Thoughts on Douchebaggery or To Douchebag Is to Be Human

Yesterday, I was having lunch with some family when I commented that there were a lot of douchebags at the Taco House.  Lots and lots of future soccer moms who are too tan, with acrylic fingernails, wearing PINK brand sweatpants and driving SUVs.  Several grown men who were also too tan wearing popped collared Abercrombie t-shirts, sunglasses (it was overcast) with spiked hair.  You know, mini Jon and Kates (yes, I brought up the Gosselins, you may hate me now). 

My 16-year-old nephew had noticed it too and informed me that the 13^th Commandment is “Thou shall not commit douchebaggery”.  I laughed, asked him what the 11^th and 12^th Commandments were (he didn’t know) and left it as is.  But, then later, when I got home, I started thinking to myself (because my brain is always going), “What is a “douchebag”, really?”

Now I know what a literal douche bag is (I am a woman, after all) but I wanted to know what being a “douchebag” meant in the modern, social sense.  So, I started my quest to find this answer, where else, at Urbandictionary.com where there were several definitions, but one I thought seemed to summarize the rest:

“A douchebag is a pretentious, sugar coated prick, but with emphasis on pretentious and sugar coated.”

So, to paraphrase, a douchebag is someone who thinks they are better than everyone else.  Or, at least, someone we believe thinks they are better than everyone else. 

With this definition in mind we can start to think of a plethora of types of douchebags: corporate douchebags, hipster douchebags, wine-tasting douchebags, law douchebags, reporter douchebags, artistic douchebags, environmental douchebags, fat douchebags, skinny douchebags, religious douchebags, atheist douchebags…

We can also think of places where douchebaggery happens: on the subway (or other public transit), in restaurants, at work, at school, at the post office, at the grocery store, in your front lawn, in your neighbors lawn, your car, on blogs, on social networking sites, on the phone, in letters…

And when you start listing these things out you realize something: douchebags are everywhere. 

So, if being a douchebag is such a bad thing, why does it permeate every part of our lives? 

Because everyone is a douchebag.

You read that right. Everyone. Is. A. Douchebag.  Me, you, your mom and dad, your grandparents, the librarian, your teacher…everyone.  Because the moment we start labeling others as being douchebags, we become a douchebag. 

When I labeled those people at Taco House as being douchebags, I was becoming the pretentious one.  I had decided I was better than them because I didn’t need to wear labels and primp myself to go to a greasy Tex-Mex restaurant.

To be fair, they had probably decided that they were better than me due to my appearance.  I’m not blaming them.  This is human nature, we judge others by their appearance, partially to protect ourselves, but also so we can seek out others like ourselves.  I had no interest in being their friend; they had no interest in being mine.

To be a douchebag is to be a human. 

Whether we like it or not.