This is weird behavior.
What goes through the mind of someone who makes a point of harassing a jogger?
What mental process deems it OK to treat a jogger with a sort of aggression so overt that it would be viewed as an invitation to fight, in almost any other circumstance?
I don’t get harassed every time out. Not even every 10 times out. But it happens. I know it happens to others. And I never have been able to figure out why. I can only guess.
Latest example:
Dusk tonight. I’m slogging (not really jogging) west along Appian Way, in Long Beach, just short of the little bridge that crosses Alamitos Bay. I am on the street, not the sidewalk (asphalt is easier on the legs than concrete), going west on the east-bound half of what is a nicely wide bridge — so I can see cars coming at me without impeding them in the slightest.
A few people are out. It’s a nice evening. Walkers, other joggers. A few cars. But it isn’t busy.
I’m not having fun. Of course not. Some people may enjoy jogging. I never have. I do it because I feel as if I have to.
Head semi-down, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses, shorts and a T-shirt. No political message on my shirt (unless the words “Santa Barbara” count). Just trudging up the slope that leads to the crest of the bridge.
Coming at me is a small car. I want to say it is an old Karmann Ghia, a Volkswagen product from the 1960s. But it could have been something else. I wasn’t paying it much attention past the fleeting mental note that it would pass by me with no problem. At least 10 feet of clearance.
The car is moving fairly quickly, maybe 40 mph in an area zoned for no more than 30, even 25. Inside are two white males, I think. I’d guess they are between 15 and 25 years old.
Just a few feet before the car pulls level with me, the person sitting on the passenger side of the car — that is, closest to me — leans slightly out of the window and shouts something short and loud. Like “Hey!” A single syllable.
If ever you have been walking or jogging down a street, and someone in a car moving fairly quickly toward you shouts at you … you know that the sound is magnified significantly and is condensed. The Doppler Effect, or something. Sounds waves moving at a higher rate of speed.
It has the practical effect of assaulting the ear of the foot-bound traffic like a firecracker in a phone booth. It is sharply sudden and very loud.
You can’t help but jump/flinch. Which, presumably, is the result the shouter has in mind.
Yes, I flinched at this unexpected assault. I don’t know if it were obvious to anyone else, but inside my skin, for sure, I jumped. I may have had the sort of inadvertent surge of adrenaline that sometimes accompanies unexpected attack.
I have a vague recollection of the sound of laughter receding behind me as I raised my right arm so that my hand was about level with my head as I extended the middle finger of said hand. Maybe the idiots zooming away, behind me, could see it. I didn’t turn my head; that would be giving them too much satisfaction.
If this were the first time something like this had happened to me, I would figure I had somehow done something to offend. Maybe wearing a “Santa Barbara” shirt is deeply insulting to certain young males in Long Beach. Maybe I was so slow I made someone angry.
But this has happened to me many times. This shout at close quarters from someone in an approaching car. It happens to others, I know, joggers and sometimes cyclists. Paul Theroux, the author, often has made mention of how total strangers often try to run him off the road, when he is cycling.
I know it as a form of sport. Well, of harassment. “Let’s see if we can make this guy jump!”
But I really wonder why it is OK to attempt to startle a stranger in this particular public setting when it would be viewed by everyone as deeply offensive in any other setting. What convergence of circumstances here makes this OK — when to shout “HEY!!” in a movie theater might get a punk punched out. Why is this OK? Why is it funny?
I really don’t know. I can only wonder.
Is there something about a jogger that is so offensive that it calls for aggressive behavior? Is a jogger threatening, on some level? Does it make a kid in a car feel guilty/inferior about not exercising today or yesterday or the day before — and want to vent that aggression on the figure that has brought up those guilt feelings?
I don’t know. If anyone understands this phenomena, I’d love to get an explanation. If you ever have been the idiot shouting at a jogger, please, enlighten me. Please. What is going through your head at that moment?
I’m just slogging along, hoping I will be done sooner than later. I have zero intent to bother or annoy or even engage anyone. So why does it make it OK, even fun, for you to shout at me or some other jogger or cyclist?
I really would like to know.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Dennis Pope // Apr 6, 2009 at 10:24 AM
As much as it pains me to say this, my friends and I used to do this sort of thing (and much worse) in high school. We’d yell and even throw things at walkers/joggers/cyclists and just giggle our little heads off. It’s not something I’m proud of, and I’ve received my share of bad karma because of it, but it was one of our favorite pasttimes the summer between junior and senior year.
Looking back, it was obviously an immature and totally insensitive thing to do but at the time it was a lot like breaking stuff for the sake of seeing it destroyed, which we also used to do. More specifically, yelling things at joggers is totally free of repercussion. Like you said, in normal circumstances, say a face-to-face encounter, doing so would probably lead to a fist fight. But if you’re in the car, you can easily escape an entanglement.
It’s like teasing the animals at the zoo.
2 bw // Apr 6, 2009 at 11:49 AM
It has happened to me both running and on my bike. Much scarier on the bike, but annoying in both cases.
I agree with Dennis that it is quick fun and highly unlikely to be punished.
Once I caught someone who did while on my bike. There were a series of stop signs that helped me out. I told them I had their license number and was reporting them. They looked scared, probably because I was so angry, more than my verbal threat. Somehow this made me feel better.
3 Ian // Apr 6, 2009 at 12:17 PM
THREADJACK: Not many people will get this, but ESPN just had the news that Pocket will be the U.S. hockey coach in the next Olympics.
Go Pocket! Stoplights for everyone!
4 David Lassen // Apr 6, 2009 at 12:17 PM
On the other hand, when i was running recently, I had a woman make a right turn on red without looking (thereby almost hitting me, since I was coming from her right). So I yelled “Hey!” really loudly through the open window on her passenger side, and she almost jumped out of her skin. The car lurched momentarily.
I was making a point, not just harrassing, but still, consider it one small payback on the part of joggers/ runners everywhere.
5 Luis // Apr 6, 2009 at 3:27 PM
When I started running, I first ran only outdoors. Then I had a bad incident where I tried for a seven-mile run but had only 4.5 in me, and stranded myself far from home. I ran almost exclusively at the gym afterward, but it’s far better to run outside. At the beginning of this year, one of my resolutions was to run outdoors twice a week, and I was doing well until about 3 weeks ago, when I got used to the ‘mill at the gym.
I’ve been trying to committ myself to running more of my runs outside. I must say, this harassment issue is not helping. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never been harassed my anything but stupid dogs, I hate dogs.
Incidentally, I’m running a half marathon at the Run Through Redlands on the 19th. You ever ran in or covered the event?
6 Luis // Apr 20, 2009 at 9:56 AM
So I ran the Redlands half-marathon on Sunday. The route was a little hilly (is that a word?) and I felt all those hills by the end. Luckily the heat wasn’t an issue early in the morning.
Finished in 2 hours 14 minutes 50 seconds. It was a good run, glad I did it.
7 John // Apr 20, 2009 at 5:02 PM
I’m glad I’m not the only one this happens to! I got yelled at while jogging just a couple of hours ago.
Actually, this happens to me about once a week (I jog 3-5 times a week). 9 times out of 10 it’s just teenagers being stupid. Occasionally, somebody will actually yell encouragement at me.
I think people yell at joggers more often where I come from (hill country) because out here, the only reason people go outside is to kill stuff.
I usually just ignore it, but if I can catch them at a stoplight, I try to mess with them a little bit. I don’t normally try to start something when I’m running, because they might have a gun in their car (it’s hill country after all), and besides, I’d have to stop running.
8 TheKing-JAK // May 16, 2009 at 10:45 PM
Welcome to the club. As Mr. Pope put it very well, my friends used to do the very same thing when I was in High School too. It’s simply an immature way to get what I call “giggles”. Honestly, it’s rarely ever meant to start a confrontation, but rather its used as a way to laugh at doing something while bored. I never did it myself, but now that I am a young adult (24), it actually irritates me beyond belief when someone either does it to me, or to someone else.
As a matter of fact, just this very night I was out walking my dog at around 1:00 AM in my neighborhood, which although it is a quiet street, we do have weekend parties every so often. As a matter of fact, there are two parties at the top of my “Cul-de-sac” right now.
Anyways, I was at the point on my street where the main road enters it, and a white SUV pulled up bumping music. It was a Pre-2006 Jeep Cherokee I believe, and it stopped at the Stop sign right across from where I stood. It then took a right turn up the hill towards where the parties were occurring, and I assumed that was where they were headed. A few minutes later the car drove down towards where I was, it skipped the exit street, and drove past me heading down towards the other end of my street (another ‘Cul-de-sac”). I was leaning over to see where my dog had just gone (It was a neighbor’s yard), and I heard someone mumble from the vehicle, then a kid said “Slow Down, Slow Down!”.
The car proceeded down the street to turn around (Obviously they knew the street well, as those whom are unfamiliar always turn into a driveway to make a U-turn), and I saw it coming back up. The car was moving a bit slower, but it was doing at least 10-15 mph even when it paused. My dog, an Alaskan Husky with Akita blood, stood rigid and quiet, simply staring the vehicle down with a silent confidence which I have never seen in her before. The vehicle rolls by, and the driver was actually leaning AWAY from his window towards the passenger side (Probably scared of my dog, as he should be). He then yells at a mid-uncommitted level “Hey, bust that dog in the A$$”, to which I promptly yelled back “F*** You”, and I waited for a reaction to see if he wanted to start something, but he shut up and sped off out of the area at a quick pace.
The wild thing that I suddenly recollected afterwards as well, especially after considering the way in which he drove (as if experienced on my street), was that I sincerely believe that I have actually witnessed the same vehicle headed towards my “Upper” Cul-de-sac many times before. I vividly recollect a White SUV of the same build, bumping the music in the same manner, headed in the same direction during both the late night hours, and more rarely during the afternoon as well. Not to mention that there lives a rather wild College aged girl in that area, and she has obviously just come back home from school (I honestly believe that I only witnessed the vehicle before whenever she was home). Also, another High Schooler who lives up there has some friends who I heard yell random taunts at individuals from a Wrangler before.
So, the bottom line is that such individuals are punks, who when challenged they would rather flee and simply “get some kicks” out of the entire thing, rather than end up in a serious confrontation. However, although I am still somewhat ticked off at the moment, which is why I am typing this (VENTING lol), I will find it extremely hilarious if I witness the SUV again. I will pull my car out in front of theirs, simply knock on the window, and calmly say: “Hey, you had something you wanted to say to my dog?”.
Thanks for the BLOG, and thanks for allowing me to vent my extreme frustration here ( I still have the adrenaline pumping over an Hour later)!
9 lee // May 18, 2009 at 1:58 PM
i think its a jealousy thing, they cant do it but wish they could so intimidate and bully others, just idiots who are jealous, its that simple!
10 Nik // Jul 1, 2010 at 11:34 AM
Well this happens to me about 2 or three times a month, which at first used to be strange but now I just accept. If it remains purely verbal, I can live with it. These retards are obviously bored with thier lives. Still, occasionaly I wonder how long before someone tries throwing something, I had a friend who was actually attempted to grab by some moron. He could have been fukin killed.
11 Carmen // Jul 16, 2010 at 2:52 PM
You think that’s bad? Try being a petite woman running on a rural road!
I’ve experienced an old lecherous farmer that slowly follows me in his “license plateless” vehicle, a yard length behind my ass, hanging his head out the window, making obscene gestures with his mouth while asking if I perform fellatio (not his exact words) Now I have to run with a stun gun (not a tazer) But, the stun gun requires touching a person with its prongs to shock them, so I also have to carry mace which has a 12 foot spray range.
Sigh… It would be nice to run with free hands and not have to worry about harassers.
12 Brandon // Jul 17, 2011 at 6:53 PM
I honestly do not understand it either. I live in a nice area and like to jog when it is cooler out and it seems as though every week this same thing happens to me. I just can’t believe that we all live in a society where people are so stupid that they have to harrass people who are minding their own business. I sincerely hope that those who like to harass joggers as a pastime reap what they sow.
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