Idiot Men

Yesterday was my last longish run before the half marathon. I was going to go 5 miles. I planned a downhill route because the first 5 of the marathon is downhill and I wanted to see what it was going to feel like and how fast I could do it. Anyway it was all a huge mistake, and I realized in the first 5 minutes that I had pushed way too hard yesterday and I was probably not going to finish the 5 miles, much less go fast. But I didn't have my cell phone and it didn't occur to me to turn around and go home, so I just struck up a slow and steady pace and before long I was doing ok. I was miserable but holding up.
The whole time I have been training for this half marathon in the area where I live, there has been almost a complete lack of the kind of behavior I used to put with in Phoenix when I went walking or tried to run. The behavior I speak of is people driving past in cars and throwing things out of their windows, or hollering at me, swerving in my direction, etc. I was so pleased with the fact I hadn't had to deal with any of that, and I thought how much nicer Tucson is than Phoenix. Until yesterday.
I was already having a bad time, and about 2 miles or so into the run a truck drove by in the opposite direction and someone hollered. I am not sure what they said but I'm pretty sure it wasn't flattering. Then I got to the part of the route that I have never run on before. It's down a kind of busy road but there is plenty of dirt on the side of the road to run in. I was hobbling along and right behind me a car slams on their brakes hard enough to send a large puff of smoke right in my face and make a sound loud enough to scare the living daylights out of me. Then they drove off laughing.
There have also been positive things happen on my runs. I get thumbs up, people honk and wave, fellow runners go by and wave and sometimes smile.
Here's the thing: My experience has been that whenever someone is rude it has been a younger male or males - late teens to twenties. Every single time. The hollering. The throwing of objects out the window. The guy at the Domino's who wouldn't give me water. Yesterday with the screeching tires. Every. Single. Time.
The women are the ones that honk and wave. When a fellow woman runs by, she is the one that smiles at me. (There is a man every now and then too, and they have always been my age or older.)
So I wonder why these men (and I use the term loosely) behave this way. Is it because they see a 200-lb woman, out of her element and clearly struggling, but successfully doing something tougher than they have ever done in their pathetic lives? Is it because they still mentally operate like 12-year-olds and they still have the childish need to feel superior, and the only way they can do that is to make someone else feel bad? Maybe they just have small dicks? Maybe they just are small dicks. I don't know. What I do know is that those are the times I see the meanest behavior my little corner of the world has to offer. And it happens at the times in my life when I am most vulnerable - huffing and puffing down that road under the power of my own two feet, sweating and pushing myself every step of the way.
But, the bottom line is, a little encouragement goes a very long way. And the meanness, well, it's just never going to break me.