Why are people so purposefully rude and ignorant?

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For example today a van driver stopped next me while I was walking on the pavement and asked me the directions to somewhere. I politely told him I don't know it and he shouted thanks for nothing and sped off. A few minutes later he drives past me again on another road and honks his horn at me while staring at me with a menacing look.

A few days before that there was a man with a thick Scottish accent standing next to the bus stop. He was mumbling something about the buses being late and all of a sudden started shouting "F**ing ignorant" while looking directly at me. Everyone else moved away and he just keep repeating obscenities at me. I had to move away too. I then looked back a while later and he was still there being normal and a woman and a little girl were standing close to him.

From what I can deduce the first guy thought I was lying when I said I didn't know where his destination was and the second guy asked me the bus time but I didn't hear him. I assumed he was talking to the man that was closer to him. Why are they so ignorant to assume their first deduction of a situation can be the only conclusion. Are they really so full of themselves? If so, why do they act so purposefully mean toward folk at the slightest things? Are they overcome with such animalistic thought processes and incapable of logic? If that's the case it's really quite sad don't you think? Humanity never really evolved that much after all

As someone who drives quite a lot I see rude and ignorant all the time. What gets me the most is when I stop to give way to someone or let them pull out etc and they don't give a little wave or flash their lights to say thanks, takes no effort at all to do.

I have only ever encountered behaviour like this in the UK. I broke my leg years ago, took an extremely long time to start walking again and ended up with a very abnormal gait. I received abuse galore for it - always from men and (teenage) boys, never from women or girls. I'm only half-British, so I spend a lot of time outside the UK. When I moved back to the Continent, I was fully expecting the same ableist abuse as I got in the UK, and was pleasantly surprised when it never came. So my $0.02 is that it's not "people" in general behaving like that, it's British men.

Those people are very rude and there is no excuse for their behaviour. If I had people do that to me, I'd feel upset too.

I remember a few years ago I was walking in the street with my mum and a disabled woman in a wheelchair was coming towards us. The path was narrow so I went ahead of my mum a few steps then stepped aside to kindly let the disabled woman by. I gave a little friendly smile but she glared at me. I figured she was just that sort and I ignored it, but then I heard her say "hello" to my mum. I asked my mum is she knew her but she said no. So I don't know how a person could act hostile towards one stranger then be totally friendly to another stranger. It was hard not to take that personally.

It seems she saw your mum as roughly an equal, but you definitely as an inferior, so she made a point not to let anyone get the wrong impression.

By the way, I'm sure there's no shortage of places on the continent to find behaviors like those pointed out by the OP. Perhaps not in some extremely civilized areas of the continent.

Those people are only thinking about themselves, not your feelings. And we're the ones with "no empathy"

Wow, those men have issues. I hate rude people.

Um! So let me get this right , these people are ignorant because you deduced their first deduction to be the only conclusion.

And what does that tell you about human nature? That it’s easy to invalidate us as unfeeling excuses for human beings and get away with it, so who cares if the alleged reason to invalidate us is false!

Exactly this! Maybe the guy at the bus stop was having a really bad day, and yes it wasn't right to take it out on you but we all lose our temper on occassion. Maybe he was autistic and the bus being late disturbed him and he didn't know how to express himself about it.

I don't understand the actions of the guy asking for directions, it doesn't make sense to me. But I have learnt that not everyone is taught the same kind of manners growing up; not everyone is as intelligent, and if someone has been treated badly they will come to expect people's motives to be bad.

So they might not be purposefully ignorant- they are just ignorant but it's not on purpose. Same with rudeness. I believe my Asperger's gives me a strong sense of logic, but not everyone has that same sense. And in order for logic to work, you have to have the right facts to base it on, so when someone's behaviour seems illogical may be either we don't know all the factors influencing them or they do not have all the right facts to lead them to the same conclusion that we would reach.

That being said there are people who are deliberately rude, but I certainly don't think it's true for the majority.

The guy at the bus stop seemed like he has issues , nobody shouts at strangers at a bus stop unless they have an internal conflict going on.

The guy who asked for directions sounds like he was at the end of his rope ( he was probably late and maybe had already asked someone who didn't know the directions ).

I am not saying these actions are acceptable , I am just offering you an alternative view and possible reasons for their behaviour - you are not at fault.

I have an anxiety disorder so my 'bad days' are even worse than a general 'bad day' for an NT, but I still would never shout and swear at a stranger.

^ I think that, sometimes, having to deal with constant anxiety (and "passing" for those that do it) teaches us a degree of self-control that a lot of other people don't seem to develop. Most of the time, I can behave in a perfectly polite and demure way even when I'm absolutely seething inside - my rage only becomes apparent when I'm a hair's breadth away from a melt-down.

^ I internalise almost everything which has been a huge detriment to my mental health. I'm pretty sure if I was able to express myself and talk things through ( yeah right ) I wouldn't of suffered all these years.

I don't think I've ever had a meltdown but think they might of helped in a strange way if I had.

When someone is at the end of their rope and lashes out at you, it doesn't matter whether their actions are "acceptable"; it matters whether you can defend yourself.