Question of the day:

[featherynscale]

It is my understanding that in this culture, the proper response to random verbal abuse is to yell back, "Well, fuck you, then!" or some such brilliant retort. wolfieboy made a post about the tendency to do this about a week and a half ago.

So, my question is this: If you are the recipient of random verbal abuse and you have no particular urge to respond in the socially acceptable manner, i.e. by throwing it right back, is it more likely that you're enlightened/polite, or that you're apathetic/inured to abuse?

Comments

Had one of these last week

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Was going south on Holmes and had pulled into the right lane to get around a turning car, and a jeep behind me pulled forward past me and I pulled back into the main flow of traffic right there where Holmes chokes off to two lanes again, south of Minor Park. Again; I was behind her.

I know this because just as we crested the hill, she turns 180° around in her seat and gives me a protracted view of her middle finger and Angry Face™. I wasn't following particularly close (certainly no closer than she was to the vehicle in front of her, which may have been why I was making her nervous (no braking room).

I was dumbfounded. I'm not exactly prone to the "WFYT" response, but I actually had an RCA dog moment; I just tilted my head to the side to peer at her until she turned around several breathtaking seconds later. Then I started laughing at the absurdity of it, especially given the huge smiley-face wheel cover she had on the back of her jeep.