I’ve found that if I wait, I get a lot of answers to things I’m wondering about. “Why do so many grown women look so FRUMPY?,” my teenaged self wondered after spending no-kidding 90 minutes feathering her hair and putting on make-up, and then looking critically at her 50-year-old English teacher who had a straight bob and a shiny forehead and a boring skirt. My current self can answer that it has something to do with a lack of time, something to do with a shifting of priorities regarding the use of that time, something to do with a change in how much of our life revolves around the way we look, something to do with a changing of style preferences (the black mini and coral crop-top and black-patterned tights seems right at 17, less right at 50), something to do with how we feel when we look back at pictures of ourselves with that feathered hair and frosty green eyeshadow, and something to do with how we feel when we look at what teenagers currently consider worth the effort.
I remember when it was fashionable at my school to get hair “frosted” (every single high school boy: “What FLAVOR frosting, hur hur hur”). I wondered why girls with darker hair were getting it done, when their hair looked better without it. The answer is something like “Because even though YOU didn’t prefer the look, THEY did, DUR” (that’s my own reason, now that my hair is darker and I still like it with light elements), combined with “How come girls with lighter hair were getting it done, when their hair looked better without it?,” combined with “Because it was the fad, and they wanted to participate in the fad,” and possibly combined with something about a hairdresser persuading them it looked wonderful.
When I was a babysitter, I wondered why parents let their houses get so messy or so overrun with kid stuff. I’m not wondering about that anymore (or using the word “let”).
I used to wonder why grown-ups wanted to TALK so much when it was so BORING. It turns out the answer is that it’s not boring to the grown-up. (Or that it IS boring but the grown-up feels obligated. But with the kind I meant at the time, it’s that it’s not boring to the grown-up.)
I used to wonder how high school kids could STAND not to have recess, or how grown-ups could STAND to have such boring Christmas presents. All became clear with time.
In fact, I’ve noticed that if I start a sentence with a little huff of exasperation followed by “Why would anyone _____???,” and then if I treat it as an actual question rather than a exclamation of scorn, I can usually come up with an actual answer. She’s wearing that outfit because she likes the way it looks, that’s why. She takes that kind of self-portrait because she thinks it looks good, and/or because all the more realistic shots made her cry, that’s why. She plays that game because it’s fun for her, that’s why. She puts up with him because that kind of behavior falls into the range of what she’s willing to deal with, or because she thinks she doesn’t have a choice, or because she knows she has a choice and she’s choosing this. She’s acting a certain annoying way, and so do a lot of other women her age, and I’m approaching that age—so although I don’t know yet, there’s a good chance I soon will, and maybe I should assume the reason will be as good as the other reasons I’ve found for why women older than me do things.
There are a lot of gaps still. For one thing, with a lot of questions I can think of answers—but SEVERAL answers. Is she trying to force everyone to do things her way because she really thinks we’ll enjoy it, or because if we say no it makes her doubt her own decision, or because she enjoys the act of arguing people into changing their minds, or because she gets a commission, or because she hasn’t yet understood that different people live different ways? Is she scoffing at other people’s interests because she’s right to scoff, or because she feels left out, or because she’s a scoffing and unpleasant person in general, or because she doesn’t realize how scoffy she’s coming across, or because she hasn’t yet understood that different people live different ways, or because she’s mad at the people she’s scoffing at for some other reason, or because other people scoffed at her interests and she wants to show them what that feels like?
And then there are other things, where I have questions I don’t think are going to get answered. Why would someone say in a horrible tone of voice to the perfectly nice and helpful receptionist, “Um, HI. She’s trying to get IN??” instead of a friendly “Hello! She’s here for camp!” and waiting to get buzzed in? I’m not on board with the idea that it’s because she’s fighting a hard battle or that she must have a sad life; those sound like Coping Thoughts to me, like when we try to manage our mounting road rage by imagining that the honking tailgater behind us is trying to get to the hospital where a family member lies recently injured. Sometimes that story is actually true, but mostly it isn’t.
Why would a woman say loudly “You have GOT to be kidding me right now!!” and stomp off and make loud huffy sighing sounds and crabby remarks to the air for the next half hour when the office staff can’t give her back the dollar she lost in a vending machine out in the building’s lobby, a vending machine clearly marked with a sign saying only the vending machine company can help in such a situation, a vending machine she voluntary decided to interact with, even knowing that choosing to interact shoppingly with a machine meant the transaction would not involve personal customer service? Why would someone standing in line roll their eyes and make audible mean remarks about how slow/stupid the clerk is? Why would someone in a restaurant say out loud “Heh-LO, does anybody WORK here??,” when the waitstaff is clearly visible WORKING at other tables?
So far, here are the only answers I’ve come up with: “Because for some reason that may still require more life experience before I know what it is, they think that behavior is appropriate for those situations” and “Because they’re rude, unpleasant people.” I’ve toyed with “Because they were born without sufficient empathy,” but that one doesn’t satisfy: people who have trouble with empathy can still use polite language and a polite tone of voice. Besides, the people in question are not blaring out “I WANT TO EAT” or “I WANT TO GET IN” like a toddler who hasn’t yet understood how things work—no, they’re using sophisticated scorn-indicating language and behavior and body language.
I’ve also wondered things like “Maybe they’re going through an intensely stressful time,” but that brings me back to “Maybe this horrible tailgating jerk just heard his wife was in a car accident”: it’s possible, but seems like it could cover only a tiny percentage of offenders. And most of them are not showing signs of that in other ways: they’re not red-eyed and looking unhinged, they’re just being rude as if it’s a normal way to live and they don’t understand why OTHER people are being so stupid and tentative and doormatty as to NOT behave that way. GEEZ, if you don’t get what you want RIGHT AWAY and EXACTLY THE WAY YOU WANT IT, make a HUGE FUSS!