^ First, a reasonable explanation, and I acknowledge its logic (if not necessarily the logic of the assumptions inherent in it). If someone had respectably suggested this to me at any point prior to or soon after the incident in question, it might have ended my displeasure (even if I disagreed). However, even if that
was the reason for people's expectations (which I doubt), no-one ever bothered to explain it. If people are going to ask things of others they should make sure it is known why - the fact that no-one ever did means that even if your reasoning was shared by the local people, it still reinforces my belief that an attitude of general dismissal or disrespect towards the young was in evidence. If I decide someone has to do something I don't have to, but don't offer my reasoning, I can't complain when the other takes this poorly.
Also, I'm afraid your explanation was certainly not how the others' attitude came across to me. It's entirely possible I was mistaken, but I consider myself rather good at reading people and I'm not convinced that anything like a supposed spectrum of stamina levels was responsible for their unspoken expectation that they should make an effort only if I didn't (and it was this perceived laziness and selfishness that annoyed me - I felt like others were once again taking advantage of my politeness), I find it easier to believe, based on my experiences, that it was more an attitude that they were more entitled than I and I had to "suck it up" ("the young have it so lucky! They don't know how hard life is!" was a common theme floating in the background throughout my youth, and with it the unspoken but very much evident attitude that adults had earned some sort of right to look down on the young, even feel contempt for them, simply because the young hadn't yet experienced as many bruises from the simple process of living).
But failing to be polite in the kind of case you describe really strikes me as something like giving the middle finger.
Well, to my mind there's nothing impolite about offering implicit, unspoken resistance to implicit, unspoken expectations from others. That's not aggressing or imposing on anyone. If anything, it's the other people doing the imposing. And sometimes you need to communicate the fact that you've decided not to smile and bow and comply with what seems to you unreasonable activity (rightly or wrongly), but, for whatever reason, sensible or petty, you're going to continue your business without doing what others have decided you should.
Is that "something like giving the middle finger"? Well, it's certainly on the spectrum (resistance to the impositions of others), but it lacks the active aggression of that particular "answer". I don't see it as a fair comparison.
As for being petty: Was it petty of me? - quite probably, in that I knowingly turned my back on my own sense of personal propriety (after all, until then I'd always happily and swiftly given away my seat out of a personal sense of compassion and social responsibility). And I did that out of distaste at what I peceived as others' laziness and sense of entitlement. In other words, moral indignation on my part, however passionless. But if there's a point to be taken from this, I'd suggest it's that my behaviour was actually no different from that of everyone else on the bus, which both humbles me (and there's nothing unusual about realizing mild hypocrisy at a later date) and takes any sting out of arguments against me. Both I and the other people on the bus were engaged in the same way of thinking, which is that other people's actions or sense of propriety was somehow our concern - indeed, more important than our own actions or sense of propriety. If anyone has a problem with my teenage self's response, then I'd say that actually reinforces one of the points I'm getting at - that concerning yourself with what other people "should" do is an imposition and, in honesty, rather arrogant. In the case I brought up, if I had just ignored my sense of what I thought everyone else should do and continued in what I believed to be
my good behaviour (giving up seats like I always had), it would no doubt have been more mature and, overall, a better choice. Then again, if even one of those adults had engaged in what they thought was
their best behaviour on first response, rather than deciding they should police other people and decide others
should do what
they wanted them to do
first, then there wouldn't have been a problem, because they would have offered the seat regardless of what I was doing (if they were close to the front and the new arrival, that is). And if they'd done that from the start I would never have decided there was a problem (
why is it always me who jumps up first regardless of my place on the bus?).
The way I see it, arguments that my behaviour was poor are entirely valid...but they also demonstrate, as far as I'm concerned, that it was poor insofar as it mimicked the behaviour of everyone around me. Which leads me back to the point that if people lead by example rather than command, there's a lot less resentment and a lot more willingness on the part of the immature to follow that lead. Either that or you have to wait for the young to work out "it only matters that I do what I think is right, even if noone wants me too - and (relevant to my case) even if
everyone wants me to. And expecting the young to have that type of self-respect seems futile to me - there's a reason why peer pressure is so strong among adolescents (and so also the attempt to resist peer pressure)
If I am the youngest, though, I will still stand, because while I may have some pain, I at least have strength and I know that an elderly person probably has pain like mine and may also lack stamina.
