Hi, this happened some time ago but it made me wonder whether people take advantage of young people/teenagers because of their age and supposedly “lack of life experience” that people like to target for.
About 2 months ago, my friend and I went bowling at a nearby SAFRA and we got a bowling lane beside some “professional” bowlers (they had their own bowling balls and shoes etc?).
So basically we were in lane i.e. 22, they were in 23 and a group of middle-aged adults were in lane 24.
Everything was fine until this 40-50 year old man came up to us and said we should lower our noise level and take turns to bowl, because apparently we were a distraction to their “professional” bowling.
I really don’t understand how we affected them, because lane 24 people were much more disruptive and the bowling alley in general is noisy af, I don’t know what else they were expecting because they went to a public bowling alley during peak hours.
We didn’t comply and the old man came back to us and said “i thought i asked you to bowl alternatively?” and my friend replied with “how are we distracting you?”.
He told him to open his god forsaken eyes, asked my friend to shut up and threatened to slap him.
We were two broke students trying to have fun during the holidays and he decided to intimidate us into complying although he didn’t make the same request to the other lane beside him.
Are there any other cases of adults taking advantage of young teenagers?
Netizens’ comments
- Bowling etiquette is a thing. However, they booked a lane for themselves, not the whole alley. Hence, they are entitled to that lane, and not the other lanes. Distracting? Too bad, this is not their private event.
- The short answer is yes, some older folks will try to “assert dominance” using their age, especially if they see that you’re young and less likely to talk back to them.
As you said, there was a larger group of middle-aged bowlers in the lane beside them that was making more noise, yet he chose to pick on you and your friend instead. My guess is that he was frustrated by the distractions around him, but couldn’t confront the group of middle-aged bowlers, thus he went for the easier targets, i.e. 2 teenagers, then boosted his ego by telling your friend to shut up and threatening to slap him.
A typical narcissist, in my opinion. - It’s actually normal bowling etiquette to alternate (let the guy on left or right, I can’t remember which, throw first if there’s conflict) so you don’t distract each other
- If uncle want to fight, tell him come outside we settle