IMS_Blog

What is it with some people? You do not have an automatic right to talk to me and expect an interested response. It’s bad enough the people with clipboards conducting surveys who invariably ignore my pre-emptive “no” and shake of the head but if you’re going to randomly talk to me for no apparent reason you can’t blame me if I’m then not interested or don’t care about what you have to say.

I suppose I ought to explain what I’m rambling about now. OK, so earlier this evening I was picking Rachel up. We’ve just finished putting some stuff into the car and I’m sat in the drivers seat, basically waiting for Rach to get in and ready to go. This “gentleman” wanders down the street towards the car (I think from out of his house). At first I assumed he was going to get in the car parked right in front of me, but instead he wandered round and tapped on my window. Being the polite person I generally am I wound it down a bit to see what this possible lunatic wants (remember it’s dark and Rachel is outside the car). He proceeded to tell me that they’d had some trouble with “kids” round there and inquired where if I lived in the area. Still being polite, though by now Rach is in the car, I pointed out I actually live the other side of town. He mentioned something about it getting worse round there, and reached a point where he seemed to expect some response. I think it’s then I annoyed him, because I basically shrugged with a bewildered expression to put across my internal thinking, “why are you telling me this?”

Our mysterious friend then went on to accuse me of not caring “of course” and I have to confess that I nodded in agreement. Oh, I may care about the greater sociological issues at hand but as he wanted to talk his specific perceived problems then yes, I didn’t particularly give a shit. He started to wander away, muttering something along the lines of “well I hope I never meet you again”. That’s when I got angry. I didn’t initiate all this. He’s the one who came over to me. If he never wants to meet me again then fine. But I never wanted to meet him in the first place. If anyone contacts me, via an email, blog comment or even in “real life” (like the first two aren’t real) then if they have something interesting and/or relevant to say I’ll respond in a friendly enough manner. But this was just verbal spam—completely random and nothing to do with me, what I was doing or my interests. If it had been an email it would have been junked, so I make no apologies for doing the same to a conversation I didn’t want to be having.

I got out the car to shout a few words (possibly even coherently) to his departing back. I hope I’m never forced to meet him again.