.... and maybe it's because I only manage to never find a seat on the days I think it is safe to wear my black lace-up heels during my commute (rather than the saner, safer running shoes),
But I still do not understand how the 6 men seated in the back of the #9 bus this morning were content to watch me stand in their midst and hold onto a pole (while acknowledging that my choice of shoes is my own), ignoring my struggle to stay upright for a 25-minute ride that included stopping once a block while on a downhill while additionally braking for 10 or so unpredictable Southie double-parkers and a half-dozen more errant pedestrians, followed by a 6-series of 110-degree turns to wind around the Broadway T.
All were about 30 or younger. Five of six were head-down on handheld electronics. The sixth was sitting right in front of me....about 6' 4" and wearing workout clothes. Not sure how he didn't notice my passive-aggressive evil stare for the majority of the ride, to catch his eye and plead for mercy and see if he noticed my tottering and swaying and attempts to shake the numbness out of my necessarily-elevated left arm without pitching over.
I refuse to beg for chivalry from strangers. But the lack of it sometimes still disappoints me.
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2 comments:
Guys don't tend to be chivalrous in general, especially younger ones. Even my dad stopped offering his seat to women on the train after a woman chewed him out for being sexist.
I've found women to be much more likely to offer a seat or hold a door for me when I'm out with kids or obviously pregnant. Guys don't seem to notice even when I'm struggling with a stroller.
Now back in my child-free days, guys did sometimes hold doors or offer a seat. I noticed a definite correlation between male chivalry and certain sweaters I used to wear... As in, maybe 3-5 instances of such chivalry on sweater days and none on frumpy T-shirt days. Unfortunately sexy boots don't seem to have the same effect for you. Maybe once it warms up enough you should try a clingy sweater when you wear impractical footwear.
To be fair to the opposite sex, though, as I was out in the frigid wind today covering our early-flowering blueberry bushes with old towels against the deep freeze tonight (roundly pregnant but with husband on a business trip), a male passerby did kindly offer to help me. So some guys have their hearts in the right place.
I was the one to give my seat to a largely-pregnant woman on a train a few weeks back. The 30-ish non-disabled guys sitting in the nearby "handicapped seats"? The only thing disabled about them was their sense of chivalry.
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