How to deal with aggression-or not.
On my way from San Francisco to Santa Rosa, on a congested two-lane segment of the highway, a man in a gold Audi suddenly whipped around me to just a few feet between me and the car in front and gave me the finger. Then he continued to zoom in and out of traffic like a maniac.
I’d been on the highway a couple of days earlier, driving in the opposite direction, with a car sitting dangerously on my tail in an equally congested two-lane line of traffic. Looking in the rear view mirror, I flapped my hand to indicate that he should back off. He leaned forward and shook his head from side to side in an exaggerated manner and continued to hug my bumper. I waved my phone, pretending I was taking a picture, pretty pathetic, and which made no difference until he finally disappeared onto a ramp off the highway. A few miles later, a jeep appeared in my rear view mirror looking like it wanted to drive right through me.
“Back off!” I blurted, again flapping my hand.
The driver threw up her arms and waved them around like I was crazy, laughing uproariously with her friends sitting up front with her.
Now as I continued north, fuming at being given the finger and almost driven into, I stopped off in Petaluma, a town about halfway to Santa Rosa, to meet my partner for lunch. Unusually for a Friday afternoon, several seats sat vacant at a long family-style table at the café. A cheerful wavy-haired waitress showed me to a seat. After setting a place for me, she set one for my partner across the table with a second set of silverware, glass of water and menu. As I waited for my partner to appear, I read an article on my phone.
Suddenly an old woman (older than us as my sister and I like to joke), accompanied by a middle-aged woman looking like her daughter, took my partner’s seat and started perusing the menu placed there for my partner while her daughter headed for the restroom.
I leaned forward and said politely, “I’m sorry, someone’s sitting there.” I grew up in Britain so many of my sentences often start with I’m sorry. My therapist only allows me to say it once per session.
The woman didn’t look up from the menu. I said it again, same result. I amplified my voice and repeated myself. A diner on her left, kitty-corner to me and noticeably missing the help gene, silently observed me trying to get the woman’s attention.
I leaned forward across the table and said it again, louder. Finally, the woman looked up.
“I’m sorry," I said for the fifth time, “someone is sitting there.”
“Someone’s sitting here?” she repeated with a blank expression.
“Yes,” I said.
She looked around and then back at me, quizzically. She didn’t move.
I pointed to the glass of water. “Look, you can see even the water is here. Someone’s sitting there.”
“I already heard you,” she said flatly. She slowly shifted to the empty seat on her right. Her daughter, who’d returned and was standing at the corner of the table, glared at me and twisted around to look at my partner’s empty seat.
Finally, my partner arrived with her normal ebullience, cell phone in one hand, overstuffed handbag slung over her shoulder. After going to the restroom, she arrived back at the table. I showed her the seat saved for her.
“I don’t want to sit there,” she said and sat herself down next to me.
Both the old woman and her daughter pointedly glared at the now empty seat and for the rest of the meal they kept twisting around to stare irately at it.
When we were done eating, my partner accompanied me in my car, leaving hers in parking space outside, and we drove around the corner in a line of traffic to the main shopping street. Without warning, the car in front started backing up. The last time someone in front of me backed up without seeing me, I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in San Francisco back in the late 1990s; the car had slammed into me and destroyed the hood and front bumper. In a daze, I’d got out and said to the driver, who’d also got out of his car, “I just got diagnosed with breast cancer, I can’t take this.” And the man replied, “I’ve got AIDS and I can’t either.” We both laughed in dismayed disbelief. In those days, a truly San Francisco moment.
But here I was in a small town post-Trump and nobody was laughing. I honked my horn to alert the driver of my presence. He and a woman obviously his wife turned into animated angry puppets, the wife’s face spinning around to give me the evil eye.
“That’s it,” I said, now completely fed up with all the bad behavior. “I’m going to say something.”
“I’m getting out of the car,” my partner said, never one to invite confrontation, and did just that. “Call me when you’re done.”
I pulled over to the side of the road. After the couple had parked and were getting out of their car and could hear me, I called over with forced calm, “I was honking so you’d know I was behind you.”
The couple nodded and waved their hands at me in a friendly way, but had obviously not been brought up in Britain.
I continued on my journey north along Kentucky Street, jumping in alarm as a truck zoomed crookedly past me. A woman screamed out of the window, “You fucking asshole” and other words to that effect all the way to the traffic light until she disappeared around the corner.
So how to deal with aggression? I pulled over and parked, then burst into tears.
On my way from San Francisco to Santa Rosa, on a congested two-lane segment of the highway, a man in a gold Audi suddenly whipped around me to just a few feet between me and the car in front and gave me the finger. Then he continued to zoom in and out of traffic like a maniac.
I’d been on the highway a couple of days earlier, driving in the opposite direction, with a car sitting dangerously on my tail in an equally congested two-lane line of traffic. Looking in the rear view mirror, I flapped my hand to indicate that he should back off. He leaned forward and shook his head from side to side in an exaggerated manner and continued to hug my bumper. I waved my phone, pretending I was taking a picture, pretty pathetic, and which made no difference until he finally disappeared onto a ramp off the highway. A few miles later, a jeep appeared in my rear view mirror looking like it wanted to drive right through me.
“Back off!” I blurted, again flapping my hand.
The driver threw up her arms and waved them around like I was crazy, laughing uproariously with her friends sitting up front with her.
Now as I continued north, fuming at being given the finger and almost driven into, I stopped off in Petaluma, a town about halfway to Santa Rosa, to meet my partner for lunch. Unusually for a Friday afternoon, several seats sat vacant at a long family-style table at the café. A cheerful wavy-haired waitress showed me to a seat. After setting a place for me, she set one for my partner across the table with a second set of silverware, glass of water and menu. As I waited for my partner to appear, I read an article on my phone.
Suddenly an old woman (older than us as my sister and I like to joke), accompanied by a middle-aged woman looking like her daughter, took my partner’s seat and started perusing the menu placed there for my partner while her daughter headed for the restroom.
I leaned forward and said politely, “I’m sorry, someone’s sitting there.” I grew up in Britain so many of my sentences often start with I’m sorry. My therapist only allows me to say it once per session.
The woman didn’t look up from the menu. I said it again, same result. I amplified my voice and repeated myself. A diner on her left, kitty-corner to me and noticeably missing the help gene, silently observed me trying to get the woman’s attention.
I leaned forward across the table and said it again, louder. Finally, the woman looked up.
“I’m sorry," I said for the fifth time, “someone is sitting there.”
“Someone’s sitting here?” she repeated with a blank expression.
“Yes,” I said.
She looked around and then back at me, quizzically. She didn’t move.
I pointed to the glass of water. “Look, you can see even the water is here. Someone’s sitting there.”
“I already heard you,” she said flatly. She slowly shifted to the empty seat on her right. Her daughter, who’d returned and was standing at the corner of the table, glared at me and twisted around to look at my partner’s empty seat.
Finally, my partner arrived with her normal ebullience, cell phone in one hand, overstuffed handbag slung over her shoulder. After going to the restroom, she arrived back at the table. I showed her the seat saved for her.
“I don’t want to sit there,” she said and sat herself down next to me.
Both the old woman and her daughter pointedly glared at the now empty seat and for the rest of the meal they kept twisting around to stare irately at it.
When we were done eating, my partner accompanied me in my car, leaving hers in parking space outside, and we drove around the corner in a line of traffic to the main shopping street. Without warning, the car in front started backing up. The last time someone in front of me backed up without seeing me, I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in San Francisco back in the late 1990s; the car had slammed into me and destroyed the hood and front bumper. In a daze, I’d got out and said to the driver, who’d also got out of his car, “I just got diagnosed with breast cancer, I can’t take this.” And the man replied, “I’ve got AIDS and I can’t either.” We both laughed in dismayed disbelief. In those days, a truly San Francisco moment.
But here I was in a small town post-Trump and nobody was laughing. I honked my horn to alert the driver of my presence. He and a woman obviously his wife turned into animated angry puppets, the wife’s face spinning around to give me the evil eye.
“That’s it,” I said, now completely fed up with all the bad behavior. “I’m going to say something.”
“I’m getting out of the car,” my partner said, never one to invite confrontation, and did just that. “Call me when you’re done.”
I pulled over to the side of the road. After the couple had parked and were getting out of their car and could hear me, I called over with forced calm, “I was honking so you’d know I was behind you.”
The couple nodded and waved their hands at me in a friendly way, but had obviously not been brought up in Britain.
I continued on my journey north along Kentucky Street, jumping in alarm as a truck zoomed crookedly past me. A woman screamed out of the window, “You fucking asshole” and other words to that effect all the way to the traffic light until she disappeared around the corner.
So how to deal with aggression? I pulled over and parked, then burst into tears.