Stuff Your Sorrys in a Sack

This morning a guy deliberately stopped a full elevator car from closing so he could rush in at the last second. He knew it was already full but acted like he didn't. I was on this car, and when the guy got on he said, "Sorry, sorry about that guys." There was at least one woman in the elevator. It was first thing in the morning for me so I could be wrong but I think I showed no reaction to this (stopping a car like that is basically innocuous but still in the coda of big office building work, it's considered a dick move). No one else reacted to him either. I was looking glassily ahead at nothing when the guy, who was now standing right next to me, looked deliberately right at the side of my face and said "Sorry about that." Thankfully my floor was the first stop and so I didn't have to maintain it for long, but at that I very purposefully ignored him. What was with that follow-up apology? Jesus, dude. Some people are so freaking concerned with how their are viewed, even but total strangers they may never meet again, that they unwittingly create the problems that they're so anxiously trying to avoid. I hate these people. Just chill the fuck out, man.

I feel silly mentioning this, because the plot of the show dealt heavily with race relations, but watching "Memphis" last night, I experienced the black-movie-theater effect while in a Broadway theater. It was awesomely amusing. I'm not talking about whooping and "No she didn't!" and all that flamboyance, but several times during the show a few scattered people, including a couple just about 10 feet away, let loose with seldom-heard-at-live-theater exclamations. The first time a woman shrieked I giggled because I was amazed that she could be so amazed at such a fictional scene. I didn't realize until after a few more, when I did the half-turn and realized that it wasn't just a jittery individual but a member of a different race doing her very best to uphold a stereotype. At that point I couldn't stop laughing.
During intermission of the show, Sara started talking to the couple sitting next to us, the woman was also a teacher at her school, though in a different department or level because it didn't seem Sara knew her. We were all standing at our seats and they were talking and I exchanged a half-awkward look with the guy before doing a couple not-just-nervous-fidgeting-but-probably-looked-like-it stretches before giving up and sitting back down, where I was mostly obscured by Sara from the couple. Is it such a horrible thing of me to not put up the little social effort there? Is it so horrible for me not to be interested? I really don't care if the other person doesn't find me interesting. If I know an interaction will last no longer than five minutes and I have the option either to engage or not then I will always choose not to. I'm very socially lazy, which I think rubs people the wrong way. Though it shouldn't, unless these people are willing to accept that their offense-taking itself represents some irresponsible and ugly self-centrism. I guess that's a roundabout way of me justifying my aloofness. Whatever, it's true.