughts show on my face--other than a little discomfort and nervousness--continue calmly and politely asking the other residents of the dormitory for help.  I console myself by thinking of how this man's behaviour must look to his felling dormitory residents around me.

Later, when the two of us are alone, my girlfriend tells me how embarrassed she was by what happened.  I can sympathise.  Then she tells me that she was embarrassed by ME not speaking the man's language to him.

---

October.  Friends of my girlfriend are now my friends, both in person and on Facebook.  However, I have started to receive spam friend requests several times per day each from several virus accounts that I see three of them have friended--accounts that endlessly send friend requests to friends of friends, with no profile content and no ability to respond to messages, maybe for some advertising or data-gathering purposes.  I imagine these friends accepted the first spam friend requests without confirming their identities like I, but do not fault them for that.

Knowing that this three friends do not have a complete grasp of the language we share, and unable to easily meet them in person, I send all three simple, clear messages carefully explaining in detail the spam I'm receiving, suggesting why I think it's happening, and asking if they agree and if so whether they could cut the chain by unfriending the virus accounts and spreading the word.

Quickly, Facebook tells me that they have read my messages.  Several days pass, and none of them give me a word in reply.  Every day, I have to deal with the many spam friend requests.  Sorrowful, I take action to end the harm they are causing me by unfriending them on Facebook, explaining what I am doing and why in a further message.

My girlfriend becomes angry with me.  She says that they didn't understand my messages and were frightened of them, and because of that when I saw they had each read my message and had refused to reply it was actually me abandoning the conversation with them.

I am grateful for their reasons being explained to me, and express that if she simlarly explains my reasons to them that I would be happy to respond to anything they want to say.

She wants me to restart a conversation by apologising to them, without ever receiving a direct response to my last communications.

---

November.  I am heavily sleep-deprived.  For the past several nights I have told my wife that I need to go to bed at successively-earlier hours in order to catch up on my sleep deficit, and each night she has agreed and then held long conversations with me that last well into the night, despite my attempts to sleep.

Tomorrow morning, though, we must wake at 5am for an early morning airplane flight.  Tonight, no matter what, going to sleep at 10pm is defnitely necessary if we are to be alert tomorrow.

From 8pm, I and she and some of her family members have been eating and talking at a restaurant, the last gathering before I and she part ways with them for a long time.  I am sleepy, but I throw myself into the conversations, fully savouring them.

It's nearly 10pm now.  Sleep will be a little late, but we'll manage somehow.  I can feel myself lapsing into microsleeps, visual and auditory hallucinations intruding onto reality from time to time, but the meal is over and it's about time for conversations to die down and everyone to go their separate ways.  I make my mind and body into concrete, keeping myself from nodding off during these last few minutes.

A family member asks if I'm alright.  I smile and say that I'm fine, just a little sleepy.  Any moment now, everyone will begin standing up.  I can feel myself sinking deeper into stupor.  I'm waiting for the last conversations to finish.  A family member asks if I'm alright.  I smile and say that I'm fine, just a little sleepy.  The clock has already past 11pm.

It's almost midnight. A family members asks if I'm alright.  I smile and say that I'm fine, just a little sleepy.  I don't show my emotions on my face.  This is ridiculous, everything already finished more than two hours ago, we have to wake up at 6am and there's no way we're going to be in any condition to comfortably handle the airport, even if I hadn't been kept awake these past few nights.  Finally, finally the conversations end, everyhone gets up and we head out.  I'm really pleased with myself, that I didn't show any hint of unhappiness on this last special gathering and that I didn't succumb to sleepiness, keeping myself functional and polite to the end.

As we leave the restaurant, I smile at my wife.  She takes me aside and in a heated voice tells me how angry she is at me for how little I participated in conversations for the past two hours, as if I was only there to eat and didn't care about anything other than the food.

---

December.  My wife was careless and our daughter banged her head, hard.  I'm terrified about whether our daughter is okay, and my wife looks in shock; I stroke both their heads, comforting them both, looking at my daughter for any sign that we need to go to the hospital.  I wish that my wife had been more careful, of course, but I understand her intentions and do not blame her, as it was an honest accident.

Later, my wife furiously asks me why I didn't apologise to our daughter.  I'm stunned, as there's no way I could imagine myself having been at fault for what happened, but my wife clearly does.  Since my wife thinks I am at fault, and because I don't want to start a long argument about what happened, I take responsibility and apologise to both my wife and our daughter.  My wife remains angry and glowering at me for many hours afterward, blaming me and resentful.

Weeks later, I and my wife are washing our daughter's hands together and our daughter flails, banging her face lightly against the sink.  I'm alarmed, comfort our daughter and check that her face and eyes are okay, asking my wife immediately if what had happened was my fault.  She says she doesn't know whose fault it was.

A little later, my wife angrily asks me why one of my first reactions was to ask such a thing, instead of paying full attention to our daughter.  I'm confused by the question, and begin explaining honestly why.  My wife cuts me off and says she doesn't want to hear it.