15 Things You Experience When You’re An Exceptionally Considerate Person

1. You can’t just drive your car and get to your destination. Nope, you have to critique everyone else’s driving, feeling outrage for the car that the other car just cut off, because, come on, that was not your turn! Not only are you upset about how people are treating you on the road, but you are also upset with how they are treating everyone else on the road, too. You’re about to get in an accident because you are looking in your rearview at the car behind you who is being so casually inconsiderate and selfish that you’re like, yeah, I can’t be in public anymore today.

2. When someone cuts you in line, it’s not just annoying to have to wait for one more person to go in front of you, but your inner dialogue is just you on repeat going, I QUIT HUMANITY.

3. Group functions are an absolute minefield of fuckery for you. If someone interrupts a friend while they are talking, your heart starts doing jumping-jacks, your pulse beats like a bongo drum out of your veins. YOU ARE MAD. You can feel your interrupted friend’s slight like it was your own. You’re always about thisclose to being like, do you want to fight right now, just to defend your friend’s right to tell a story about her cat, Jangles, without some asshole coming in and being like, “Oh I have a cat, too, her name is Wanda!” No one cares about Wanda, girl, chill out.

4. Every single day you start out hopeful for humanity and then you go to Target and you’re all, I hate everyone.

5. Or you go to a comments section or a friend from high school’s Facebook page and you’re so downtrodden about the future of human beings and what seems to be rampant inconsiderateness that you’re like, why do I even try at all!

6. You try to be hard and tough, but it feels like a scratchy, too-tight coat on you, so even if you’re frustrated at actually everyone in the entire human race, you’re still about one second away from forgiving everyone and group-hugging it out.

7. Sometimes it all gets to be too much and you’ll wake up in the morning and just know –fully completely know– that you are going to need a good ugly cry and you’ll go through the day as a shell of an emotionally repressed human until that one YouTube video of a kid who overcame something against all odds gets you right in the heartfeels and there you are, those wonderful salty tears trailing down your cheeks, a satisfactory grin on your face like, yes, this is exactly what I needed, I am back in action.

8. If you are at the grocery store and you have a cart full of goodies and someone steps in line with five or less items then you will ALWAYS let them go in front of you. ALWAYS.

9. You are constantly aware of your surroundings and, if you’re in public hanging out with someone that does not count considerateness among their chief priorities, then it’s 100% all-aboard the Stress Train to Stress City.

10. When a stranger is exceptionally considerate to you, your first thought is wow and your second thought is, I don’t even care who you are, but do you want to get married right this fucking second?

11. You have a personal relationship with your Netflix queue, because some days it’s just too much to have to face people and their varying needs that they don’t realize could get fulfilled far less easier and more efficiently if they used kindness over rudeness, but whatever, next button on Netflix for the day it is!

12. You have a choice number of friends that you can be completely and unapologetically yourself with and they are also the most considerate people you know. That means you can put your defenses down and that hanging out with them feels like you’ve been wrapped in a safe, sensitive, thoughtful cocoon.

13. If people do anything other than sit quietly and watch the movie in a theatre, they will know the untouchable wrath of you whipping your head over your shoulder at them multiple times which, as you well know, is the universal symbol for Cut That Shit Out Immediately.

14. Most people drink to have fun or drink to forget, but you drink primarily to shut your brain off and have fun without having to worry about whether everyone (in the entire world!) is treating each other with justice, kindness, fairness, and thoughtfulness. Thanks to the wonder drink that is alcohol, you’re able to exist in public without feeling like your skin has been turned inside out because of your sensitive nature.

15. However, no matter how frustrated you get with humanity as a whole (drama!), it is within your nature to keep forgiving and keep giving chances and keep being hopeful that everyone who comes in contact with you get hit by the considerate stick, then we can all hold hands and sing Christmas carols (all-year long!) and just generally be really happy people who are really, really, extremely, tirelessly thoughtful of each other and our feelings (like Canadians!).