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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2058 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 28, 2026

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Dear Emily Poast,

As I got out of my car after loading my kid into the car seat, I was accosted from behind by a boomer who accused me of scratching her car, parked next to mine. Now, I did indeed have my door touching her car, since the spot is pretty tight and even my small car's door couldn't open to the first door check before it touched the car next to it, and it was basically impossible to get into the back seat with an infant while preventing the door from opening too much.

As it turned out there was no scratch on her car but we discoursed for a few minutes on the acceptability of touching other cars with your car door in the parking lot. In my view this is perfectly acceptable, and especially in parking lots with narrow spots if you have an SUV you shouldn't expect your car to be untouchable, though of course slamming doors into cars is unacceptable. Her view was that contact is never acceptable and she informed me that she raised two kids without ever touching another car with her door.

Seeing that we had reached an impasse, I informed her that I disagreed and drove off. My wife doesn't believe I did anything wrong, but she herself would never touch another car with her door.

What do you think, Emily? Is it acceptable to touch another car with your car door?

— Well-formed

Fun analogy:

  • Harming another person: Battery

  • Touching another person in a threatening manner: Assault

  • Touching another person in a nonthreatening but offensive manner: Harassment

  • Touching another person in a nonthreatening but offensive manner in a place where such touching is effectively unavoidable (e. g., in a crowded subway car): No crime(?)

To have a pleasant society, we should not be scratching things that belong to other people. You can literally buy a pool noodle from the store, cut it down to a few inches, cut a slit in it, and keep it in the door pocket. Or even simpler, a microfiber towel. If you are in a situation where someone has parked very close to you, slip it on the door so it props nicely against their car while you attend to your child.

we should not be scratching

He specifically said that he touched the other car without scratching it.

Cars typically sit on a suspension that allows movement as the weight of the vehicle shifts. If you're loading a child into a car seat, the vehicle is shifting and micro-scratches are occurring because heavy object is in contact with another heavy object. Having clayed my car several times in the past, they will accumulate.

Now is it significant? You're probably getting more scratches driving 10 miles down the highway and having sand and rocks hitting your car. But one is caused by nothing in particular (unless the highway is dirty and unmaintained beyond reasonable standards) while the other is directly caused by someone else.

I understand the inevitable scratches and dings that take place when driving in the city. But I certainly think as individuals, we should strive not to be one the ones causing them.

I scrupulously avoid parking in areas where there might not be clear open spots with no surrounding vehicles. I'll gladly walk an extra few hundred feet to avoid the hassle.

I've also been accused of scratching a vehicle when my daughter exited the vehicle. I pointedly looked at the car, looked at the person, looked back at the car. looked back at the person, took off my sunglasses, and said "we didn't touch your car, and there is nothing there". When they looked like they were about to say something in response. I put my sunglasses back on looked down at my daughter and said "come on [daughters name]" and then took her hand and walked away.

They might have said something to me as I left, I responded "no worries" as if they'd apologized for inconveniencing me and kept walking.

OK I'll be the asshole here - When I get my kids out of the car, I make sure to put my hand between the door and someone else's car. Two pieces of steel rubbing together doesn't feel like something we should be doing, on average.

It's another reason why the American obsession with SUVs for parents sucks so bad. The sliding doors on a minivan are far superior for this use case. But no, we have to pay $15-40k more for an equivalently-capable vehicle because mommy needs to be high up on the road AND see the hood, even though she's not very good at parking :(

I am sure you didn't scratch it and I'm taking it too seriously, but I just don't touch other people's cars and I don't like people touching mine.

I appreciate your dissenting opinion. My kid is young enough that he can't get out of the car on his own, so I have to carry him out, making it pretty much infeasible to spare a hand to save the other car. I can at least feel superior for not driving an SUV.

When I get my kids out of the car, I make sure to put my hand between the door and someone else's car. Two pieces of steel rubbing together doesn't feel like something we should be doing, on average… I just don't touch other people's cars and I don't like people touching mine

Yeah, I’m a bit surprised at the nonchalance toward stochastically scratching/dinging other people’s cars. I try when parking to leave as much space as possible, and if I suspect there’s any risk of contacting the other side’s car I’ll put a hand to cover when opening my door.

Yeah, I’m a bit surprised at the nonchalance toward stochastically scratching/dinging other people’s cars.

It depends on where you live...

Some malls cheap out and use narrower spots to pack in more spaces. Combine that with more rural areas with a lot of trucks and SUVs.

You get into a situation where dinging peoples doors is a matter of when rather than if. Also you probably have a few dings on your car that no one fessed up to, so a bad reaction from the other driver seems like an overreaction.

I try when parking to leave as much space as possible

Parking space is unfortunately a zero sum game and leaving more space on one side usually means less space on the other. I suppose I leave as much space as possible by virtue of driving a car that's narrower than average.

Fellas, is it gay to touch another car with your car door?

It's not gay if the truck balls don't touch.

Only if there's eye contact.

Oh, that’s good. I know better than to make eye contact with Texas drivers. Never know who’s packing.

It is perfectly acceptable to gently touch another car with your car's door. I try to avoid it, including choosing parking spaces strategically, but it happens sometimes and it's fine.

Sure, who gives a shit.

American insanity, this entire thread.

Cars are built to handle much, much worse abuse. As long as you don't smack the next car with your door, there will be zero visible changes from leaning a door against it. Touching other cars is normal and acceptable, just take a little care with it.

If the boomer insists, we can both take photos of the crime scene and she's free to call my liability insurance. Further discussion is unnecessary.

After, she can petition the store/city to widen all the parking spaces to better fit modern SUVs. They probably haven't done that since the 80s, when cars where half a foot slimmer. That will only take a little paint, and reduce the number of spots, but by less than 10%.

Until then, I will park in any and all spots I can physically squeeze my car into.

FWIW, germans are also ultra-careful with cars and get easily angered by even the tiniest scratch, which, in their view, needs to get removed ASAP and the guilty party has to pay for it no matter how disproportionate the cost/benefit ratio. It's just what you do.

That said, touching another car is I think considered merely careless and if no scratch results, there is no problem. But I wouldn't be terribly surprised that some boomers would start loudly complaining. Again, it's just what they do.

I have been known to stand with my kids in the parking lot while my husband pulls out, to avoid touching other people's cars with my car door, but if you're the only adult in the situation, it can't necessarily be helped. She was probably just making that up about never touching another car door herself, and did but forgot.

If your car's door must touch another car in order to let you in, there is not enough space there to park safely. Drive around until you find a better parking spot, ideally three empty ones in a row so that you can safely park in the middle. Parking spots are like urinals; you don't want to be next to anybody.

If you were already parked there and she is the one who parked her car so close to yours, then it is she who is at fault.

I disagree, if you are in a city you should just accept that this sort of thing will happen occasionally and that it’s not worth getting upset about absent deliberate malice

if you are in a city you should just accept that this sort of thing will happen occasionally and that it’s not worth getting upset about

This pattern matches to the type of rhetoric people deploy when it comes to getting your car windows smashed, stepping in hobo shit, or getting hustled and bustled by Michael Jackson impersonators—that it’s part and parcel of big city living.

I do not like this argument of “that’s just living in the city bro” either but to be fair, this specific issue really does appear to be a bit of an intractable problem when you live in high-density environments - which a city necessarily is. Other things that libs hand wave as just being part of Living In Da City are clearly and obviously avoidable and to a large extent concern how people behave; East Asian cities for example lack much of the issues with violence, theft and drug use that is pervasive in many North American and some European urban cores, but there isn’t really much you can do about a physical lack of space and the sardine-like parking conditions that results from it. It may be the one context where that argument is actually applicable.

East Asian cities for example lack much of the issues with violence

Or in other words, the larger/denser the city, the more authoritarian the populace must be for it to function, for the raw density of assholes per square mile is far higher in a megatropolis than it is anywhere else on Earth.

The US is relatively unique in that, because the country doesn't generally permit itself to be completely dominated by its cities, it can't pass the laws it needs to commit to/enable functional authoritarianism like this (re: Moldbug and the lust for monarchy).

I'd actually argue city residents in the US are among the most oppressed in the world from having the policies they want, and when those people handwave this as Living In Da City, they are stating their faith in their oppression being morally correct.

Epistemic status: Stream of consciousness ramblings written at work.

Or in other words, the larger/denser the city, the more authoritarian the populace must be for it to function, for the raw density of assholes per square mile is far higher in a megatropolis than it is anywhere else on Earth.

East Asia is weird in this regard, actually. Asian city-dwellers are extremely low in NIMBYism and you generally don’t see the same kind of hyperregulation that you find in the West when it comes to zoning laws, building height restrictions, street food regulations, etc. Even when they exist, enforcement is spotty to say the least (China is a great example of a country where there’s a huge and seemingly-contradictory gulf between “the rules on paper” and “what happens in practice”; in practice many supposed infractions aren’t strongly policed on the local level). Things like road rules are for the most part regarded as just a suggestion. The result is that Asian cities are much more bustling and loud, Chinese and Southeast Asian ones in particular, and you often have to negotiate your way through a city. Mixed-use spaces are the norm; in Malaysia, China, South Korea, Vietnam and so on it’s normal to find a historic temple, a large park, a street market and a major shopping centre all right beside each other. Traffic is pretty much always wild beyond belief and motorcycles/electric scooters will wind their way through streets clogged with vendors. Generally in practice there’s also less focus on enforcing banal aesthetic matters such as trying to make sure everyone’s lawns are trimmed to the Correct Height and so on, in this sense the vibe is in some ways less authoritarian and regulated than American cities.

The way in which they are more authoritarian is in their policing of crime, in particular drug-related offences, and as a result you don’t end up seeing dealers, junkies and other such seedy shit on the streets. Their power to investigate and punish these offences is much greater than it is in the West, and often policy-makers are very mindful of ghettoisation and take serious steps to prevent it from happening. China’s hukou system, which they used to control rural inflow into the cities so as to prevent the creation of large slums during their rapid modernisation, is probably the most radical solution to that, though that system has relaxed considerably as of late. All of this is reinforced by social attitudes as well - there’s more of a competitive, hard-nosed “get to work” attitude in Asia which very much relies on pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, not relying on handouts, and staying on the straight and narrow - if you take drugs you get ostracised socially. There’s just not the same kind of self-destructive, crabs-in-a-bucket inner-city mindset you find in many Western countries. This results in a general lack of crime and bad behaviour since you don’t really end up with a large, disenfranchised, heavily substance-dependent segment of the population that goes on to cause further issues. In America there is a political push to protect this class of citizen at the expense of others, an idea which your average Asian likely would find repellent if not outright incomprehensible.

In other words Asia is both more authoritarian and more laissez-faire at the same time. You don’t have to be uniformly more authoritarian on the whole to maintain a stable society, rather, you have to be authoritarian about the right things. I have to say that I generally agree with the Asian approach on what they have chosen to prioritise and police, I like night markets, I like mixed-use spaces and hate seeing hobos crawl onto a train just to piss all over the floor, but I grew up in Asia too so perhaps I’m biased. My family travelled from Malaysia to the UK recently and were generally just appalled at the level of dysfunction in London (from what I hear, within three days they witnessed two robberies, and saw beggars in many of the shopping streets); it’s a meme here that much of Asia is low-trust but frankly the “low-trust” Asians are often shocked at the state of many Western cities.

The protected classes are a result of some combination of white guilt, egaltarianism, socialism, feminism, and christian gullibility.

Western cities are a lost cause at this point, unless there are drastic undemocratic changes which break the status quo.

if you are in a city

Found the problem.

The second problem is that this is boring middle-class conflict, but one where it is socially acceptable for the Boomer to crash out, as opposed to being knifed and mugged by a naked, masturbating fent zombie, which they are culturally obligated to pretend is vibrant and exciting.

This is a fairly popular place, so you'll be waiting until closing time to find three adjacent spots.

If you were already parked there and she is the one who parked her car so close to yours, then it is she who is at fault.

I did indeed park before she did and with no car in the spot she later parked in, but both cars were in the middle of their respective spots, so I can't fault her for parking in an open space.

If it was Trader Joe's then this was their fault. Fuck the parking spots there.

You did nothing wrong. If anyone's at fault it's ordinances and laws that mandate minimum parking bay size in your area.

When I park in those sorts of 'squeeze into your seat' spots, I'm very careful to not bump my door into theirs. In the worst case I will manually place my door against theirs very carefully and then squeeze in. There shouldn't be a way to scratch doing this unless they have a shoddy paint job.

People are crazy in that they somehow believe our code of laws are somehow actual physical laws of the universe that can never be violated, instead of just words written by fallible humans that could not foresee all possible circumstances.

I think she is a liar. I would go so far as to say I doubt not only does she not choose parking spots so carefully as to never touch another door but, also, in the event she has previously found herself in a tight spot, or been provided no other clear option such as a major event, that I also accuse this woman as having never once backed out of a spot upon identifying it as a door-touching parking spot. I dare say, based upon your account, I believe this woman likely to be a most mendacious fabricator on the nature of her past behavior.

Now, on to the general matter of door touching. Door touching is ideally carried out as a covert act done under the shroud of secrecy, such that no man may perceive the act to accuse another of significant harm to their property whether by fault or misunderstanding. In the circumstances you have laid out, were you to consider confrontation unfortunate, perhaps you may have waited to extract your child after the goblin had ambled off to carry out her fiendish acts of greed. This, however, I do not see as a just act. For if you were already in the process of removing said noble heir fit would be most proper for another to await the tying of their steed until the completion of your deed, prior to encroachment on your space.

were you to consider confrontation unfortunate, perhaps you may have waited to extract your child after the goblin had ambled off to carry out her fiendish acts of greed. This, however, I do not see as a just act. For if you were already in the process of removing said noble heir fit would be most proper for another to await the tying of their steed until the completion of your deed, prior to encroachment on your space.

Ah, but in this case I was actually loading, not unloading, my heir. I did see that the boomer's daughter was sitting in the passenger seat as I reached my car, but the driver was nowhere in sight and the daughter was locked in (airpods in and phone on), so I figured I was good to go. Certainly if the car was about to leave I'd wait for them, especially because then I could just open the door as much as I liked.

Ah, my mistake. On reexamination this only strengthens your case. She is clearly responsible for door touching situation. Last in, large vehicle. You have a right to travel the king's road as any free man. What are you to do to avoid this contact? Announce your intent 3 times?

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