Undignified Behaviour
On the (very crowded) bus home from UVic today, I witnessed a conversation which irritated me very deeply. This girl was sitting by herself, minding her own business when some guy sat down next to her, and asked "do you like animals?"
To which she replied "I imagine that everybody does, don't they?"
And the guy replied "Exactly!" and proceeded to talk her ear off concerning some Very Special Cause which he represents. He was using that smarmy, pseud0-conversational tone beloved my telemarketers, religious proseletyzers and political canvassers. the girl squirmed around in evident discomfort, during this time, making non-committal and not-so-subtly dismissive responses ("oh, I think my boyfriend already donates money to your organization") for the duration of her journey.
Now, I myself am not exactly what you would call a social butterfly, and I certainly think that preserving wilderness areas is a very worthy goal, but for godssakes; cornering some poor girl where she has litterally no chance of escaping and ignoring all of her attempts to extricate herself from the conversation is, I think, very obviously not okay. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that it is incredibly creepy.
I wish he had turned his attention to me after she had left (not that he would have done so, as I suspect that his interests lay more in tapping her ass than in preserving wildlife areas).
"Do you like animals?"
"Well, to be perfectly honest, and particularly after having witnessed that sorry display, I have soured on the entire project of organic life. How I long for the day when I may simply upload my consciousness into a computer and launch myself freely into the inky black void of space, gloriously sloughing-off this fleshy carapace with the ease and grace with which a snake sloughs of its skin!"
To which she replied "I imagine that everybody does, don't they?"
And the guy replied "Exactly!" and proceeded to talk her ear off concerning some Very Special Cause which he represents. He was using that smarmy, pseud0-conversational tone beloved my telemarketers, religious proseletyzers and political canvassers. the girl squirmed around in evident discomfort, during this time, making non-committal and not-so-subtly dismissive responses ("oh, I think my boyfriend already donates money to your organization") for the duration of her journey.
Now, I myself am not exactly what you would call a social butterfly, and I certainly think that preserving wilderness areas is a very worthy goal, but for godssakes; cornering some poor girl where she has litterally no chance of escaping and ignoring all of her attempts to extricate herself from the conversation is, I think, very obviously not okay. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that it is incredibly creepy.
I wish he had turned his attention to me after she had left (not that he would have done so, as I suspect that his interests lay more in tapping her ass than in preserving wildlife areas).
"Do you like animals?"
"Well, to be perfectly honest, and particularly after having witnessed that sorry display, I have soured on the entire project of organic life. How I long for the day when I may simply upload my consciousness into a computer and launch myself freely into the inky black void of space, gloriously sloughing-off this fleshy carapace with the ease and grace with which a snake sloughs of its skin!"