The Standoff

Alright, so this happened this morning, and as such, I’m writing it down. You know when you and another car come to an intersection. You wave the go ahead for the other vehicle. The normal thing is for that other car to go, give you the courtesy wave, and all is well. That doesn’t always happen, however. Sometimes you get the standoff. This is when you wave for them to go, then they refuse and wave for you. Now your honor has been bruised. Darn it, you were trying to be the nice one here! If you go, then you’re admitting that they’re nicer then you! You can’t have that happen! So you refuse, and wave them on again. Then you both do this little moving of your cars a bit forward, not sure who is going and who isn’t, and then it’s back to the standoff.

This bugs me so much! I’ve stopped fighting people on it. If I wave them to go, and they refuse, then I go. I don’t feel bad about it, I’m not going to wait and debate with this person in their vehicle about the merits of them going before me. I’ve got places to be and things to do. And if they realize that I drive to slow for them, once they’re behind me, then maybe they’ll think twice before not accepting the go ahead next time.

Lesson learned.