It doesn’t matter one bit whether you think someone should think it through the way you would. People routinely disappoint on that front, and it’s almost always because people have expectations that are closer to their own experience and thought process than they realize.

Personal anecdote, for your judgy amusement: a couple weeks ago I fell hard on the pavement of a very busy arterial road. I was running behind schedule, hurriedly looking for a chance to beat the crosswalk signals if there was a safe gap in traffic. I was paying attention to the height of the curb as I went, because it’s unusually high off the road at one intersection then gradually gets closer to a normal height in the course of a block. Trouble is, I wasn’t paying close enough attention, and I misjudged the height by about a foot.

I stepped into the road in a gap in traffic, but there wasn’t anything under my foot when I stepped down. Before I know it, I was sprawled out on the street, gratefully with a busted up hand not a busted up head. And more gratefully, with an audience sitting at the next red light, not still traveling towards where I fell.

I was, indeed, embarrassed by all of this. And any one of the people who saw it happen surely could have called me stupid. Maybe they even did, but I’m happy they kept it to themselves at the time. I realized my error as soon as it happened. What good would have come of insulting me on top of that?