A Plague
"Hello."
Blank look with no response.
"Jesus Christ!"

I'll give all my readers two guesses as to which of the above described people is yours truly. If you guessed the one who said "Hello" only to be greeted with a blank stare stare and no audible response only to respond to this with a frustrated curse, you'd be correct. I know I wrote about rudeness in this town below, but this happened to me, again, today in the one locale that I've been cursed to run into unresponsive people on a daily basis, the bike trail. This seems like an odd place to run into people who don't seem to want to have any interaction with fellow humans at all, but it seems to be a Mecca for these types. Every day, I'm down there I'm guaranteed an encounter with some goof who seems incapable of speech. Perhaps they're all mutes, I thought at first, but this seemed highly unlikely. I just think people are assholes, as I've mentioned before, but there has to be something else to it.

It's getting to the point where the only guaranteed conversation I can rely on is:
"Do you go to Pitt?"
"Man, I can't talk to you now."
"No need to be rude."
This is from a mentally deranged lunatic.

As I stated below, my confined orb of reality has been rather small in nature, pretty much for the duration of my life. Having only really lived in three different town, including currently Pittsburgh, I haven't had the types of exposure to various cultures and rural variations in personalities that others have been fortunate to have had. I come from a small town where, for the most part and not to sound too hokey, people are friendly, or they're at least friendly enough to respond to a "hello" when you say it to them. It's not exactly a town where 1. rudeness is expected 2. rudeness is even tolerated to some extent. Here, though, is a different story.

I've been toying with an idea that this town, meaning Pittsburgh, is suffering from an identity crisis. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's a large city with a lot of people, various people of varying nationalities and cultural traits to be more specific. On the outside there appears to be little or no indication that this mix of people is either more or less inclined to be more or less friendly to their fellow citizens. The crisis stems from my idea that this town, for all its charms and culture, is striving very hard, almost painstakingly so, to be like New York City. It's obvious that there's something to this effect occurring at various levels, and it can be seen in the writing that appears in local papers to the types of events, promotions, and various other aspects that occur throughout this town. Where it's most evident, in my mind, is in the way people treat one another in this town. It's almost as if it's a given, and I don't mean to harp on this point, that people are expected to be rude to one another. Why say "Hello" back to someone when you can just walk by without responding? Why not let the pedestrian walk across the street when they clearly have the walk sign instead of trying to make a turn? Why not treat customers or patrons as nicely as possible in an effort to retain their business and patronage instead of acting as if they're infringing upon your time?

As outlandish as it seems, I do believe there's such a thing as a collective consciousness here at work in the world. It's not as noticeable on a grand scale, but it's much more noticeable on a smaller local level. Here I see this operating in the ways in which people treat one another. Collectively, it's a rudeness that proliferates through this town and is excreted upon the masses and, unfortunately, people who are just trying to be nice and courteous and just plain being human. Something here has to change. Obviously, we're talking about a paradigm shift on such a massive scale that's beyond comprehension. However, it's possible that this town can change for the better. I don't know how, and I know it's a lot more complicated than just having some inane community outreach, group hug, come together and sign songs type of event. It's going to take something huge to shift the paradigm, and I think it's obvious what that thing is going to be. Look at New York City and the events there in the last few years to understand my meaning. It's terrible to contemplate, but it's true, and I really believe this, that entire communities, in this day and age, have to suffer through a cataclysmic event to shift the paradigm. If I'm wrong on this point, prove me wrong.

In closing, in an odd experience that only seems odd in retrospect, I remember walking down the street of my hometown, seeing a new neighbor out on his lawn, speaking to him in much the same way, and not getting a response. Relating this to my mother, I remember vividly that her response was that this new neighbor was from Pittsburgh and he's just not friendly to anyone. Is it too much of a stretch to say that I'm on to something here?