Dancing Douche

I went to a concert last night. It must be a law of the universe that at every concert, there is one douchebag who absolutely must dance and scream ten times more demonstratively than anyone else there, just to make sure everyone knows how passionate they are about the music. How it just gets inside them and fills them up with an exuberance no one else could possibly understand. Another law of the universe is that these people must always be standing right next to me.

It's not like I was at a U2 show, or some artist that this guy was a lifelong fan of or anything. It was just a three person band at a bar featuring an electric guitar virtuoso named Tim Reynolds. But this guy was behaving like he was in Jesus Christ's audience. Jumping up and down, waving his arms around in hippie formations, screaming lame-isms at the top of his lungs like "IT IS ON! IT IS ON!!!" or "GOOD TO SEE YOU SIR! GOOD TO SEE YOU!!!" when the performer predictably said "Good to see you all tonight."

He made it borderline impossible for me to focus on watching the show. At one point, he waved his arms around directly in my face. "Bro," I said to him, "Try and keep it contained a little bit." When that song ended, he apologized to me. "I don't mean to be bumping into you, man. I'm just kind of a spaz, and I enjoy me the shit outta some shredding guitar!"

"Yeah," I said. "The thing is, you kind of are bumping into me a lot."

"Well, it's a concert. There's plenty of room, I'm just having a good time."

"There's not plenty of room. It's pretty crowded. I'm just saying, take it down a notch," I requested.

"Just calm down," a girl nearby chimed in, piggybacking on my complaint. My confidence grew that I had the crowd on my side. But then he got a little indignant. "It's a concert, man," he argued.

"I know it's a concert," I replied. "But you're the only one here who's jumping around and bumping into me."

"I don't care if I'm the only one. Just enjoy the show, man. Just enjoy the show," he suggested to me.

"I'm trying to enjoy the show. Believe me, I'm trying," I said.

"Okay. I don't mean to intrude on you having a good time," he said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"I appreciate it." That was pretty much the end of that. After this conversation, he toned down his dancing idiocy about 25%, which was enough for me to ignore him, for the most part. Which leads me to the important conclusion that, more often than not, you should confront douchebags when their douchiness is spoiling your fun. Otherwise you'll just stew in your anger, and their unacceptable behavior will continue to go unchecked.