> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A gene pool problem? LA breeds the self-absorbed
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/a-gene-pool-problem-la-breeds-the-self-absorbed/
- Published: 2004-08-31T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:49:35.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Venice, #archive-import

*By IN LA BY HEIDI MANTEUFFEL*

Life is too short to be pissed off by crappy people and yet that’s what I spend most of my time thinking about. People who usurp your turn at a stop sign, cut in line at the super market with six months worth of groceries, and blare their horn at you when they almost kill you and your family so they can make it through the three-second stale red light.

I can give you a running example from even this week. Let’s see... there was the lady who had to try every frickin’ flavor at the Yogurt Factory on Santa Monica Boulevard. She bought three larges, but added them on every time the cashier rang one up. Then she asked for 50 cents worth of chocolate sprinkles instead of paying the full 80 cents (I know), and then paid for it in slow motion with loose change — “10 cents … 15 cents,” as even the cashier rolled her eyes. Or the woman who held up the entire line in Von’s for five minutes because she wanted to know about prune juice. Why is there no prune juice when she specifically asked there’d be more prune juice on Monday. Oh, I don’t know … because the demand of prune juice is equal to the number of people who saw Doris Day movies when they were actually in the theater.

And then there were those bicyclists in unneeded tight spandex, as there are every week I drive around Venice and Santa Monica. I don’t understand how people so fit can’t seem to peddle the extra two feet to the sidewalk. So by default, they impede traffic with their right to be treated as a car. But while they cuss when they’re almost hit by a Ford Taurus at night, they disregard red lights because they’re not actually a car and cuss at you again when you take this right away from them. It’s like a bad girlfriend, and I say make up your mind and get rid of the Richard Simmons shorts.

Before I moved to LA, I don’t remember fearing for my life when I entered an open intersection, expecting to be cut off, almost run into, or turned in front of when there’s no green arrow in the other direction. Now, I have to factor this in to my everyday driving. I seem to remember people waiting their turn, stopping at red lights, and not using the SUV card to plow in front of my little compact that wouldn’t make it out of the cat fight alive.

So I guess my question is, why are there so many zeros in Southern California as the Volkswagen commercial eludes to, and is it really unique to just LA?

Yes, yes it is. I’m not saying you won’t find people that suck anywhere in the U.S. As seen, people can be jerks from anywhere, but there really is a large concentration of them right in LA. But I wonder if people in the Midwest are better or worse than I remembered. I especially wondered this because my car gets blocked in once a week by some “unknowing” neighbor. But when a man pulled off the road in upper Wisconsin this summer so we could pass, and then smiled and waved us through, it was hard not to notice the subtle difference.

So I guess the real question is, why do people suck specifically in LA? As part of the human genome project, scientists have completed a study of subjects in different locations across the U.S., cross-referenced demographics within these various sites, and have repeatedly found the “me” gene is abnormally dominant in Southern California patients, specifically within Los Angeles parameters.

Actually, no they haven’t, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could blame science? Science spilled the prune juice in the hall, I swear. The plain fact is a lot of people are self-focused in LA and it doesn’t take an IQ over 120 to figure that out.

My guess is that to make it in a place where $100,000 houses go at $1 million, and rent can take half to three-fourths of a month’s salary, you have to be a little driven. If you’re going to make it in LA, you have to be focused on your job, your finances and your personal situation. The second you lose your focal point, you could start to run out of resources and possibly have to move back to where you came from. If people slack off at their jobs, there’s also the fact that 75 other people searching for employment can quickly take their place. With these odds, you don’t always have the liberty of worrying about someone else’s job or situation in LA, although it’d be nice if you did.

And for the most part, people who have made it into the high-paying jobs and $3 million houses had to bring themselves up by their bootstraps as much as anyone else. I’m guessing that this same drive and self-determination they possessed at one time is still very much alive today, helping them to stay and succeed at the present point they find themselves at.

It’s not that there aren’t nice people here. I just think it takes a special person to make it in LA, which can drive some of the nicer people away. So while this frustrates me as I currently can’t get online (as we discovered someone’s stealing my Internet), I notice that I’m still here in LA, and I’m not sure what that says about me. (Heidi Manteuffel is a resident of Santa Monica, a freelace writer, an advertising fool and a lover of pug dogs. Ask anybody. To reach her, e-mail to).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 31, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/083104.pdf?ref=smdp.com)