Saturday, December 09, 2006

Anonymous, The Rappers, and The Drug Guy

A lengthy contribution from an "I Liked Your Profile" regular submitter, who wrote:

Do I just attract freaky girls. I submit this contribution for your reading pleasure.

Here is the preface for this one. One brief and mildly amusing Jdate IM conversation where I gave her my e-mail.

I got this e-mail the following day. First one is not so bad...but keep reading. Anything italicized is my commentary. Remember: There were no phone calls, no dates, no contact save for a brief IM conversation and the following e-mails.
-------------

From Anonymous Girl:
"Steve(If that is your name),(It is my real name).

I know you are opening mail only because you are thinking of writing. After all i am one of the few fun quirky people on the Internet. Ok, i just watched Mary Tyler Moore and an Gap commercial featuring the machine.ghost of Audrey Hepburn and i am slightly too perky and irascible. I had fun chatting with you and just noticed your pic on my wall of creepy guys who don't bother to read my profile. A fact which shouldn't matter given that it is art and (imo) art is the big lie/ Ok, your ball.

~me

I replied with this. While it was an odd e-mail, I am not exactly cookie cutter. Interesting quirky people are just fine with me. So I wrote back. My response.

"My ball? Mary Tyler Moore? I am on overload. And I am on the wall of creepy guys?! That is no good. Put my own my own wall, please. As for me and my wall, I just bought a painting from a friend. I have it hanging there. Very cool. As for ghost.machine of Audrey.Hepburn, she actually played a ghost, or angel, or whatever, in Always. So maybe its a natural career choice. Your ball, I guess."

Steve

She seemed a little screwy, but that can be fun and is not always bad. But this next e-mail she sent was a humdingeroo. Never saw it coming.

I always wondered what kind of person voted for Nader in 2004(Not 2000, but 2004). I guess now I know.

Yes, she did bring up Auschwitz and sexual assualt. So for all you ladies out there who think there are only weird men online, please think of this e-mail and know that this is simply not the case.

From Anonymous Girl:
"hiya Steve (If that is your name), (Dammit, it is my real name. Why would I lie about my first name? Am I worried she is going to track me down, or that I am a CIA agent? So surreal!)you should have sent a pic of the new painting. or is that too weird? (since I don't know what you at all or what you look like. A little.) its sort of weird to correspond with someone i don't know. well, that's not quite so, i know you are quick-witted and funny in that sort of "out there" way. are you a comedy club person, btw?(Does she mean I like to go to Comedy Clubs? Or perform? Is it a support group? But she is just warming up. Hold on. And while it may be weird, this is internet dating. What did you expect, writing to your friends?) of course, you doubtless feel similarly. (about comedy clubs, about corresponding with someone I don't know, about being quick witted? I don't know) Who am i? Interesting question, however, one asked before and by better minds than mine.(CLEARLY!) primo levi wrote [paraphrase]: auschwitz made good people better and bad people worse. more and more i find that my self-definition largely arises from my level of ridership/participation in T-users' groups.(Did she just compare riding the T to the holocaust. She didn't. She couldn't. Could she. My god, Yes, she did.) to the end of illustrating this point (and this is only one of MILLIONS) of t-riding episodes: (I have rode the T thousands of times, I don't have any stories like this one.)i was coming back to the jewish area of boston from dudly x'g on the 66 bus, somewhere around roxbury community college(aFYI n African American neighborhood) (and the mosque in progress --how do you feel about that)(I am fine with the building of a mosque. Does she have a problem with it? Is that some veiled anti muslim, post 9-11 paranoia comment? Who knows!) some kids got on. i was sodokuing and didn't notice them nor their interaction with the drugging (drugging?) serenading me from the other side of the front seating area (like all jews, i am certain that sitting near the front of the bus and driver will protect me as the driver is an 'american' and wears a uniform and therefore subscribes to the 'american' (silly word) policy of protecting the innocent, acting out justice, and helping the elderly cross on green --wether they want to or not. (I am jewish, and I have always believed that bus drivers primarly drive the bus, so for the gentiles out there, she ain't speaking for all of us. And if she was not paying attention, how did she know they were serenading her?). the kids and the drug guy were doing a sort of 'rapping the dozens' in which they were calling up old rhymes and comparing them to newer stuff ("ain't nothin' new..."). it was too loud and a bit racist/genderist, but somehow the druggy held it together, which points out the derth of male role-models for these kids. i mean they were on best behaviour to impress him. (allow me to officially "tsk here, "TSK").(Well, sure, lets extrapolate and diagnose the problems of an entire race of people from one situation on one bus. And lets talk about it with someone I hardly know. Sure, great idea. Racism disguised as tolerance. Druggie? Who can hold together rhymes while on any serious contraband narcotic, anyway. Makes no sense. Who is this person writing to me) it gets pretty predictable from here. bus stops, druggy leaves off in Mission Hill (ever been to Flan's?)(no, but nice restaurant restaurant reference. total appropriate placement), the driver stopped for a long light hears the rap and stands up telling the kids to shut up or get out. nice. they turn the decibel level down, but don't stop and soon are back at it only louder and ruder. by this time there are two little girls on the bus, around 2 and 3 years. i don't know how many women, but mostly male passengers. however, NOT ONE suggested to these kids that they shut up.(Well,horrors.) a woman got on somewhere in advance of brookline village and was dyspeptic (someone studied for their Verbal SAT's a little too hard), finally exiting at trader joe's. i know this because the first little girl who was sitting near me left off then and i decided that i could engage the driver without further traumatizing her. it should be noted that by this time there were some graphic rape scenes being described. (Thanks for enriching my day. All the dating etiquette books tell you to discuss youths rapping about rape as soon as possible, say before you even give out your real name. Admittedly, this sounds like a bad situation, but share it with me. Why? Why?) the woman left assaulting the driver with a laundry list of dissatisfaction over the situation on his bus. she didn't stay for his reply nor to take his operator number and do a follow-up call to the MBTA. then it was i.(Poor bus driver has to hear it TWICE) i asked him what the hell he was thinking leaving his bus so out of control. he told me he had no idea what i was talkin about. i asked him how he would feel if i rapped for the last 30 minutes about terrifying and harming men? (that would have been worth seeing, actually) or brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned men? and here i was a bit over-come and switched to spanish, how would he like me to launch a rhyming profanities diatribe against bus drivers? he assured me he had no idea what was going on. i assured him that no only ever passenger had been subjected to this for the entire trip, but there were two little girls on the bus and this was not only inappropriate adjectives but the verbs were entirely over the top for the audience. (Wow, she stands for tolerance now. Show the bus drive who makes ten dollars an hour who is boss now that the kids are gone and nothing can be done. Ruin his day, too. By the way, the bus driver drives the bus. Ever have a parent turn around and yell at you when you were in the back seat. Scary, cause they should be focusing on the road. This is why they have bus police. Oy, poor bus driver. All he needed was to be told politely. Once he was, he took care of it.) to the guys credit he kicked them off. (Cause you told him. He has to drive the bus, remember?) the first three went shirking into the dark. (oh, disturbing ovettones, eh?) the fourth yelled some insult form the back door and then came to the front (do you think he opened both doors before he went back there because of some mechanical rules of hydraulics or because he was leaving egress for passengers in case they started shooting?)(SO RACIST, just because you use egress does not mean you are not a bigot), stopped, and prepared (read this word with emphasis) to give me a piece of his mind he just couldn't spare (well if he had spared it he would not have said it). i myself was entirely enraged in a way i don't know how to describe (you seem to be doing a pretty thorough job, actually), on the outside i was just this sort of impassioned speaker, but inside i was so shaking with a sense of powerlessness and abuse. and in the end, i was just like those kids, because rather than hear one more disgusting word from this brats foul mouth i spat. not on him, but at him. it was uncontrollable, if i had been thinking about it, i would have still done it, but i wasn't thinking about my actions. because, you know, its in us all. (Well, maybe, but for some reason it takes a little more for me to lose my cool. I would NEVER spit on someone with mailce aforethought. No class. No class.) the thing which makes that kid rap about raping women on a bus with not only his "sisters" on board, but his communitys' children, made me spit at him. (And the world, will be a better place, and yes the world will be a better place for you, for you, and meeeeeeeee. Quickly, everyone go to a depressed part of town and spit at people. Watch the situation get better. Why haven't the policy wonks thought of this before?) the driver was either socratic in wisdom or just smart enough to take the opportunity to go at me (Socratic? Now, if you know anything about Socrates or the socratic method, you know she has no idea what she is talking about. She just wants to sound smart. If the bus driver were using the socratic method, he would have pointed to a random person on the bus and said, "You, in the sweater, why are these lyrics inappropriate? and followed up with more questions.) however, the guy with the gang tats next to me said "brava" and the driver said, "Now you're wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right." but he also shut the door in the face of the still shocked kid and drove away. (Good for the bus driver!. This girl is c-r-a-z-y) it wasn't really possible to explain to him that i had no sense of shame over what i had done. (Spitting, and no shame! If I lost my cool like this, my cheeks would burn with shame) when people behave so badly, they shouldn't expect limits in retaliation. clearly i would like my limits to constantly evolve outward and become more and more peripheral and maneuverable and accommodating. (Don't bite off more than you can chew. Start with the little things, like "Not spitting at people.") i would like to be strong enough in spirit to withstand any social or physical indignity. like joan of arc or anne frank. (put in your own sarcastic and incredulous comment here) oops, both bad examples. (It is called the delete key. See, if you delete it, you don't have to explain it) still i don't feel like i have abandoned an essential personal philosophy or my portion of any social contract. (You did. You spit on a public bus.That is the definition of breaking the social contract.) i know that (i am really, really white, at least in boston's sun) those kids will retell that story in some sort of derivative, reductive racist paradigm,(not like you did. Oh no! Wait, you did! and with a stranger, no less.) yet it was they who acted out all the things that white terror represent: threats and intimidation for an arbitrary reason against an arbitrary group. (Well, they were offensive, but they yelled at you cause you got them kicked off the bus. Not that arbitrary, actually.) anyway, the gang dude greeted me on parting, apparently because even though he is a criminal and a social terrorist,he has a mother, a sister, a wife, lover, daughter, someone he loves as a woman and embraces the femininity. i told the driver that i hope he has an easy night as i left, and he told me to have a good night. a small, unseemly moment of sanity that prolly spoiled the ride for everyone. afterall, don't people prefer ophra to motzart? (Is that a choice people make? Last I checked, they are not mutually exclusive, and usually not ranked together, even when spelled correctly. And if you know anything about Mozart, you know he would have totally dug Oprah. Is someone out there going, should I watch Oprah or listen to Mozart? Hmmm, I will go with Oprah? And Oprah is actually a pretty impressive woman with a powerful intellect so this makes no sense at all. I mean, she made "Night" an Oprah book of the Month. Why am I even bothering at this point.) so now you know who i am more than any picture of alicia silverstone (actually a better story than the one i just typed, but now i am too tired to re-compose this) would ever reveal. (Yes, apparently she had previously posted a picture of Alicia Silverstone on her profile. Don't ask. I am not. At this point, I just want to cry. So, long story short, I don't think I will write her back.)

~anonymous

Steve:
"Hi (anonymous),

While it seems like you live a very interesting life, I don't think we would be a good fit. Best of luck with the dating thing.

Steve(my real name)"
Contribute your funny dating emails to ilikedyourprofile@gmail.com