lifts

My female owner has been wondering about social conventions with regards to car-owners sending people home. It seems as if different people have different concepts.

It all started when her friend bought a car. Unless something crops up, he never failed to send my female owner home no matter what time of the day/ night it was. It puzzled my female owner, coz she always felt that getting a lift home is a privilege, not a right, even if you are a girl and it is past midnight. When she asked him why he always sends people home, he expressed the view that he thought that those with cars (unclear if he was referring to guys only) have a duty to send people home. Although my female owner feels pai-say at the inconvenience she caused to her friend (since they don’t live near each other), she has learnt to accept his kind gestures.

Anyway, and then, she observed that there are guys who do not offer to send anyone (including girls) even though it is past midnight. They only give lifts to people who live nearby (i.e. “by the way” concept) or girls they like or if bo-pian (i.e. someone is drunk). My female owner has no problems with this.

There are other guys who do not actively offer to send you home, but would send you home, if behaviourally you assume that he is going to send you home (e.g. follow him to his car), or if you are too drunk. If you explicitly say that you are going home by yourself (e.g. coz it is out of his way), he is happy to allow you to go back on your own, but would follow-up with smses to check that you are home. Again, this is not an issue for my female owner.

In Brisbane, things work differently. People are usually happy to give you a lift home (even if it is out of the way) or drop you somewhere convenient. Things are even more well-organised among her church friends. Because only a few own cars, there will be a transport I/C who would be tasked to organise car-pools if the group is going out for activities (e.g. meals or outings). The drivers would be responsible for driving his passengers to the location and most often, sending the same passengers back to their homes. My female owner had problems adapting to that kind of arrangements when she first arrived. It was as if there was an unspoken rule that those with cars were required to ferry people around. Although my female owner was sure that majority did it out of love for their friends, she was conscious of not taking such lifts for granted. I mean, it is such a privilege to have your transport needs taken care of by someone. No need to use the undependable public transport system!