I just lost my phone at a Youth Commission/DCYF meeting prioritizing youth issues and $33 million dollars worth of funding available to SF CBOs.
I was tired from having to walk so much with this shingles thing. 5 blocks tires me out now and that's rather limiting.
Some older German gentlemen tourists in suits were having a conversation and one of our youth aggressively and drunkenly swaggered after them yelling,
"Eh, yo! This is America! Speak American!"
He was a wigger, tall and lanky, cap cocked to the side, and spilling ignorance with every move he made and I soooooooo mentally apologized to my German brethren for his lack of couth. He needed some of the programs we had just discussed at this meeting. I know there is potential in there, but it wasn't exactly shining in that moment. He might grow up to be a nanotechnologist of some sort and repair nerve damage for Lou Gehrig's disease someday.
To my left I noticed the stench of alcohol. I stood my ground, enveloping myself in a bubble of protection because my left leg was in pain from standing and I knew the bus ride to my office would be longer than I wanted it to be. Just a few more minutes. I knew this because there was a crowd formed for the 27 Bryant bus headed west.
The alcohol stench told me, "You're a beautiful woman."
My peripheral vision told me, "Oh, Christ."
From my periphery I saw a light-skinned, mulatto brother with wavy blonde hair pulled back into a short pony tail and small, icy blue eyes. He was a big boy, sporting a full length puff coat. His snaky swagger and stench of alcohol reminded me of my Mission Street boyfriends. And now, apparently, I attract Market Street boyfriends.
I said, "Thank you."
He asked me my name and I icily replied, "Erika."
He asked me if he could contact me so we could have coffee or tea so he could get to know me better. I told him the likelihood was no.
He then asked me where I was from and I said my parents are from Puerto Rico and he managed to botch up some verb ("specificating") feigning interest in my heritage when I grilled him on some geography when he said he was into Puerto Rico and Costa Rica. He also dropped the b-bomb trying to gain my confidence. He used the term "baby".
That's when I got uppity.
I told him I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, and that he was too young for me. I told him I am an educator and don't have time to educate a partner in my life when it comes to verb tenses and mysogeny. He asked me why I didn't want to get to know him,or have time to educate him, because it might me worth my while and I just shyed away from calling him an ignorant f--- right as the bus pulled up.
As I hobbled to the bus, he told me, "Just know you ain't lookin' for no white boy."
And I was like, "Whatever, @$$ How about pulling up your pants somewhere else than in my space" in my head.
A friendly looking Indie boy who witnessed the whole thing told me in Latino-English that I should have said we were friends. I thanked him and told him I didn't want to drag anyone into it.
It was nice to know that I had a pierced, comic book, Indie boy caballero watching this whole thing go down.
Lesson learned? Pretend random guy is your friend when ignorant @$$ tries to talk to you and then gets all defensive when he's rejected the 3rd, 4th, and 5th time.
Words from Yogi Bhajan Calendar Today:
Between man and God, communication is a personal vendetta. It will be decided at the very moment. If you want to talk to God in public, the acceptable way is to speak through music.
(For the record, I don't quite get it, but I plan on continuing humming and whistling where I deem it appropriate.)
4 comments:
What usually nips it in the bud is saying you're seeing someone/living with someone who "wouldn't be too happy" about you going to coffee/tea/whatever with another man. Unfortunately, you probably wasted your time lecturing him - I'm sure some girl somewhere would be extremely flattered with some drunk guy drooling all over them. If the behavior wasn't rewarded somehow, he wouldn't do it.
Dude, I had to school him on the whole approach thing, though. If nothing else, he has been exposed to the idea that his whole approach was unprofessional and weak. So even if 100 girls are down with his game, he at least has heard it once that his game is WHACK!
Dude was 28 years old. I was like...OMG!
Aw! He sounded like a great catch!!
You are too nice. I would have completely ignored him.
the educator in me can't let episodes like that go by. if i was the ONLY person who could ever let him know he needs a new line, a new approach, then so be it. he can't plead ignorance after being exposed to the idea.
i usually try to ignore folks, but sometimes, sometimes i need to say SOMETHING.
ignoring perpetuates the ignorance, i think. who knows?
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