The threat of unexpected violence, or being hurt, isn't without purpose in everyday life. 

Such a threat had to have compelled our ancestors to build shelters that protected them from animals or each other. In many cases, the threat of harm makes sure people act a little better than they would like to, as in the concept of MAD (no, not a buncha angry people - MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION). And of course, there's the most relatable example, childhood, which most of us would've never escaped alive without the constant possible repercussion of having our "head gon' upside of." ("Go upside your head" is blackparentese for physical discipline.) 

I don't condone violence, but living in Qatar proves to me that at the very least, people have to feel like they MIGHT suffer physical repercussions for the nonsense they wish to inflict on others. Because the level of passive-aggression, mostly but not exclusively, expressed through car culture is nearly intolerable. 

Knowing that most people, especially ex-pats, won't respond with violence when someone tries to blind you with their lights, cut in front of you on line or speaks to you like you're beneath them, predictably makes the people here behave very boldly. I've found that a little threat of menace goes a long way - crowding the space of someone I feel is being rude to me, leaning far forward on the desk of someone who's providing me customer service, giving a hip/elbow/shoulder bump to someone who wants to stand in my way, glaring at people or way longer than they've ever been glared at, pulling out my phone and taking video of people who do stupid things, etc. This is me losing it on Instagram lol:

"This is how it sometimes is with herbs out here. (Yes I called him a herb like its NY in 1993.) Flashes me with his high beams over and over, then changes lanes so he can speed around and then in front of me like a jerk, only to end up parallel to me at the light. So I slowed down to see what's on this punk's mind. He gets a look at my face and things change. He won't move up behind the car in front of him and keeps a huge space just so he doesn't have to be right on the side of me. Because he's scared I'm going to say or do something. What a vagina. In these parts, my car tells him that I'm probably an indentured laborer, and guys in his type of car think that they can treat guys who usually drive my type of car any way they want to. It's always interesting to see how things change up once my window goes down and they see a dude like me driving and hear some French Montana coming at them. All of that luxury SUV-gangsta somehow disappears."

This isn't the better version of me, I know. And this isn't my complete existence here. My experience here has been way more good than bad, but this post comes from a place of frustration. I've been better, I am better, I will be better. For the most part. Deportation isn't on my to-do list. But it it happens, well...I may have given you a heads up haha.