We need to talk about online toxicity.

[Douglas]

5 hours ago, Valkyrie123 said:

 

I've come up with sone good comebacks

I was talking to some older guy in the library just now, he said I was really hot. I said 'my boyfriend thinks so too'. He left.

Hilarious stuff, Valkyrie 123: I love it!!!! Good on you, and good work!!! Yes: i can imagine that that comeback of yours certainly would have fixed him! And it serves him right, for his ridiculous behaviour!! 

[Valkyrie123]

@Douglas, thanks!

Also, if he said I was pretty, I wouldn't have minded so much. It was the word 'hot'and the age gap between us that kind of made me react like that.

[Douglas]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrie123 said:

@Douglas, thanks!

Also, if he said I was pretty, I wouldn't have minded so much. It was the word 'hot'and the age gap between us that kind of made me react like that.

Hi Valkyrie 123,

He sounds like he was a bit of a dirty old man to me!!! So you did the right thing! 

[Valkyrie123]

@Douglas

Yes, he certainly was

[Douglas]

@Valkyrie123 Don't mind me: I've just worked out how to do the "@member's name" thing!!! This is what happens when you're old: like I am!!!! 

Anyway, I just wanted to give you some "fatherly" advice, if I can: please just take care and stay safe!!

Your mate from Australia,

Douglas

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

@Valkyrie123 @Douglas -- When a person is relatively young (as I take Valkyrie to be), the same age difference looks a whole lot bigger than it will when the "young" person is the same age that the "old" person is now.  It's amazing how young that "old" person gets when it's you that's that age.

My actual point is, that "old" guy may have been thinking of himself as only slightly older than Val.  (Unless he was a real geezer, in which case I agree with both of you.)  Frankly though, any stranger who makes personal remarks like that is kinda creepy.

 

[Douglas]

2 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

@Valkyrie123 @Douglas -- When a person is relatively young (as I take Valkyrie to be), the same age difference looks a whole lot bigger than it will when the "young" person is the same age that the "old" person is now.  It's amazing how young that "old" person gets when it's you that's that age.

My actual point is, that "old" guy may have been thinking of himself as only slightly older than Val.  (Unless he was a real geezer, in which case I agree with both of you.)  Frankly though, any stranger who makes personal remarks like that is kinda creepy.

 

@Carol the Dabbler Yes, good points, Carol! I agree: no stranger should be making any personal remarks to anyone: especially not to a young woman! I'm just glad he got the message and left! 

[Carol the Dabbler]

12 hours ago, linear_panda said:

She Sri Lankan and Singaporean. Also normal; we had Albanians, Afghans, Egyptian-Malaysians, Greek-Somalis, Mauritians, Romanian-Palestinians, Irish-Bengalis, Arabians, Egyptians, Indonesians, Sudanese, Chinese-Indians, Pakistanis, Bosnians; the whole lot, it was like a mini-earth in that class.
And she was chubby.
That was not normal.
All of us were skinny and despite our different backgrounds we'd always been taught that fat people were lazy, weak, rich show-offs. So yeah, despite the diversity we'd grown up around we were still unable to even be civil to anybody who was different from us.

Wow!  That seems sooo weird to me, but as you say, you were used to people being different colors; you just weren't used to them being different shapes.  Thanks for your example.

It was the other way around in my school.  We were quite a mix of shapes, but virtually all white.  There were two black siblings a few years ahead of me, who were popular and well respected, but they only dated black kids from the nearest city.  Some of the white kids seemed to feel that it was OK to make fun of black strangers, though -- nothing overtly hostile, but it must nevertheless have hurt some feelings.  And they must have known that, because they always pulled those stunts anonymously -- from a passing car, for example.

12 hours ago, linear_panda said:

I guess people always attack the new, they just need some time for the visceral shock to wear off, and then that "new" thing becomes ordinary and familiar. It's kind of sad tho that we need to "get used to" people, we can't just like them right off the bat for being good people who have another way of going about things.

That's probably just how humans are.  Fortunately most modern societies have outgrown the impulse to physically attack strangers, but we still need to be a bit wary of strangers, considering how many scam artists there are nowadays.

But I'm using "stranger" in the sense of an individual that we don't know.  I think you're saying we tend to be extra cautious about people (especially newcomers) who don't look / sound / act / think like us.  And yeah, that's a shame, but it seems to be all too common.  Even those who pride themselves on being tolerant of diversity seem to have little tolerance for perfectly nice people who don't think like them.

 

[T.o.b.y]

15 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Even those who pride themselves on being tolerant of diversity seem to have little tolerance for perfectly nice people who don't think like them.

I agree but I would like to point out that there is a blurry area where people may behave in a perfectly friendly manner but their views lead to political / social choices that have terrible consequences. 

Example: I have a friend who is gay. Her sister's fiance thinks, because of his religion and upbringing, that this is a sin and wrong. He is perfectly nice and friendly, helpful, polite, etc. But he votes for policies that, if implemented, would make my friend's life very hard, even dangerous. He also openly talks, in her presence, about gay people being "disgusting". 

Should she tolerate him because he is perfectly nice to her on a day to day basis? 

[Carol the Dabbler]

6 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

... there is a blurry area where people may behave in a perfectly friendly manner but their views lead to political / social choices that have terrible consequences. 

Example: I have a friend who is gay. Her sister's fiance thinks, because of his religion and upbringing, that this is a sin and wrong. He is perfectly nice and friendly, helpful, polite, etc. But he votes for policies that, if implemented, would make my friend's life very hard, even dangerous. He also openly talks, in her presence, about gay people being "disgusting". 

Should she tolerate him because he is perfectly nice to her on a day to day basis? 

Well, he's clearly not what I was calling a "perfectly nice person," mostly because of the "disgusting" remarks.  He's got to vote his conscience, and (even though I disagree with his views) I'd have even less respect for him if he didn't.  But he could, if he so chose, easily avoid making those remarks when his future sister-in-law is around.  I don't see how that would be against either his religion or his conscience.  It wouldn't make him a hypocrite, merely a consistently polite person.

As for not tolerating people because of their political beliefs and how they vote -- I guess I'd need to know the specifics.  If he's voting against things like gay marriage, that's one thing, but if (as an extreme example) he's voting to send all gays to concentration camps, that's quite another.

 

4 hours ago, linear_panda said:

... everyone has been given the opportunity to live their own lives. And if we can't conform to their ideas and they can't conform to ours then that's not just okay; it's the most basic, ordinary thing a person can do....

Here in the US, that opportunity is known as the "inalienable rights ... [to] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- but unfortunately some people seem to think that refers only to their happiness, not that of people they don't like or don't agree with.

 

4 hours ago, linear_panda said:

I guess ideas are like clothes. One size doesn't fit all. That's how we are. It's what makes us different. It's human.