Bob, your expectations of what is proper behaviour on a bus is totally irrelevant to what this kid was doing. He obviously has a completely different perspective to yours. Who is right here? There is no right and wrong. He wasn't doing anybody harm, the only thing that happened was that he offended your sensibilities, which are arbitrary and pre-programmed in the first place.X-rated Bob wrote: Then he should keep it HIS business. It's like having a neighbour who wants to have band practice in their house. You complain and you get told to mind your own business and don't me what to do in my house blah blah. Well... that person isn't interested in minding one's own business or peace and privacy in one's own house. If he were he'd be concerned that I don't have to listen to his band whilst I'm in my house.
It's not the same at all as listening to loud music coming from next door at 2AM, nor is it reasonable to claim the analogy for purposes of debate.
Lemme tell you, I used to be a real uptight dipshit when I was younger. I hated the world and everybody's lack of manners and morals and whatnot. I got into more road rage incidents than I care to relate simply because I expected everyone else to drive to the letter of the law like I do.Anyway TD, we can carry on poking holes in each other's arguments for a good while yet. It's more interesting to really test whatever it is that you think you believe in. Not just as a noble, abstract thing but to try to think how it would really work in real life - where the line we're discussing should be drawn. It's an interesting exercise. As I said a while back, there are things that we think are OK in the abstract that we might be less comfortable with if confronted by them in real life.
But certain things happened to me in life which taught me that being a farkin' crusading doos caused more negativity in my life & world than it negated. I learned to chill the fuck out. I smoked a joint or two. Battled some demons, and won.
If I had seen those two kids neck each other, I would have smiled and reminisced about when I was a lad. What the fuck is the point in preaching to them? You're not going to win, all that's gonna happen is you're spreading misery.
There's an email that lands in my inbox every couple of years, one about "Farmers' Wisdom". Unfortunately I don't have a copy or I'd post it here, but one of the gems on it reads: "Sometimes in life, it's easier to plow around the stump."
You plowed straight into that kid's stump (ahem, no not like that you perverts), and did you really expect a different outcome? Perhaps, seeing as (as an INTJ ?) you expect everybody else in the world to be as cool, calm and rational as yourself. That doesn't work. What harm did they do to you by sucking each others' tonsils?
I mean... honestly... what harm did it do to YOU? I don't think you will be able to give a rational answer to that question, Bob. The "harm" it did was to trigger (what I consider to be pavlovian) responses in you which were totally arbitrary. They make sense to you, but that's YOUR business. The kid had his own pavlovian reactions to satisfy first.
You have to understand that I'm not disagreeing with your take on the kid's behaviour at all - I can fully relate. The difference I think is that you haven't yet exhausted your energy to fight the current.
ETA: My apologies for the use of the yankee "plow", it should (as is only right and proper to any decent human being), be spelled "plough" ?