How rude

Residents of Massachusetts have a long history of being reserved and not, if I may be so bold to say, overly polite.  If you want friendly people go South.  If you want to hang out with someone who's chill, go West.  If you want a bunch of overworked stress bags who are just friendly enough with their neighbors to make sure if they ever were to drop dead in their homes their bodies would be discovered before the cats ate it, the Northeast, and especially Massachusetts, is where you want to be. 

We've even been called "rude".  Not by me but by, like, other people.  Which is why this particular This is Not Boston commercial is so damn funny.

Or maybe I'm just projecting my own experiences on the residents of my fair state?

I've lived here all my life and while the people I have met are generally affable I wouldn't exactly call the majority of them warm.  Sure, there is the odd neighbor who will go out of their way for you but they're usually the exception to the rule.

Not that this bothers me.  I like to smile and wave at my neighbors and I expect the same in return but I don't expect to become BFFs with the new couple who moved into the house on the corner.  Would I like to if we had something in common?  Absolutely, but I'm not going to force it by showing up on their doorstep with a plate of cookies or a tuna noodle casserole.  If you're from another part of the country where this is not only acceptable but expected you're probably horrified but this is just the way it is usually.

But sometimes I'd really like my fellow Masshole to go a bit above and beyond for a fellow member of the Commonwealth.

The other evening my husband and I took our daughter out for an early dinner at one of those obnoxiously loud chain restaurants.  Apparently we didn't get there early enough because there was already a 20+ minute wait for a table.  We chose to bide our time in the packed waiting area.

We stood in front of an L shaped row of cushioned seats because that was the only place to wait.  All the seats were taken by able bodied people and their young children.  Mothers and fathers all of them.  I'm seven months pregnant and although I'm not huge my bump is clearly evident to those who choose to notice, especially to a person who has been in that position themselves.   And for the first five minutes it never occurred to me to be put off by the fact that no one offered me their seat.

Then my back started to hurt.

I didn't make a big show of being ticked off - and I was - but I did make eye contact with more than a few of the people who were sitting and noticed most of them looking toward my baby bump.  For the next ten minutes, until someone got up anyway because their name was called for an empty table, not one person gave me a place to sit.

Was I expecting too much? 

Like I mentioned before, I don't expect much of my neighbors but we do go out of our way to help each other in times of need, because that's what neighbors do.  But was I wrong to expect that total strangers from my area of the state would notice an uncomfortably pregnant woman and offer her a bit of kindness?

I mean, geez, it's not like I forced my tuna noodle casserole on them.  Now that would be cruel.

Comments

[Heather]

I think people are just plain rude "nowadays". I find it irritating when stuff like that happens to me too.

Or when I hold the door (the visibly pregnant lady) for men and they just keep on going through without so much as a thank you.

Seriously, as a young adult, even I had the tact to offer a pregnant woman to go ahead of me in the bathroom line. You'd think that would have offered up some good karma for me now, wouldn't you?

[Fairly Odd Mother]

If you were pregnant with your first, I bet they would've stood. I found that once I already had a kid, people were like, "Hell, you knew what you were getting yourself into. Tough luck".

[Kate]

When I was pregnant with my first, I took the 45-minute train ride from Salem to North Station four nights a week. After a few weeks of my own rigid pseudo-New-England-stoicism, I decided that my own comfort was more important than suffering in silence, so I got very good at aiming my pregnant belly in their general direction. I only ever had to actually ask to sit down once, and it was a pair of teenage boys buried in their [whatever it was kids played with eight years ago].

'Cause, seriously, I won't go all crazy and actually smile at you, but give a girl a break here.

[Wendy]

I don't know how you live with these people? I live down here in the Deep South and you may be scared by Bubba chewing on his curd, but he will most definitely offer you his seat. Because his mama brought him up right and would smack him in the back of the head if he didn't. ;)

No, you are not expecting too much. Someone should have offered you his seat, but what do I know I am just a Southerner.

[sandyshoes]

Leaving New England Medical Center in Boston after having the Peanut was quite an ordeal. Like everywhere in Boston, the place is undersigned and not easy to navigate, but I expected that. What took me aback was that with me in a wheelchair, our 20 month-old in my lap, and my husband pushing us both and carrying our belongings, nobody so much as held a single door.

And people say New York is unfriendly?

I hate Boston, I tell ya.

[sandyshoes]

I should add that when we got to the elevator and the doors were about to close on us, a nice woman did rush up from behind us, catch the door, and say, "Isn't it unbelievable, how rude people are in this town?" And although it was good to know it wasn't just us imagining things, it made us kind of sad that our experience was unexceptional.

[Major Bedhead]

I saw some pretty rude behaviour from Southerners when I lived down there. I don't think we have exclusive rights to it up heyah.

But yes, I do think you had a right to be annoyed. I would have been. There's being cool and distant and then there are just plain bad manners. Bad manners, unfortunately, are epidemic.

[margalit]

If you think they're rude here in MA, you would LOVE CA, where they're not only rude, they're entitled. If they have a seat on the train, the only way they would give it up is if you vomited on them. They are the epitome of rude aloof narcissists. Don't even get me started.

I'm all about being assertive. People are sometimes incredibly clueless and they need a hint. As someone with an 'invisable' disability, I've had to, on many occasions, as people to let me sit in their seats. I do it all the time on the T, and I have had people CHALLANGE me. Fortunately, I carry my disabled placard and my ID card with me and I'm not afraid to whip it out.

My advice is to ASK for what you want. Don't have expectations that people even noticed your existance. I mean, they might have looked right at you and saw your belly and STILL not have made the connection. Pregnant woman? Seat? Dawn breaks over Marblehead.

YWIM?

[Pendullum]

I think it happens in any large city where the people think they are anonymous... When I was pregnant no one ever offered me a seat on the streetcar...
And the day someone did it was an 80 year old woman... I was in my ninth month,I refused...
The streetcar driver heard the dialogue, slammed the breaks and yelled at the passengers...
He apparently had seen my all through my pregnancy and 'knew' this was the first time someone offered... and how pitiful...
I was embarrassed about the rant,so was the 80 year old lady...
But the streetcar driver was so disgusted there was no stopping him... And his lecture to the patrons/his customers on the streetcar in rush hour... Talking about a captive crowd...

[Avalon]

Move just one state over. Weather is the same, economy is just as abysmal. Taxes are strangling us and gas prices skyrocketing to 3.50 a gallon. But, I would have offered you my seat.

However, your drivers are much, much worse!

[mandy g.]

When I was a kid, my mom used to make me get up (on the bus) and offer my seat to any person who was older than me, able bodied or not. We also thanked the bus driver when we got off. And this was just the late '70s, not the '50s. I too noticed how people wouldn't get up for me during my pregnancies, especially in the third trimester. I figured it would serve them right if I gave birth on their laps. :)

[margaret]

Yeah thats just rude. I would have given you my seat.

[Manic Mommy]

I am not at all surprised to hear this story and experienced it as well. The doors slamming in your face, the brush past you, the total ignore.

However, I also noticed how many people smiled at me just because I was pregnant.

I smile at pregnant women all the time, I always extend them every courtesy and I teach my boys to do the same.

[Emma kw]

I am proud to say my children were raised up proper!! Please, Thankyou, open doors and give up seats , not to mention table manners!
I do wonder, though, how much today's obesity hang-ups play into the seat offering situation - are people afraid of offending an overweight lady by assuming they are preggers? I see a lot of women who could be 6 months with child, or 20 lbs overwieght - no way to tell without asking the question and risk offending!!
Funny story..... my hubby and I were hosting a golf tournemant for Special Olympics MA last October ( 1 day, 100 holes!!- www.specialolympicsma.org - plug plug!!), and I wore what I thought was a trendy babydoll style top, you know, the type that ties under the boobs. Well, the Global Messenger and her Mom arrived, Paul introduced me, I smiled, said Hi, and was asked " when are you due?" OK, I'm a few pounds more than I'd like, and only 5'2", but not THAT fat! She nearly died of embarrassment, and the top I thought looked cute has never been worn again!
So, remember, it's not easy to tell who is preggers, and who is a sad 40 year old trying to dress like her teenage daughter!!

[fooped]

Next time just unleash an extravagant pregnant-lady fart on them. That'll get em moving.

Oh, and try to get them when their mouths are open.

[AMC]

I used to take a train ride from South Shore Mass into Boston when I was pregnant with #1, There were so many times that I was clearly 7-8 months pregnant and uncomfortable that NO ONE offered the seat. In fact, I nearly passed out in the vestibule because no one would let me sit. Finally, my brother who happened to be on the same train ever so abruptly told a man to get up and let the pregnant woman sit.
He did, but he huffed and puffed.
Then I started driving into Boston, with a whole other group of RUDE people.

[petitegourmand]

I had a similar experience when I was pregnant and I remember feeling disappointed in people in general.
being polite seems to less and less important for most people.
it's sad really.
Torontonains are always catching heat for being "rude" compared to the rest of Canadians.

[kittenpie]

I tend to play it up, pushing out the belly, holding a hand to my back or rubbing my belly, grimacing, leaning against a doorframe, and blowing out a heavy stream of air if I really feel I need a seat.
People get the point.
But we shouldn't need to go to all that trouble, should we? Buggers.

[Kimberly Ann]

During those awful days when I had to ride the bus to work, I used to get so mad at the (mainly young) people who wouldn't give up a seat for an elderly person or pregnant woman. As a non-pregnant woman, I never took a seat offered to me by a man because I'm able to stand just as well as he can. But when I was pregnant, oh yeah, you betcha. If people don't offer, I say just ask for it.