A creepy memory.
Dec. 29th, 2011 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinSo, I used to work at a place that was just off of north 90th Street in Omaha. A little bit north on 90th Street there was a library. A little bit further south on 90th Street was Dodge Street, and another library. A mile and a half down Dodge street was 72nd and Dodge, where there was a Borders (requiescat in pace) and a Barnes & Noble.
These were important pieces of information, because I don't drive, my work was about six to eight miles away from my apartment, and my roommate who drove me to and from work didn't work nearly the same hours as I did. So if she happened to be getting off in time to pick me up before the libraries closed, I would go to a library. If she had to work later, I'd go to a bookstore. On the rare but not unheard of times when she worked overnight, I would walk home.
I was pretty active in a chatroom at this point in my life. I mean really active... basically, it was what I did instead of writing. It used up my time and creative output. And of course I talked about my life in there, because if you spend enough time talking that's bound to come up, and one of the things I talked about was how great it was to work so close to two libraries.
Now, I never said where I worked or even listed the street in public chat, but one day one of the guys in the chatroom gave me a kind of snippy greeting and said, "You didn't say hi when I held the door." and I'm like, "...what?" This guy was a regular in the chatroom and so was I, but my thought was he'd mixed me up with someone else. So he said, "I was at your library two nights ago and I saw you and held the door for you but you looked right past me like you didn't recognize me."
And my response was, "I think you're confused. I'm in Omaha." and he said, "Yeah, I know. I was passing through Omaha and I decided to stop at your library." And I said, "Um, there are lots of libraries in Omaha."
So then he named the library, which was the nearest library to where I worked.
Even without knowing the streets, if you looked up all the libraries in Omaha it would have been pretty easy to figure out which two I was talking to, which obviously is what he did. And then he went to it and hung out in front of it.
And when I thought about it, I did have a vague recollection of a widely-smiling slightly older gentleman opening the door and holding it open for me, and I probably did what I've usually done when a guy I don't know is smiling really expectantly at me, which is to keep my head down and hurry past. Especially at that point in my life, when I couldn't really dress explicitly femme because of my job so there was always the chance that a straight guy was smiling at me because oh heeeeeeeey and if they got a better look it would be oh noooooooo and legally if a straight cis guy beats up a trans woman who forced a boner upon him, he can sue her for damage to his fists.
So, no, I hadn't stopped to chat with him... hadn't even recognized him. And I wouldn't have recognized him even if I had looked. Heck, if he had told me that he was going to be in town and asked if we could meet somewhere and hang out, and given me a recent picture of himself, and I had that picture in my hand, I still would not likely have recognized him on the first pass. If I saw someone I thought was him, I probably would have pretended not to see him while still looking around to give him time to notice and acknowledge me because this is what you do when your brain doesn't do faces.
But, you know, if he'd asked me if I wanted to meet, I might not have said yes. Probably wouldn't have. I barely knew this guy and didn't think of him as someone I had a lot in common with. I definitely wouldn't have given him directions to one of my favorite hang-outs in a part of town that doesn't have a lot of traffic or lights or expected him to analyze things I'd said in the chatroom to figure out where it was.
In his mind, what he was doing by surprising me was something sweet and fun and cool. In my mind, it was creepy and invasive. No, let me rephrase that: in reality, it was creepy and invasive. Why is my mind reality and his mind is his mind? Because the gesture was aimed at me. I'm the one who was affected by it. It's only a fun gesture if it's fun for me.
Why am I writing about this, almost a decade after it happened? I saw a thing going around Tumblr that was a woman's reaction to one of her followers finding out her address and sending her a pizza, and it put me in mind of this. Think of this as part cautionary tale and part life instructions.
Life instruction: respect people's boundaries. Don't unilaterally decide to bridge the gap from the internet to real life. It doesn't matter what your intentions are... the other person isn't a mind reader, and might not welcome the contact regardless.
Cautionary tale: we tend to give out more details than we realize. After that conversation, I started thinking about how much I'd revealed about my habits and habitations through casual conversation, how much somebody who was listening attentively could put together just using things I'd said and Google. After that, I started fudging details whenever I talked about where I was going or what I was doing, or the places I frequented. Was it necessary? Possibly not. Probably not. But I never felt safe talking about my movements after that.
These were important pieces of information, because I don't drive, my work was about six to eight miles away from my apartment, and my roommate who drove me to and from work didn't work nearly the same hours as I did. So if she happened to be getting off in time to pick me up before the libraries closed, I would go to a library. If she had to work later, I'd go to a bookstore. On the rare but not unheard of times when she worked overnight, I would walk home.
I was pretty active in a chatroom at this point in my life. I mean really active... basically, it was what I did instead of writing. It used up my time and creative output. And of course I talked about my life in there, because if you spend enough time talking that's bound to come up, and one of the things I talked about was how great it was to work so close to two libraries.
Now, I never said where I worked or even listed the street in public chat, but one day one of the guys in the chatroom gave me a kind of snippy greeting and said, "You didn't say hi when I held the door." and I'm like, "...what?" This guy was a regular in the chatroom and so was I, but my thought was he'd mixed me up with someone else. So he said, "I was at your library two nights ago and I saw you and held the door for you but you looked right past me like you didn't recognize me."
And my response was, "I think you're confused. I'm in Omaha." and he said, "Yeah, I know. I was passing through Omaha and I decided to stop at your library." And I said, "Um, there are lots of libraries in Omaha."
So then he named the library, which was the nearest library to where I worked.
Even without knowing the streets, if you looked up all the libraries in Omaha it would have been pretty easy to figure out which two I was talking to, which obviously is what he did. And then he went to it and hung out in front of it.
And when I thought about it, I did have a vague recollection of a widely-smiling slightly older gentleman opening the door and holding it open for me, and I probably did what I've usually done when a guy I don't know is smiling really expectantly at me, which is to keep my head down and hurry past. Especially at that point in my life, when I couldn't really dress explicitly femme because of my job so there was always the chance that a straight guy was smiling at me because oh heeeeeeeey and if they got a better look it would be oh noooooooo and legally if a straight cis guy beats up a trans woman who forced a boner upon him, he can sue her for damage to his fists.
So, no, I hadn't stopped to chat with him... hadn't even recognized him. And I wouldn't have recognized him even if I had looked. Heck, if he had told me that he was going to be in town and asked if we could meet somewhere and hang out, and given me a recent picture of himself, and I had that picture in my hand, I still would not likely have recognized him on the first pass. If I saw someone I thought was him, I probably would have pretended not to see him while still looking around to give him time to notice and acknowledge me because this is what you do when your brain doesn't do faces.
But, you know, if he'd asked me if I wanted to meet, I might not have said yes. Probably wouldn't have. I barely knew this guy and didn't think of him as someone I had a lot in common with. I definitely wouldn't have given him directions to one of my favorite hang-outs in a part of town that doesn't have a lot of traffic or lights or expected him to analyze things I'd said in the chatroom to figure out where it was.
In his mind, what he was doing by surprising me was something sweet and fun and cool. In my mind, it was creepy and invasive. No, let me rephrase that: in reality, it was creepy and invasive. Why is my mind reality and his mind is his mind? Because the gesture was aimed at me. I'm the one who was affected by it. It's only a fun gesture if it's fun for me.
Why am I writing about this, almost a decade after it happened? I saw a thing going around Tumblr that was a woman's reaction to one of her followers finding out her address and sending her a pizza, and it put me in mind of this. Think of this as part cautionary tale and part life instructions.
Life instruction: respect people's boundaries. Don't unilaterally decide to bridge the gap from the internet to real life. It doesn't matter what your intentions are... the other person isn't a mind reader, and might not welcome the contact regardless.
Cautionary tale: we tend to give out more details than we realize. After that conversation, I started thinking about how much I'd revealed about my habits and habitations through casual conversation, how much somebody who was listening attentively could put together just using things I'd said and Google. After that, I started fudging details whenever I talked about where I was going or what I was doing, or the places I frequented. Was it necessary? Possibly not. Probably not. But I never felt safe talking about my movements after that.