In
a moment, I’m going to admit something that I find funny, which
I also look at and in hindsight I’m not particularly proud of.
What you need to understand is that even my father recognizes
that sometimes I can be a jackass.
The
reality is that I believe the very best of opinions and guidance
has, at its foundation, nuggets of truth that can be applied in
multiple situations and across generations.
“Don’t
talk to strangers” is an incredibly sweeping and vague statement,
while at the same time being simple, direct and valuable. Sweeping
and vague? Sure. Anyone you don’t know is a stranger. Some of
them are quite wonderful people. Between professional needs and
personal encounters, there are all sorts—bordering on endless
sorts—of reasons you actually need to talk to strangers. Simple,
direct and valuable? Absolutely.
“Don’t
talk to strangers” is one of the very first lessons any of us
has drilled into our thoughts and actions as we grow up. As the
world finds us all—willingly if not tentatively—increasing our
journeys into the unknowns of cyberspace and digital interactions
and artificial creations, such a warning should be taken to heart
more than ever.
“Don’t
talk to strangers” continues as good advice.
(Here’s
my admission.)
Back
in my first days of internet use, and we’re going back more than
twenty-five years, I took the recommendation of a friend and wandered
into a chatroom with a sports base for the discussion theme. It
was really amazing at the time, though by today’s standards it
was slow and clunky.
Eventually
someone arrived in the room and started heckling us. Here are
just the basics of three phrases I recall quite well:
“Hey
boys, surprised to see a girl here?”
“You
boys are boring, no wonder you don’t have any women in your
lives.”
“I
have to know. Do you come to places like this because you can’t
find a woman that will talk to you, or, do women not talk to
you because you come to places like this?”
Those
are the right ideas, but perhaps not the exact words that were
used. Someone, self-identifying as a woman, had joined our sports
chat group with no intentions beyond badgering us.
To
this day, I have no knowledge of the true identity. Could have
been a woman. Could have been a man. Might have been an adult
with nothing better to do. Might have been an unsupervised child.
There’s likely a place in the multiverse where the person was
a prince from a foreign country looking for assistance in moving
a vast sum of money that was testing us before offering to make
one of us very rich.
The
badgering continued.
Eventually
a few people began to engage with her. The basic back and forth
involved inviting her to join our topic of conversation or step
aside, trying to find out why she was hammering on us, and requests
to leave. Her response was—of course—a massive apology for her
inconsiderate actions, wishes for us to have a good day, and she
cheerfully joined our discussion and became a wonderful ongoing
presence to later get togethers.
You
know that wasn’t her response at all. Like a child that knows
mom and dad have no intention of turning the car around that suddenly
is given proof she’s annoying the other riders in the backseat,
she ramped up her attacks. Eventually, this comment arrived:
“Hey,
boys. I feel sorry for all of you. I’m going to help you out.
Did you know that a lot of the girls you meet on the internet
aren’t girls? This is true. They’re sweaty, lonely, pathetic
men like each one of you. So, if you want to know if you are
actually talking to a girl, ask her what size pantyhose she
wears.”
We
are now at the part of the story where I join it, and do something
I’ve always to a small degree regretted. I responded to her:
“What
size do you wear?”
That
question earned me a two-word response from her that featured
one word that I won’t repeat here. (The second word… “you”… is
the word I will share.) It also had the additional bonus of generating
cheers from the other folks in the chatroom, followed by our new
friend leaving.
There
are times when I think about that exchange… about that comment…
and I’m not proud. But the reality of the situation was that I
was dealing with an abusive stranger. A stranger that was gleefully
violating the unwritten rules we’re all taught early on.
“Don’t talk to strangers.”
I
don’t think of it often. In those times that I do, it’s almost
always when I find myself questioning an approach from someone
that I was never expecting to reach out my way. Someone I didn’t
know and still don’t know. Someone looking to take advantage of
me. Someone who made clear their only intentions were humiliation
and pain. Which leads to a piece of advice from me.
I
won’t feel bad about, nor will I apologize for, actions of mine
that offend someone that intendeds nothing for me but ill will
and harm.
And
neither should you.
Doesn’t
mean you’re cruel. I’m not recommending violence. I believe in
kindness, compassion and understanding for all. But I’ve also
arrived at a point in my life where I recognize that pleasing
everyone is not possible, and I believe that’s a one-hundred-percent
universal and unalterable truth.
Sometimes
you need to let a person be miserable on their own, off to the
side of the road, because that’s where they want to be and have
made the decision to be. Sometimes you need to move away from
them in order to really appreciate and enjoy that path you’re
on. And so, I say again…
I
won’t feel bad about, nor will I apologize for, actions of mine
that offend someone that intendeds nothing for me but ill will
and harm.
And
neither should you.