Friday, January 16, 2009
Not interested
I consider this a "warts and all" blog about myself. I will (and have) post about things that may not put me in a very good light. I'm not ashamed to say that I am human; I have flaws; I make mistakes.This week is an example. I'm hoping that people will feel free to comment, pro, con, or indifferent, on this. G'head, I'm an adult and responsible for my own actions.
I've written about Old Barfy before, the guy that mooches off my neighbor and sits on her front porch, a 40 in his hand, smoking like a chimney.
A couple of nights ago, as I was walking up to my front door, he approached me. "Hey, Brian," he said. I ignored him. "Brian, hey, Brian," he kept repeating. I ignored him until he was almost next to me. Finally I looked over my shoulder at him. I stood on my front porch, facing the door, key in hand and, basically, my back to him.
"Do you have fluorescent lights in your kitchen?"
"Why?" I said. Not "yes" or "no" but "why?" Can you tell I don't like him?
"W-well," he stammered, paused, and continued, "We've got a bulb out, and I bought a replacement tube, but it don't work." His words were a bit slurred around his lack of teeth and his apparent blood-alcohol level. "I was thinkin' I could try it in your fixture, if you've got the same kind as we do..."
"Ask Chris," I said, flatly. Chris is the landlord. He's actually very helpful, I thought. Why wouldn't you ask the landlord for help like that?
"Oh, well, I didn't wanna bug him. I just thought..."
"Or take it back to the store."
"I, I mean, I don't... I don't have eight dollars to blow on a light bulb, y'know!"
I said nothing further. Still wasn't my problem.
"Oh, well... nevermind." He hunched over and went back to the stoop of the apartment he shared with my next door neighbor.
I went inside, fuming. Why does he continue to talk to me? I resent his attention. I just want him to leave me alone. Is that so hard to understand?
I did not want him in my apartment, not at all. I've seen him digging in other people's garbage. He's shown a level of interest in me and my things that makes me feel creeped out. He keeps a shopping cart in the narrow strip of yard behind my building, and fills it with bottles that he cashes in regularly. One Saturday morning I woke up, opened the curtains to see the sun - and there was Old Barfy, messing around with his scrounged cans. He immediately ducked down to avoid being seen.
Yes, he's shown some compassion for my problems in the past - particularly with regard to Smacky, my cat, who went missing last year. Yes, O.B.'s son died in Iraq, and I think one of the worst tragedies in human existence is a parent who outlives their children.
But when he talks to me, I feel a skin-crawling need to get away. I can't avoid him enough. And the fact that his contribution to the neighborhood is to sit for hours on end, drinking, or collecting cans for the nickle deposit, or that he was apparently evicted a year or two ago but managed to talk a lonely old lady into sympathizing with him enough to take him in, like a stray... He can do what he wants, and other people can respond to him as they want.
Me, I just want him to leave me alone.
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Since you invited comments and all ... I don't think this puts you in a bad light.
I have a rule for myself: when it comes to strangers (and to creeps who aren't quite strangers -- we all have our share of those by dint of living in The Big City) I will *never* allow their feelings to outweigh mine. If I feel creeped out / intimidated / uneasy whatever, and I perceive that that means I need to be a bit of an abrupt, rude, unkind ass, then so be it. If their feelings are hurt, so be it. There are worse things -- far worse things -- than can happen to a person in this world than a little rudeness from someone they don't know or barely know.
If someone's life or health is on the line, the balance shifts. Probably. (I am not a savior, either.)
Maybe a better way to express the rule: I am not required to make others comfortable. I do not owe niceness to the world. I am not concierge or hospitality fixer to a world full of mutual strangers and quasi-strangers.
The human relationship in which "I do a little extra to make you feel good about things" exists at a deeper level, something closer to friendship. And it is *mutual.* This means, at minimum, that Barfy needs to recognize that he's a creepy presence to you. If he can't or won't face that, he's not even doing the least he can do toward establishing the deeper bond he seems to want.
This world is rife with confidence games and confidence gamers. They're looking for that benefit of the doubt to be given -- that's their 'in.' Anyone who doesn't recognize that -- or pretends not to understand that -- is either a gamer himself, or socially retarded. The sincere person who recognizes that will do whatever possible to avoid seeming like a common schemer. It really isn't so hard. I'll bet you don't come off as a common schemer, and do so without staggering conscious effort. Yes? I manage it. It's actually quite easy.
So, in plainer terms, I'm "sorry" (not really) if someone is "offended" that I lock my doors at night because it suggests I don't trust whatever might walk by. I *don't* trust whatever might walk by, and I refuse to feel bad about that. It's not rudeness, it's realism. But if push comes to shove and someone wants to call it rudeness, then fine. Label accepted.
Sorry to rattle on this way -- it's a topic I've thought about dammnear endlessly given that I ride the MAX daily and otherwise interact in The Big City.
I have a rule for myself: when it comes to strangers (and to creeps who aren't quite strangers -- we all have our share of those by dint of living in The Big City) I will *never* allow their feelings to outweigh mine. If I feel creeped out / intimidated / uneasy whatever, and I perceive that that means I need to be a bit of an abrupt, rude, unkind ass, then so be it. If their feelings are hurt, so be it. There are worse things -- far worse things -- than can happen to a person in this world than a little rudeness from someone they don't know or barely know.
If someone's life or health is on the line, the balance shifts. Probably. (I am not a savior, either.)
Maybe a better way to express the rule: I am not required to make others comfortable. I do not owe niceness to the world. I am not concierge or hospitality fixer to a world full of mutual strangers and quasi-strangers.
The human relationship in which "I do a little extra to make you feel good about things" exists at a deeper level, something closer to friendship. And it is *mutual.* This means, at minimum, that Barfy needs to recognize that he's a creepy presence to you. If he can't or won't face that, he's not even doing the least he can do toward establishing the deeper bond he seems to want.
This world is rife with confidence games and confidence gamers. They're looking for that benefit of the doubt to be given -- that's their 'in.' Anyone who doesn't recognize that -- or pretends not to understand that -- is either a gamer himself, or socially retarded. The sincere person who recognizes that will do whatever possible to avoid seeming like a common schemer. It really isn't so hard. I'll bet you don't come off as a common schemer, and do so without staggering conscious effort. Yes? I manage it. It's actually quite easy.
So, in plainer terms, I'm "sorry" (not really) if someone is "offended" that I lock my doors at night because it suggests I don't trust whatever might walk by. I *don't* trust whatever might walk by, and I refuse to feel bad about that. It's not rudeness, it's realism. But if push comes to shove and someone wants to call it rudeness, then fine. Label accepted.
Sorry to rattle on this way -- it's a topic I've thought about dammnear endlessly given that I ride the MAX daily and otherwise interact in The Big City.
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