So I was called an asshole...

Wow. Who would do that? To a girl!!

 

I was actually disappointed, it wasn't that creative...

Best thing I had someone say to me..."if I was you, I'd kill myself"

I love when people insult me, especially if it's funny... Words don't hurt me unless it's from somone I care about and if it was something they meant...

 

Not sure I'd characterize myself as a "New Deal nostalgic" as this is the first I've encountered that term and I really need to see something used in context of discussion before I get a grasp of it real meaning but the dollar is already taking a beating. I see a real possibility of dual currency usage becoming a small but significant part of our everyday economy. Think Euro. There's much that's necessary in my daily life whose value is inflated by speculation; gasoline, for instance. The people getting obscenely rich of its commodity trading couldn't care less about my budget- more likely they rub their greedy fat hands together with glee at the sight of skyrocketing prices posted at gas stations. However this all is an aside and really doesn't do much if anything to respond to your post and keep within the framework of the discussion therefore I digress...

Whatever term is put on it, the deliberate antisocial conduct of most who dwell in a densely populated urban setting is from a same mindset. The sense of being constantly intruded upon makes people a little tense and not given to being very sociable. I grew up in a very rural setting and social bonds between friends and neighbors were seen as an almost vital facet of belonging to the community. As a kid, being out of sight of parental supervision didn't necessarily mean that no one was keeping an eye on me. A trip to the store or post office invariably included chit chat with whoever was also getting their mail or food and extended pleasantries with the proprietor or post master were an almost requisite part of the transaction.

When I relocated to Connecticut (Hartford area) the first impression I got was of a generally snotty, stuck up people. A smile and "hello" would draw a glare and quick breaking off of eye contact if any response at all... and a refusal to even acknowledge other peoples' existence seems to be part of every daily from grocery shopping to driving a car. There seems to be a lack of common courtesy or civility with many people and as a newly relocated rural boy 22 years ago, I very keenly felt this as an added stress to adapting to a brand new environment. In the two intervening decades I've adapted and assimilated to a great extent, unfortunately. It is almost as though I were an immigrant despite not leaving the country... I found alcohol and drugs to be instrumental in smoothing the transition.

Rigidity... boundaries and rules... it removes the facet of negotiation and judgment from everyday conduct by constraining people into an unspoken set of rules to conduct themselves within. There's no belonging; no reinforcement of community and increasingly we "belong" to our employers... which brings this discussion close to another discussion taking place elsewhere in this forum. Economic pressures brought on by allowing "the market" to set the value of many things, including currency, forces people to spend more and more of their energy pursuing the immediate returns of a paycheck and abandoning the efforts of investing time establishing and reinforcing social bonds in their community.

Lots of forces at work and I've rambled- and my own time constraints forces me to leave this response as is and not give it the re-write it really needs to flow within the discussion.