Seriously people?

I'm usually pretty mild about the whole generation gap thing but sometimes, just sometimes, push comes to shove and I have no choice but to rant about it.

I can only rant because society does not condone younger people kicking older folks, even if they are the ones who start it first.

Like I said, I am usually pretty mild about this so keep this in mind.

For one, they don't seem to know when to stop talking to you. I mean, I'm okay and am actually happy when people try to be friendly and try to make small talk with me but there are times when you just want to be left alone or are just not interested in saying anything in general. Yet they jabber on and on and even ask you questions, as if challenging you to ignore them. So what do I do? I just pretend I didn't hear them above all the din. Or they just weren't loud enough to cut through my thick wall of concentration.

Two, they don't seem to know the things that are happening around them. I don't mean it in a "there's a fire 100m in front of them and they still walk into it" way, more like "they know it's peak hour and people are walking by them really quickly but they choose to block the way and/or walk really really slowly on a narrow path" way. And then when you bypass them, they give you a look and a "tsk" as if the we should not have done that at all. No, it doesn't matter if we are going to be late for work or for our meeting, as long as we walk slowly and silently behind them and "respect" their pace of life, so they say.

Three, they love to stare. Like just...stare. I can be in my most tattered outfit and they will still stare. At what? I honestly have no idea. Like my colleague said, perhaps we are such anomalies in their society that when we appear, they find the need to just check us out in the best way they can. STARE. Which is really creepy and really, downright uncomfortable. But of course, they will never know because, like I mentioned earlier, it is rude to question the elders.

Older but no wiser? Possibly. I don't know. But I'm just puzzled and yet irritated at the same time. Even though I know I shouldn't be.