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eed to insult you.
I'm sure that doesn't happen too often.
WRONG
Today I was stopped by a random stranger in the middle of the street who then proceeded to insult my physical appearance. In the middle of the friggin' street. I'm not very conscious about my looks, I guess I'm in the middle of the road. Not too dashing (if there's any such thing) but I don't have any physical deformities either. Rather ordinary. That's completely besides the point!
The guy was probably a few years older than I am and was maybe 5cm (2 inches) taller than me. He was part of a group with three other guys but the group didn't seem interested in what was going on at all. He was walking in the opposite direction of me and then he stepped in front of me and then our conversation was like this:
"Is there anything wrong with you, you look ill?"
"Excuse me?"
"You look terrible, is there anything wrong with you?"
I'm pretty sure at this point that the guy is a douchebag just by the way he is asking but I like the assume the best of people, maybe he's genuinely worried about me for some reason but not good at communicating it with his body language.
"No I'm okay thanks."
I try to walk away but he gets in my way again, he even puts his hand to my shoulder so as to stop me.
"But you look so horrible, something must be wrong with you."
I take a break to think the situation over. I am not interested in carrying on this conversation at all because the guy is not doing this out of concern but out of malice. His friends don't seem interested, they have stopped and formed a circle like 10 meters down the street, they're not even looking in our direction. But maybe if I walk away it's like fleeing and I don't want to flee either. I'll fuck this moron up. I think of last time this happened to me. Why the frig did this happen to me twice?
Yes, this is the second time this has happened to me, last time was around 8 years ago. Back then it was exactly the same, douchebag guy who was a few years older than me and 5cm taller than me stopped me and did the exact same routine. I was around 8 years younger back then but I had just about the same thought process. That time I had a friend me though and he started hauling me away before I even had a chance to respond to the initial question and eventually succeeded during the thought break. I don't have anyone with me now but my friend was probably right in hauling me away. What if he was here now? He'd probably haul me away. I'll haul myself away.
But what if he stops me again? Anyway I stood here thinking for long enough, maybe 10 seconds? I don't know, right now time doesn't seem to pass like it usually does. Why am I thinking about time? I'll unequivocally let him know that I'm done with his shit and then I'm going to walk away through any hand or whatever he may put in my way.
"Goodbye."
His hand is still in front of my shoulder but I walk into it and away. Around 200 meters down the street I look back but nobody is there.
What's the point of this blog? Well if you are one of those people who single out random strangers just to screw around with them then please stop it. You might think it's an innocent prank but to some people it's different from that, I imagine.
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Once I was walking down the drag in Austin and I was wearing a 'Da Bears' shirt. This must have infuriated a drag rat because he comes closer to me than I would like and yells "Your shirt sucks, are you an A-rab!?". I'm obviously white, bee tee dubs.
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Life is all about lessons, teach him one and his friends with a fist.
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Ya....i can remember the first and last time shit like this happened to me at school....sometimes you just gotta send a message by laying out ignorant people
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Maybe he was just messing around but he could have been trying to distract you while his friend picks your pocket.
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Shoulda told him you are master's league... he woulda darted away from you at once
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On May 31 2013 00:43 hypercube wrote: Maybe he was just messing around but he could have been trying to distract you while his friend picks your pocket. I was thinking this as well. If someone approaches you on the street always be weary of it being some kind of distraction for a pickpocket.
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You probably should stop walking with your head tilted down but rather with it parallel to the flour. It changes a lot believe me. No one will randomly stop you. Also, you have probaby been well educated and as a courtesy you answer. After the first question, he repeated the same question again. At this point you should have walked away. Do it next time. Hell even sometimes if you think you understood correctly at first impact the situation just walk away. Some people don' t deserve an answer;
Alternativly you can learn a martial art. Not for fighting, but to avoid trouble. People think twice about bothering you when you can fight, even if they don' t know that you are training in martial arts, it changes the way you walk, the way you move around. so the % of people bothering you gets even lower.
This guy just seemed like he wanted to troll you;
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were you smiling at the time that it happened before he stopped you?
On May 31 2013 02:05 solidbebe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 00:43 hypercube wrote: Maybe he was just messing around but he could have been trying to distract you while his friend picks your pocket. I was thinking this as well. If someone approaches you on the street always be weary of it being some kind of distraction for a pickpocket. oh. this. Unless it's a guy stopping an attractive woman in the street, next best thing is probably trying to draw your attention away. Especially with the physical contact, if he touches you and someone else digs into your pocket, that's distraction 101
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You sound ill OP, is there something wrong with you?
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This actually is attempted on me and my friends relatively often at my school. I either end up turning it into a hilarious conversation, turn the whole thing against the other guy, or abuse his own conscience into walking away if I actually know the guy. I'll usually just walk away if I'm not surrounded, blocked in, etc. in which case I have to do the above.
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Pack a 6-8cm pocketknife. Next time some stranger bothers you, back away, take the knife out (with a fencer's grip) and quietly reply,
"I'm fine, thanks, but I'm not sure you will be."
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Seems like you handled it well. Good advice above about a pickpocket, but you said his friends weren't interested, which makes it a little bizzare. I'm not a violent person and haven't been in a fight since middle school, but as soon as a stranger put his hands on me I would have literally said: "You have two seconds to take your hand off me or we're going to have a problem." If he says or does anything to escalate, hope you can fight (or don't mind taking a beating).
I'd probably start with a headbutt to his nose (should be easy to aim since he's 5cm taller).
Weird situation.
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Norway28520 Posts
On May 31 2013 07:34 Shady Sands wrote: Pack a 6-8cm pocketknife. Next time some stranger bothers you, back away, take the knife out (with a fencer's grip) and quietly reply,
"I'm fine, thanks, but I'm not sure you will be."
alternatively, don't be a psycho.
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On May 31 2013 07:34 Shady Sands wrote: Pack a 6-8cm pocketknife. Next time some stranger bothers you, back away, take the knife out (with a fencer's grip) and quietly reply,
"I'm fine, thanks, but I'm not sure you will be." I think the goal is not to end up with anyone lying on the street bleeding to death, or having charges pressed on you.
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On May 31 2013 07:44 PhoenixVoid wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 07:34 Shady Sands wrote: Pack a 6-8cm pocketknife. Next time some stranger bothers you, back away, take the knife out (with a fencer's grip) and quietly reply,
"I'm fine, thanks, but I'm not sure you will be." I think the goal is not to end up with anyone lying on the street bleeding to death, or having charges pressed on you.
On May 31 2013 07:39 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 07:34 Shady Sands wrote: Pack a 6-8cm pocketknife. Next time some stranger bothers you, back away, take the knife out (with a fencer's grip) and quietly reply,
"I'm fine, thanks, but I'm not sure you will be." alternatively, don't be a psycho. Blech, my jokes are off today.
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On May 31 2013 02:05 solidbebe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 31 2013 00:43 hypercube wrote: Maybe he was just messing around but he could have been trying to distract you while his friend picks your pocket. I was thinking this as well. If someone approaches you on the street always be weary of it being some kind of distraction for a pickpocket.
i get why you'd think that since it's more prevelent in europe but it's funny because if this happened in the states, everyone would first assume the person was being a huge dick, picking a fight randomly, or distracting you long enough for one of his friends to clock you and then take your wallet. pickpocketing is rare here.
cool story about it actually
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/02/the_lost_art_of_pickpocketing.html
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CA10824 Posts
it could have just been a dumb dare by a group of friends and you were the first guy who walked by
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Norway28520 Posts
that was actually the first thing I thought too. or that the friend was kind of like some weird kinda outcast constantly out to impress his friends and seeing as how they insult eachother all the time he thinks that insulting people is gonna make them accept him more.
like basically unless you have reason to believe that some random stranger approaches you to for some random reason tell you how horrible you look then assume that the reason for him striking up a conversation with you is caused by some other factor than you. accept it as a random coincidence and move on with your life. at no point did anything happen that should make you feel badly about yourself.
that is of course, unless you genuinely looked really horrible. but you would probably have known already by then.
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