One of those letters you write but don't send...

I've stopped foaming at the mouth for about 2 minutes to deliver some anecdotal evidence as to my own thoughts on the progression of society as a whole. Don't confuse this as the moment of clarity in a fit of rage, but rather just the whistling of an already over-boiled tea kettle of discontent. Being a rather old-fashioned gentleman of relatively few years on this rotting Earth I've been soured by recent events.
How many times can someone by stood up, cancelled on, let off the hook so to speak in a given period before they start to wonder, is it me? did I do something? do I project an air that promotes disrespect? or is it merely that society is to blame?
By and large being a gentleman, or by today's standard, a doormat, doesn't seem to serve anyone in this world unless they have some perverse sense of masochism. Upon requesting information in regards to a product or service you are more likely to receive better service if you are ill-tempered than if you are good natured. People see politeness as a sign of weakness. It is a sign that reads, "don't take me seriously, I'll just take it in ass and ask for more." Only when a customer is truly ill-mannered and harsh of hand will a sales clerk or support specialist or manager wake up and realize that proper courteousness and promptness is required.
These displays are not reserved for the realm consumables, however. This is a trend that persists into every part of our everyday lives. If someone I didn't know were to ask me to meet them somewhere at a particular time I could promptly flip a coin in my head to decide whether I believe they would arrive. Business transactions aside, social engagements carry little to no weight in the modern day person's mind as the contemporary view of one's "word", once the only thing a man had, now not even a concern with which to be trifled.
"Oh I'm sorry, I had a prior engagement" is usually one of the more acceptable albeit irritating comments I hear most often. Next is inevitably, "Oh I'm sorry I thought you said 3 not 4, I waited for you," but obviously no one called to ask where I was so it's an easy lie to detect. Another favorite that I recently was told, "Oh I'm sorry but I promised someone yesterday that I'd do something for them." To which I thought in my head at the time, "fuck you", knowing full well the plans were scheduled a week in advance, and by the apologetic party no less!
The sheer rate at which these thigns happen, thankfully not among close friends, is astounding. It's as though moral fiber, at least from my eyes, has dwindled, character decayed leaving only a people with such an immature and superficial sense of values that much of communication is now but noise echoing into a void.
Perhaps I exagerate, but I have unconsciously drifted to the point where I will not believe that a person will do what they say until they have proven that they will in fact do it, and not just once, but consistently. You might imagine that this has fairly intersting implications. For example, I will never be comfortable making a date with a girl I don't know well, unless I can be comfortable at the meeting place alone. I will assume that someone saying anything followed by the words "sometime" is just being friendly and has no real intention. In making arrangements with an unfamiliar party I dutifully inquire with my closer friends as to their whereabouts before I'm to be ditched.
I'm not immune to the notion that "shit happens", but when you're the unfortunate person to which it has happened so many times its difficult to shrug it off, try again, keeping that same faded smile.

S.A.D.

Today I walked down the street in the bitter cold. The wind picked up as I crossed a parking lot and carried myself down another road. The muscles in my back were stiff and sore, but I pressed on around a corner and down another road. Another parking lot lead me to as yet another avenue as the snow began fall. This one was longer, however, and as I pushed forward the wind blew harder still, my lips chapped and fingers shrunken inside my gloves clinging to the warmth radiating weakly from my palm. I passed many persons as I plodded along, some familiar others new to this bleak, white and grey sort of purgatory. Finally, I crossed a busy street and arrived at the end of the first leg of the journey of which I was only too conscious to remove myself from.
Now began the waiting game. So I stood there, in the wind, in the snow neither grinning nor frowning. Neither anxious nor hesitant. Neither concerned nor ambivolent, but always painfully aware. I waited. I looked at the others who had gathered to share in our collective predicament. Not really so much a team, but rather a group of sympathizers who could only go so far as to do each other the favor of not stepping on each others feet. I stood out in front like a scout. My face remained as stone as I stared out into the white abyss waiting for a ray of light, but the cold did not fade and the so called 'chariot of the people' was slow in coming. So I stood still and waited.
I shut my eyes wishing somehow that the bus would come or that it wouldn't. I wasn't sure which, and it was in that moment of doubt that finally like some sort of half assed, half hearted, back handed miracle. The grey sardine can that was this city's 'chariot of the not quite so well financed' screeched and stopped in front of the lightly frozen group.
I stepped gingerly and waited my turn, but some of my fellow citizens were too eager and even broke the group's only unspoken rule. I winced in pain as the heal of a hardened work boot came down on my toe.
I stood patiently. At last it was my turn to ascend the steps of the awaiting carriage, but alas people were already crammed out as far as any could fit, and the driver shut the doors and pulled away. So I stood there frozen. My back sore, my foot in pain, my mind trapped within the confines of its own corporeal being. Straining, begging for some change, some sign, some signal, anything to let it free from this drabbest of the drab prisons. This was the morning of the workday commuter. But like so many before me, I did not yell. I did not lash out. I did not so much as groan as I was pushed toward a future of brutally tedious, mind numbing repetitiveness. Society could not crush my spirit, however, for at that moment I knew that inside I always already broken. So I stood quietly and waited.