Puzzling human behavior.

People do things that I just plain do not get. Here are a few:

1) Quoting themselves in text.

You can commonly find this on a person's profile on any social networking site, a signature on just about any message board, or even their own blogs. I'm not talking about things like, "Well, I always say Uncle Sam does exactly what we don't expect." No, I'm talking about when your average everyday idiot writes out their own quotes just like they were famous movie quotes or something. It would take the form of this:

"Stupid is as stupid does."
-Forrest Gump

But it would look something like this:

"Life is a toilet. Flush regularly."
-Joe Blow

It NEVER makes any sense at all, but they always think they're really philosophical and deep. Hint: If you ever feel the urge to quote yourself, resist it. It doesn't end well.

2) Looking for rationalization for stupid decisions.

I often use my various online outlets as platforms for my varios activist causes. Among these would be the environment (encompassing cloth diapering, recycling, organic foods, minimizing paper consumption, etc.), carseat safety, intactivism (working toward an end to routine infant circumcision. His body, his choice.), vaccine safety, anti-war, positive Asian male depiction in the US media, and generally doing my share to piss off the Religious Right, and fly in the face of mainstream sheeple everywhere.

Of course, I expect people to react to these things. It's worth nothing if you can't open people's eyes to stuff they'd never thought of. I totally love it when people see a picture of big tall Orren rear-facing in his Radian, and express concern over his safety. Then I can flip the script on them fast and prove to them that he's 5x safer than their kid who's forward-facing. I LOVE when people try to tell me there are health benefits to circumcision, because every single one has been disproven 1000 times. I love when people bring me their misconceptions about cloth diapering, because I can set them straight.

What I do not love is when people straight-up tell me that they made a dumbass choice, and want me to somehow give them a pat on the back for it. Some girl told me the other day that she's got her 3-year-old in a booster because they'd tried "several" harnessed seats, and none fit. "Several" seats? If she'd said "dozens", then I might have thought it was a credible concern, but several? No. You have to actually do research to find what's good, and the US has hundreds of carseats on the market, the most of any country in the world. Of those, something will work, and in this case, I can even tell you what would without even thinking about it. That kid needs a Britax Frontier like the Vikings need a Superbowl win. Sorry, but I'm not going to sit here and help people rationalize their lack of research. It's not even hard to find these things. All it tells me is that somebody wants rationalization for not doing their homework. They won't get it from me. What they will get is asked if they've tried the thing that's right, and then a reason why every one of their excuses is bullshit.

Look, I don't expect people to be just like me, but don't try to pass off BS as a thoroughly researched decision, while obviously displaying a dire lack of knowledge that even a few google searches would have cured.

3) Talking about how hot their significant others are.

Dude, if this isn't begging for someone to disagree with you emphatically, I don't know what is. Why would you put yourself out there like that? "OMG My husband is so hot!" "Look at my sexy husband!" "Don't you wish your husband was hot like mine??" Dude, no. In fact, if I woke up one morning and my husband looked like yours, I would run out the door screaming like a lunatic.

I sometimes feel like I'm the only person on the face of the earth who knows that my husband is not other people's type. I really don't need the reassurance that he's hot. I know he is, and I don't care if you agree with me. I'm for damned sure not stupid enough to go around saying, "My husband's hotter than yours!" because there's really only one way people reply to that.

Plus, everyone knows Asian guys are hotter than any others, so obviously, out of my group of friends and acquaintances, I definitely have the hottest husband. I jest. See how dumb it sounds? Why the hell do people do this?


4) Being totally ignorant of how their kids really are.

Here's a hint. If your 5-year-old swears like a sailor, has thrown her TV down the stairs multiple times in the past week because she was mad at you, and has a tendency to beat the crap out of her baby brothers, she is NOT anybody's "sweet little princess". She is a brat, and you should fix that as her parent.

Just because your kid performs at grade level by whatever arbitrary standard the people are basing that off of these days, does not mean he is a genius. It means he is performing at grade level by some arbitrary standard.

Am I the only one who has some real view of what my kids are like? Erin is generally good, but can be a bit of a drama queen, and doesn't always follow rules as well as she should. She loves anything artistic, but isn't strong academically. Orren is right on track for his age, as far as milestones go. He's physically very strong, and big for his age. He's fussy and prone to tantrums, and has extreme stranger anxiety, but he is also really playful and fun when he's in the right mood. My kids have good and bad qualities, just like any other human being alive. This is not hard to admit at all. I don't understand why people feel the need to act like their kids are something they aren't (especially the mean little brats who are put up to be sweet and nice).



So yeah, that's the weekly human behavior report. The forecast? Weirdos running thicker than thieves from here to the end of time.