Since moving here to Connecticut from Michigan, it has taken me more than a year to thoroughly examine what I see out here regarding how the people interact with each other. And even longer to form honest and accurate correlations with what I am used to.
Back there I have a whole lot of friends, and we are pretty tight. There are a lot of interactions that I guess are considered to be brutal by the standards that people from Connecticut hold to. For example:
My Michigan friends and I go to a bar. We are laughing and drinking and having a great, loud time. All of a sudden, a well known (to us) shitbag takes up residence at an adjacent table. And the shitbag is sittin' over there and he shitbaggin' and baggin' shit like shitbags are prone to do.
Me or any one of my friends would leap into action like Clark Kent in the presence of evil. A likely conversation started might be, "Hey shitbag, no one over here likes you, shut your mouth and take you bags to the other side of the bar."
Shitbag will likely respond, "Fuck you very much, I don't like you either. And your momma's glasses are so thick, when she looks at a map she sees people wavin'!"
To which we will reply, "Bite our collective cranks, shitbag. Your momma's so ugly they renamed Halloween, 'Yo-momma-ween.'"
So after the proper giving and receiving or momma jokes and cursing, shitbag will move to a more respectful distance. The boundary lines are clearly drawn, everyone knows the mind of everyone else, no confusion and no need for pretense.
Now let's take a look at how these things happen more often over here:
Connecticut people are at the bar, and a shitbag shows up. Several people stand up and shake the shitbag's hand saying things like, "Hey there buddy! How ya doin'? Say, you know all the shitbaggin' you been doin'? My fault, really. All on me."
Shitbag will respond, "Yeah, thanks for the apology, buddy. In truth, my shitbagginess has mostly to do with other people. It isn't my fault."
To which people here will com back with, "Yeah, you're right."
After that, the shitbag will part company, resume an adjacent table seat, while everyone at both tables has to be on guard with what they say for the rest of the evening. Everyone hates each other, and themselves. They generally have a horrible time, get a little too drunk, drive home and smash their car into a cement mixer. The cement mixer careens into a ditch and slams into two powerlines. Surges are rampant, a hospital loses power and dozens die. Feeling distress, many doctors kill themselves and one goes postal. He studies the nuclear bomb creation plan so thoroughly explained in the movie, "The Manahttan Project," and creates his own nuclear device. Seeing no other alternative, he destroys or contaminates half the eastern seaboard. Millions more die, and sensing the U.S.'s weakened position, the rest of the world launches an all out nuclear attack. A holocaust ensues, and 5000 years from now the last remnants of our race crawl from the caves to gaze upon the sun once again. These horribly mutated creatures, who now refer to themselves as 'spidorac,' quickly succumb to the ravages of the now savage Earth.
So, good job people of Connecticut. You destroyed the human race. You destroyed it with tact.
The long and short of it is, I like my way better.