subway douchebaggery

As mentioned earlier, I hate it when people in the subway stand blocking the doors: unless the car is so full that there's nowhere else to stand, this makes you a grade-A douchebag. The other day I snapped a picture of a particularly shameless offender:

grade-A douchebag

Is it clear in the picture that he is taking up at least half the door?—just standing there, blithely, back to the platform, letting people squeeze past him. And I took this picture late: most of the people getting on or off had already done it, so you've got to imagine more of a crowd, people streaming off and onto a train and forced, for no reason at all, to do so single-file...

So what is this guy thinking? I'm tempted to think that it's quite deliberate. A recent New York Review of Books article had this interesting thing about the difference between a pride–guilt culture and an honor–shame culture, the idea being that the one kind of person takes responsibility for what he has done and judges himself accordingly, whereas for the other kind of person it's all basically a power relationship; I wonder whether a guy like the one captured above is thinking, "I'LL STAND WHERE I FUCKING WANT TO," slash, "YOU GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM WITH IT?" Some kind of bogus self-assertion that's really about deep insecurity, getting off on inconveniencing people and practically begging for a fight. A little like pissing all over the place to establish your dominion.

Or maybe he's just a moron.

P.S./A. Folks, when you're in line to swipe your MetroCard, YOU DO NOT NEED TO WAIT FOR THE SCREEN TO "CLEAR" BEFORE YOU SWIPE. Once the person in front of you has successfully swiped through, you can go right ahead—even if it still says "GO" from the last swipe! In fact, the only reason not to swipe immediately after the person in front of you (as if your card were trying to catch* the card in front of it) is that you want to make sure you don't swipe on top of a "PLEASE SWIPE AGAIN," in which case the other person might get in on your swipe.† But once that person has a "GO," you can go. Consider it a green light! Standing there holding your MetroCard and waiting for the person to make his or her way all the way through the turnstile accomplishes one thing and one thing only: it makes me want to pick you up and hurl you against the metal divider.

* And mount?

† Leaving you $2 poorer or stuck in the "JUST USED" nightmare-limbo.