Woman realizes with a shock she's becoming a Masshole

"Don’t people know that real people live here?"

Yup, that sums it up nicely. "I'm the only/most important person on this street/sidewalk/this town, everyone else is a loser and is in my way"

The only time I've been tempted to join facebook was when I heard there's a group called "I Want to Punch the Person Slow-Walking In Front of Me."

And before the how-dare-yous pile on, yes, I get that we depend on tourism money, and some people can't help being slow, and people with kids shouldn't be condemned to stay inside until their kids are 30, and not everyone is accustomed to walking in a city, and and and

I should point out that I have never actually punched a slow walker. I am proud of that.

Cue the keyboard warrior outrage... watch out, Kate Fussner! They're aiming for you!

To be annoyed at tourists.....People stop in the middle of the sidewalk to shoot a picture of a church I walk by twice a day for 240 workdays. So i just take the church for granted, but to the tourist it's important..

Driving cars makes people miserable.

Let the hate flow through you.

One becomes a Masshole because everyone else is a Masshole. Not just in driving or biking or any other conveyance. But in everyday behavior. It is socially acceptable, hell, encouraged, to realize one's Masshole potential.

Not that everyone at all times are Masshole. There are plenty of polite, considerate, tempered people in Massachusetts, particular Boston. Yet what appears to be socially acceptable is to be as crude and illmannered as one can be unless there is a prevailing necessity to act otherwise.

It's the reputation of Bostonians across the nation. It also is an old condition. Massachusetts colonists were known for being particularly indepent and downright impudent. That's part of the reason that the English crown came down heavily on Massachusetts.

Is it the sea air? The climate? Perhaps some odd warping of the Earth's magnetic field at this longitude and latitude?

Want to surprise and impress someone from outside Boston? Say yes sir or yes maam or god forbid thank you or even you're welcome. Any will surely say: He or she is not from Boston.

On the other hand that sets a low bar for being polite and considerate.

I think she is combining at least two different issues here. First, witnessing a fistfight between a driver and pan handler?! That's not someone being a Masshole, that is called assault (or someone visiting from Maryland). Someone driving through a gas station to turn a corner at a red light is more on the extreme end of Masshole conduct. Likewise rolling through a crosswalk full of pedestrians when they have the walk light. Please take note. Second, people cutting you off is just your own perceived aggression, not someone being a Masshole. If there is room in front of your car, its open space that someone has every right to use. Just be accepting of it. You can use other people's open space too if they choose to leave it because they have no where better to be.

I won't defend our driving habits as harmless. I have lived here my whole life and, I admit it, people from Massachusetts are very bad drivers. Very bad. We deserve the high rates of car insurance we pay as penance for the shameless antics that we claim as birthright. However, if you happen to move here from somewhere else expecting that the customs of where you came from are going to hold here too, well, I'm sorry. Setting aside some truly dangerous things that the true Masshole does (running red lights on purpose, ignoring rotary etiquette), its mostly just an issue of custom, the same way that its customary for people to walk out into the middle of the street whenever they feel like it. Be at peace with it. There is too much else to worry about.

I find it impressive how we in Mass are somehow "the worst". So a couple of quick counter points to this article. First, I travel a decent amount for work and have to drive for several days on end in the cities I go to. I'm not talking about to and from the airport, I am talking about actually driving in the city for five days in a row. Here are five cities with drivers just as aggressive, if not more so, than in Boston: New York City, Miami, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and San Jose. Never mind the entire state of New Jersey. So spare me the "massholes" are the worst thing. There are just more aggressive/bad drivers out there in the world than considerate ones.

Second, in my opinion, a majority of people who live and drive in Boston are transplants. While many transplants were internal to the state of Mass, our colleges, universities and corporations tend to attract a great deal of people from the I-95 corridor. Then they stay and after seven years of having their Jersey, CT, NY, and NH plates they finally register their car in Boston. And continue to drive like maniacs.(Yes, the fact that people skirt paying insurance in Boston drives me nuts. I also think the "out of state college student parking waiver" by Mass DOT is antiquated and needs to go. You spend 10 months a year in Boston, Worcester, Amherst, etc you, er.. sorry, mom and dad, should pay Mass insurance rates.)

Finally, I will fully admit that people in Mass are the WORST (caps for emphasis here) at parking their cars. More than any other state I have been too. People here are just awful, selfish and inconsiderate. Does not matter if it is on the street or in the grocery store parking lot. It is just AWFUL. If blogs were still cool it could be a great one like "piss pawh pahkahs of mass". Come on people, it is not that hard to park within the lines.

Basically a transplant decided to try to find some funny angle and used a word and stereotype to define an entire area.

The only reason that transplant, and most transplants, are here is because this state has better things than they state they left did. The locals grew up here and participated in that education and economy from the start.

Also, many of the other drivers are transplants, who don't know the roads as well.

Basically, this state is better than others in many ways, and some transplants seem have a hard time adjusting and want to stereotype a lot.