TROUBL

I’ve been having issues lately with the lack of manners in New York. No surprise there, since New Yorkers are infamous for rudeness, but sometimes people go beyond the call of being New Yorkers. I try not ask for perfect etiquette from everybody in a city as crowded as this one, but personally, I try to respect the people around me, if for no other reason than that it’s practical. Being unnecessarily rude makes everyone around you angry, and when everyone around you is angry, you are less comfortable. Doesn’t this make sense?

I realize it can be tough to always think of others, but in a city where there is almost always someone nearby who can see you or smell you, shouldn’t that be a responsibility we all share? For instance, the other day I was eating my lunch in Central Park, on a bench near the road that comes in at 59th and 6th. Across from me on another bench I saw a lady eating a sandwich as a man sat down near her. From the way he was moving he looked pretty drunk for 12:30 in the afternoon, but I thought, “Oh well, to each his own.” (Trying to be respectful, see?) I started to munch away on my own sandwich, enjoying the pleasant spring day. After a few minutes, the man on the bench across from me got unsteadily to his feet, then walked around behind the bench and made his way to a large rock, which he leaned against and then started fumbling with the button on his pants.

“Oh, no, man,” I thought. “No, do NOT piss on that rock. There are hundreds of other places in this park you could piss, but not right here where I’m enjoying my lunch.” Seriously, there are plenty of corners in the park that would have been easy to get to from where we were sitting, where he could have peed more privately. Hell, there were tree trunks all around that he could have urinated on that would have soaked up the liquid, rather than that rock, which would let it drip in the midday sun. There are actual Port-A-Potties and real bathrooms, for God’s sake! But, no, he chose a rock right across from me, in broad daylight, where everyone could see him. Of course, he and went at it and peed all over the rock, right behind the lady eating her sandwich, who thankfully remained oblivious. I got up and moved. I was totally grossed out and more than a little angry. That guy having just the smallest amount of respect for those around him would have made all the difference to my lunch hour.

A few days later, I was in a subway station near Columbia at 7:00 pm. It was broad daylight outside. I was waiting for a train on a platform that had one bench in the very center. There was a man standing beside the bench. I wasn’t paying much attention to my fellow commuters, but I kept looking down the tracks to see if the train was coming, so I noticed when the man near the bench turned around to lean on the wall, and (surprise!) started messing with his pants. I couldn’t believe it. Not again!

I understand that in a subway station there are fewer places to go if you have to pee. Nobody wants to leave the station, go find a bathroom, miss their train, and then pay $2 more to get back in. But if you have to pee that badly in a subway station, there are two corners, one at each end of the platform, where you can put your back to everyone sufficiently to keep your own dignity, and maybe the respect of the people around you. But here was this guy, right in the middle of the platform, where anyone near him could see him doing his business, in the middle of the day, when he was no more than a ten second walk from either end of the platform! What the hell!

Call me old-fashioned, but as far as I’m concerned this kind of behavior is unacceptable. Granted, these situations are extreme examples of bad manners, but this type of thing happens a lot more frequently than it should, even for notoriously rude New York. I like to think that I’m a pretty progressive person. I try not to expect too much from people as far as manners: I don’t expect men to hold doors open for me, I don’t expect people not to swear in public, I don’t even expect people not to bump into me on the street when it’s rush hour! But I do expect people to keep it in their pants in public, or at the very, very least, to try to be as discreet as possible if they must urinate. Am I being unrealistic? If we allow people not to say “Bless you” when we sneeze, are we opening the door for every other polite gesture to be forgotten as well? Or am I justified in thinking there should be some basic level of decorum to which people are held, even in New York?