In the paper, there was an article about a 22 year old woman from Florida who was arrested in Suffolk County, NY for providing an eighteen year old girl with a bogus psychic reading at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove and charging a ridiculous amount of money for it ("Fortune Teller Accused of Fraud," Matthew Chayes, Newsday, October 11, 2009). According to police, Tiffany Evans told the teenager that she was under a curse and that to lift it she would have to purchase a potion, candles and a supposedly magical stone for over $1,000.
They caught this allegedly fake psychic undercover. The teen paid $25 for an initial reading. And then, authorities say, the young client brought undercover cops with her for a follow-up appointment where the psychic tried to sell the teen the $600 potion and stone and would perform a ritual to lift the imaginary evil spell for another $1,250. It was then that they busted Evans and charged her with fraudulent accosting, three counts of fortune telling and attempted grand larceny.
When I saw this article in the paper, I had to check out Newsday's website for the comments. They were predictable. People asked, "Fake psychic? Is there any other kind?" Most sensible, down-to-earth people possess that level of skepticism about psychic abilities.
What shocked me, however, were some of the charges brought against the psychic. I agree that if she tried to take the teen's money for the purpose alleged she should be charged with attempted grand larceny. Candles do not under any circumstances cost in the thousands. And you can get a body wash from Bath and Body Works at a two for one sale. Do what a Catholic priest does and bless these items. Her actions were fraudulent as accused. But, she also faces three counts of "fortune telling" to quote the indictment.
Until I read this article, I wasn't aware that a source of entertainment that people may find at a carnival or at psychic night was an illegal service subject to criminal prosecution like prostitution. It's one thing to feel that it's all a scam, but purporting to be able to communicate with the deceased or to predict future occurrences is a lot different from trying to charge a teenager an exorbitant price for worthless products.
When you go to a psychic medium or dial one of those 900 numbers which are obvious scams, they advise you that it's "for entertainment purposes only." You aren't expected to take it seriously. Nobody is policing them, and they advertise on TV and in the back of magazines. I think some of those advertising fortune tellers are the biggest frauds of all.
I've encountered some of these mediums who try to sell you $200 candles. This one burly, short-haired woman who swore "God had brought (me there)" told me she could lift a curse on my "aura" and that all I had to do was "pay for the materials." I visited her to be entertained, but she infuriated me. She kept trying to prompt me to tell her things. I wish now that I had the presence of mind at the time to do what that brilliant young woman did. While I don't think she ought to have faced charges for claiming to predict the future and making such general statements to me, she definitely tried to defraud me into a worthless purchase.
This young lady in Manhattan read me for $25. She made general statements about me that were off and others that I could have heard from my family. She's the kind who stops you on the street when you've had a long day and just want to make it to Penn Station. She sees it on your face; she's got that gift! When she offered to bring me back to her office for a "more in-depth reading," I refused.
The majority of psychics are frauds, charlatans who are just out to make a buck, but I do believe there is another kind. They are few and far between. A few have helped police departments solve crimes. I certainly wouldn't want those people to face criminal charges of any sort, especially something as petty as "fortune telling."
I come from a family of skeptics. I was raised to believe in God and went to church growing up, but my family used to ridicule psychics. "If they were truly psychic," my mother once told me, "they'd be millionaires. They could predict the lottery numbers." "Remember that movie Ghost?" my uncle once asked, "Whoopi Goldberg claimed to talk to the dead and then the ghost appeared and she was scared." "She's describing your typical teenager," Mom said of a woman who read me at my friend's birthday party.
And then we got a frightening prophecy about my aunt that came true. A family member visited a psychic medium who went into a trance while she was performing the reading. She predicted the exact spot of my aunt's cancer years before it manifested itself and that she would die of it. This relative did not provide the woman with any information about herself or her family. But as fate would have it, my aunt died of the cancer that appeared right in the same spot on her body that the medium said the tumor would be.
Our views on the existence of psychic abilities changed forever.
I became even more convinced that paranormal activity was possible when my father died. I was living at my parents' house during law school when I lost Dad. For a year or two, unexplained occurrences followed his death from cancer. Still objects suddenly shook by themselves without manipulation. Lights, the computer and our electric garage door operated by themselves, prompting us to look at each other in shock.
Remembering what had happened to my aunt, I visited a woman who provided psychic readings for a reasonable price. She had the ability to detect physical characteristics that only the individual knew - taste, sound, touch, what someone was eating the night before. She sensed a spot in my back that occasionally gave me pain - an injury I got at 13 when I fell down a flight of stairs.
She also purported to communicate with spirits of the dead. Without my sharing any personal information, the woman told me that a man with Dad's name and physical description was claiming to be my father. She worded messages from him in a way that only my father could. There was no other way she could have been capable unless she personally knew him, which she hadn't.
My skepticism faded.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Say What? My Socially Inept Date's Disgustingly Inappropriate Text Comments About Sexuality, Gender and Race
I've been told I lead a very interesting life. Some of the wildest shit happens to me whether I'm targeted by a group of bigoted loonies online or I get hit on by washed out former rock stars on the subway or I run into "Sex and the City" cast members on the Upper East Side or in the airport.
Well, this time I went on a nightmarish date. Okay, a lot of people go on bad dates, so that doesn't sound too wild, but this one really is wild. This can only happen to me, for those of you who know me! It was a second date, and I really didn't want to go on it because I didn't feel the chemistry on Date 1 at the Melville Starbucks, but I thought I'd give this guy another chance because he seemed intelligent. He graduated with honors from high school and college and had a good job even though his social skills left a lot to be desired. But, that wasn't going to stop me, not right away. After all, I've gone on dates where I wasn't romantically interested in the person at first but an attraction developed later on and in a few cases full-blown relationships resulted.
Rewind back to when I first encoutered this asshole.
He found me on the dating site Plenty of Fish and wrote to me. There were a series of pictures on his profile. He's got a nice physique and looks like he takes care of himself. He puts down that he's looking for something long-term. And, he's Catholic! Perfect man for me (on paper)! He likes to go to the gym and says he wants a charming lady. And, I'm this chick who is looking for a guy to exercise at the gym and for a long-term relationship with because I'm sick of all these unsuccessful dates that have amounted to no relationship. So I'm looking forward to meeting him.
I talked to him on the phone and he told me how he likes Latin American music. He was a fan of some of the artists my late father loved. He also said he didn't understand why a lot of guys our age (early thirties) insist on finding twentysomething girls and that he dated women in their twenties and found them to be immature. And I added that with the reproductive technology out there men don't need to rely on younger women for babies anymore. Finally! A guy who gets me and won't be scared off when I'm honest!
He also told me he had been on so many bad dates since he joined Plenty of Freaks, um, Fish a few months earlier. According to him, there was something unusually wrong with each and every one of them. So not only was this guy educated. He could empathize with me. I had my share of bad dates, so the stories he told me weren't surprising. He met a teacher with what he thought was a weird facial distortion, a woman who had someone else call him and say, "I'm here" and then turned out to be a different woman with a different voice once they met face to face and lastly a woman who drove all the way from Brooklyn just to randomly yell at him, take off and drive all the way back there from Suffolk County.
In person, I could tell he was the man from the pictures, albeit a less attractive version. His hair was oddly cropped around his head like it had been glued on, sort of like synthetic hair. He had the nice biceps that I like on a man, but his bizarre way of talking and interacting in person overrode that. He seemed to mean well, but it was coming out all wrong.
He knew a lot about mortgages because of his job. I had been preparing and signing complaints as a foreclosure attorney for a while, so we had a long discussion about the subprime mess for the entirety of our first date. I, of course, explained the bank's position. While I did not feel attracted to him, I thought perhaps his knowledge of the business end of loans and the fact that he was Catholic might compensate for his goofy demeanor.
Note to self: besides refraining from getting yourself so excited about someone you're attracted to who has stopped calling, also be sure not to force yourself to like someone you find repulsive just because you think he's educated and successful.
Fast forward. The setting was at an Irish pub on New York Avenue in Huntington, NY and I was sitting at a booth across from him sipping a glass of wine. He ordered himself a ginger ale at 10PM on a Saturday night, which I thought was odd as most guys who meet me for drinks will have at least a beer. And at an Irish pub?
On the other extreme, a man I met two summers ago chugged down a few Guinnesses during our Sunday lunch date at a pizzeria. Guinness Guzzler questioned my refusal to consume alcohol that early in the day upon his suggestion. And while I wouldn't want to become involved with someone who drinks too heavily, I certainly raised an eyebrow over this lightweight before me in the Huntington bar.
A few sips of a glass of dry, cheap red wine later, the man who went on so many dates with all abnormal women rambled on about how he works out to keep his biceps and how we should be workout partners. He then shifted the conversation to the fact that he lives at home and did throughout college at a local school on the island, that he hasn't had very many relationships with women and that his Long Island undergraduate alma mater was difficult to gain admission to, an assertion contrary to the Barron's book college rankings. He was oblivious to my obvious disinterest - a dating cue that most men observing me at that moment would have picked up on in a heartbeat.
And then he caught my attention when he told me that most people look better in their pictures than they do in person but that I am the exception. I thanked him for the compliment then quietly thought to myself that in that case he was the rule. He continued to discuss plans with me in the near future, but I forget now what we were supposed to do.
I stared blankly to the side, trying to avoid eye contact with him as he spoke in broken paragraphs that made no sense.
He then suggested that we go to a bar on the next street, which was conveniently located near the municipal parking lot where I would make my escape.
"I have something with my family tomorrow morning and don't want to stay out too late," I said and rushed toward my car with him trailing slightly behind. We went by happy couples holding hands, and I bitterly wished I had one of those guys with me instead. He was reaching out his hand for my shoulder. I knew he wanted to get cozy, but he looked more like a scout leader trying to pat a kid on the back - probably because I was taking large strides. I walked faster so he missed me.
I clicked on the remote and hopped hastily into my car to avoid any physical contact with him.
"Nice to see you again," I said quickly, "Good night." I slammed the door shut, locked all the doors and revved up the engine. I still got the sense that he didn't take a hint. If I let him keep yapping, he probably would have told me that he finally found The One.
As I was on the fork on New York Avenue, the phone rang and it was him. I didn't want a ticket from the Suffolk cops. Fighting a ticket downstate is a bitch! So I let his call go to voicemail to deal with later. I continued home to Nassau from Huntington on the Northern State, the highway I take to and from work every morning. In the meantime, he left me three text messages, one after the other.
Now, I had made up my mind that he was a throwback, but for me there's no worse way to reject or break up with someone than disappearing after a seemingly perfect date. And the more indicators you give to someone that you are interested in them, the more frustrating it is for that other person to follow up with you for the plans you said you'd make with them only to be blown off.
If the guy tells me up front he doesn't think it will work or he simply doesn't lay a hand on me and we walk away from the date without even kissing goodnight, I will take a hint and move on. I might initially be disappointed if he outright tells me he doesn't want to see me again, but I won't harbor any resentment down the line because I will not have had false hopes.
But it seriously pisses me off when a guy disappears after telling me how attracted he is and how he wants to be with me. Sometimes being given false hope is worse than the rejection itself. Knowing what a pain in the ass that is, I've promised myself I will never do that to a guy.
While most people would realize I wasn't interested if I behaved the way I did on my date with Lightweight and wouldn't mind if I just disappeared, this guy just wasn't getting a clue. He was so into me and not afraid to express it. I would have to spell my disinterest out for him like you do the ABCs for toddlers. He was so socially tone deaf I thought he would be crushed if he never heard from me again.
There were so many text messages from Lightweight I didn't bother reading them before responding. (Big mistake!) I cut to the chase: "I don't think we're compatible. I don't think we should see each other again. Good luck."
And then I scrolled down to see the text messages. It was inevitable. I'd have to free up some room in my mailbox.
I suddenly wished I had read what he wrote to me before I sent him that very polite, respectful message of rejection.
"You seem very shy and nervous. I'm not used to this. Is it just me or are you like this with everyone?" Okay, he mistakens disinterest for shyness. He's totally out of it.
"Is there something you are afraid to tell me?" he types and follows with, "TS." Now "TS" were not his initials and in either case he didn't really have to sign a text message. I could tell who it was by the number.
Scroll down some more. "Are u a ts?" read the next message.
"What is a ts," I began typing then realized what he was asking me. Holy shit! I couldn't believe what I was reading. Nobody had ever asked me such a vile question in my life.
"Please don't tell me you are asking if I'm a transsexual," I text Lightweight. "I am not a transsexual. That's a disgusting and inappropriate thing to ask."
"I think you are," he simply said, "Come on. I know a lot of Thai's and Flips are."
Okay, first this guy gives me the creeps because he's completely strange. So I want to get rid of him in a nice, polite way because I'm not an insensitive bitch to just disappear on someone who is so obviously infatuated and not taking a hint. No good deed goes unpunished, so I actually read his texts to find he is insulting me by making random assumptions about my gender assignment. There's another strike against him. And now to add insult to injury, this bigoted asshole is making ethnic slurs against me and stereotyping two countries as places where the women are likely to be transsexuals.
I called him a racist for using those terms. His excuse? He just used the term "flip" as a short cut for text. I spoke to some people about this incident who never even realized that "flip" was a derogatory word for a Filipino and that's solely because they've never heard the term before. Those who are familiar with it are aware that it is intended to be racist.
Come on! If he wanted to shorten it, he could have said "fili." "Flip" is not an appropriate shortcut. It's a racial slur that was once used by American soldiers in the Philippines to insult the natives there. It stands for "Fucking Little Island People" or "Funny Looking Island People." Look it up in any standard dictionary or even Urbandictionary.com.
He then went on to say there was nothing wrong with being transsexual and then he said, "I'm not lashin' at all. I still think you are. It's my opinion, observation" after which I informed him that I was "female from birth with a period" and that he got me at a very bad time when I was expecting my period. Again, I told him I was not a man in drag. I then reiterated that it was very disgusting and inappropriate to suggest I was transsexual.
Lightweight defended his comments saying furthermore that "there's nothing wrong with what I said. It's like me saying you're black when you're really Spanish." Okay! Now, he's on a roll. This racist sack of shit had just insulted almost every minority group you can think of. Not only does he not take a hint when someone is not romantically interested, but he just doesn't know when to quit. And, his inappropriate social behavior extends to freely making racial remarks. I almost wished I were face to face with him so I could punch his nose, but then I thought about my license to practice law. I wasn't going to throw away everything I worked hard for over this loser.
I then explained to the clown that I was acting "nervous" as he described it because I was just not interested in him and that I had tried to be nice to him by being up front instead of leading him on. It was quite obvious he was smitten with me. I also told him to never text or call me again upon receipt of my final message. Once I texted that, he was surely "lashin" by now.
This is when I really confirmed he was socially inept. I now knew why he hadn't had so many romantic relationships. I could taste his fury when I read, "I am deleting this number right now. You should have known by the first date if you weren't attracted to me instead of wasting my time this late at night."
This late at night? We got off our date at around 11:30! Give me a fucking break! Two in the morning is not late for a Saturday! Is he fucking kidding me?
And someone can decide after two dates as opposed to one that they are not interested. People can discover after being married for twenty years that they are not with the right person. Giving him a second date was an act of generosity on my part, a benefit of the doubt even though I found him a little too gawky for my taste.
I told him at some point in the texting thread that I could sue him if he told people I was transsexual. He said I could not "on the basis of this." He treated it like it was a serious conversation, so he wasn't even trying to insult me. He was so socially tone deaf that he didn't even know how offensive he was being. I don't even think he was trying to be malicious.
When I was taking the Bar exam, one of the lectures revealed that there is a civil cause of action in the State of New York that allows someone to sue another person for calling them gay or lesbian - even if the assumption of plaintiff's sexual orientation is true. I would assume this statute would protect people who others refer to as transsexual without their consent regardless of whether or not they are.
So, yes I can sue Lightweight if I find out that he uses my name and claims to one of his next dates or to anyone else for that matter that I am transsexual. I have mountains of pictures from childhood which show that I was a female from birth.
Does anyone remember that "Friends" episode when Brad Pitt made an appearance as a former high school classmate of his then wife Jennifer Aniston's character Rachel? When they were in school, Brad's character started a rumor about Rachel that she was a transsexual cheerleader. That's how comical this lunatic's crazy question was. It's so messed up they included a sitcom story line about it.
Who someone is likely to date or sleep with based on gender is a private matter as is someone's gender itself.
I don't dislike transsexuals. But I am not one of them. Someone asking another person if they are a transsexual is like one of those awkward situations where a three year old's Mommy becomes embarrassed because her toddler decides to ask every person he meets if they have a penis or a vagina, based on that little talk Mommy gave him. And then Mommy has to say, "Sweetheart, we had that talk, but it's inappropriate to bring that topic up with people."
I would hope that a man over thirty would realize that questioning people about their genitals is inappropriate and would constitute sexual harassment had it been a workplace environment. And what a random conclusion to make upon trying to decipher my body language that most people would easily construe as disinterest. So bizarre!
I guess this guy wouldn't mind dating a tranny. He still sounded interested even after his suggestion that I was really a dude in disguise. His last message revealed rage at my wasting his time with my disinterest - all that intense anger after he argued with me that I really was trans when I told him I wasn't.
I even shared with him the fact that I graduated from an all-girls' Catholic high school during a time when society was not so trans-friendly. So, I'm not even the kind of girl he's looking for. Why did he have to become so enraged that I rejected him?
In either case, you don't ask someone if they are transsexual even if you have every reason to suspect it. I think that's a general consensus among everyone. If someone wants to come out as gay or trans, let them do it themselves. They know more about themselves than you do. And I think I am a better judge than Lightweight is of whether I was born female or transitioned to become female later in life.
Lightweight had only been on Plenty of Freaks for a few months, yet according to him he had been on about 20 first and last dates.
Maybe Lightweight needed a story to tell his future first and last dates. One woman had to be the lady with the fucked up face. As my luck would have it I was going to be the designated chick with a dick. He sure had plenty of stories to tell me about how fucked up all these women were. I think the problem was him, not them. He made them run like I ran.
Hey, I've seen some beautiful transsexuals - the ladies at Lucky Cheng's make me jealous whenever I attend a Bachelorette party there. Maybe I'll dress up as a character from the Rocky Horror Picture Show for Halloween this year.
Well, this time I went on a nightmarish date. Okay, a lot of people go on bad dates, so that doesn't sound too wild, but this one really is wild. This can only happen to me, for those of you who know me! It was a second date, and I really didn't want to go on it because I didn't feel the chemistry on Date 1 at the Melville Starbucks, but I thought I'd give this guy another chance because he seemed intelligent. He graduated with honors from high school and college and had a good job even though his social skills left a lot to be desired. But, that wasn't going to stop me, not right away. After all, I've gone on dates where I wasn't romantically interested in the person at first but an attraction developed later on and in a few cases full-blown relationships resulted.
Rewind back to when I first encoutered this asshole.
He found me on the dating site Plenty of Fish and wrote to me. There were a series of pictures on his profile. He's got a nice physique and looks like he takes care of himself. He puts down that he's looking for something long-term. And, he's Catholic! Perfect man for me (on paper)! He likes to go to the gym and says he wants a charming lady. And, I'm this chick who is looking for a guy to exercise at the gym and for a long-term relationship with because I'm sick of all these unsuccessful dates that have amounted to no relationship. So I'm looking forward to meeting him.
I talked to him on the phone and he told me how he likes Latin American music. He was a fan of some of the artists my late father loved. He also said he didn't understand why a lot of guys our age (early thirties) insist on finding twentysomething girls and that he dated women in their twenties and found them to be immature. And I added that with the reproductive technology out there men don't need to rely on younger women for babies anymore. Finally! A guy who gets me and won't be scared off when I'm honest!
He also told me he had been on so many bad dates since he joined Plenty of Freaks, um, Fish a few months earlier. According to him, there was something unusually wrong with each and every one of them. So not only was this guy educated. He could empathize with me. I had my share of bad dates, so the stories he told me weren't surprising. He met a teacher with what he thought was a weird facial distortion, a woman who had someone else call him and say, "I'm here" and then turned out to be a different woman with a different voice once they met face to face and lastly a woman who drove all the way from Brooklyn just to randomly yell at him, take off and drive all the way back there from Suffolk County.
In person, I could tell he was the man from the pictures, albeit a less attractive version. His hair was oddly cropped around his head like it had been glued on, sort of like synthetic hair. He had the nice biceps that I like on a man, but his bizarre way of talking and interacting in person overrode that. He seemed to mean well, but it was coming out all wrong.
He knew a lot about mortgages because of his job. I had been preparing and signing complaints as a foreclosure attorney for a while, so we had a long discussion about the subprime mess for the entirety of our first date. I, of course, explained the bank's position. While I did not feel attracted to him, I thought perhaps his knowledge of the business end of loans and the fact that he was Catholic might compensate for his goofy demeanor.
Note to self: besides refraining from getting yourself so excited about someone you're attracted to who has stopped calling, also be sure not to force yourself to like someone you find repulsive just because you think he's educated and successful.
Fast forward. The setting was at an Irish pub on New York Avenue in Huntington, NY and I was sitting at a booth across from him sipping a glass of wine. He ordered himself a ginger ale at 10PM on a Saturday night, which I thought was odd as most guys who meet me for drinks will have at least a beer. And at an Irish pub?
On the other extreme, a man I met two summers ago chugged down a few Guinnesses during our Sunday lunch date at a pizzeria. Guinness Guzzler questioned my refusal to consume alcohol that early in the day upon his suggestion. And while I wouldn't want to become involved with someone who drinks too heavily, I certainly raised an eyebrow over this lightweight before me in the Huntington bar.
A few sips of a glass of dry, cheap red wine later, the man who went on so many dates with all abnormal women rambled on about how he works out to keep his biceps and how we should be workout partners. He then shifted the conversation to the fact that he lives at home and did throughout college at a local school on the island, that he hasn't had very many relationships with women and that his Long Island undergraduate alma mater was difficult to gain admission to, an assertion contrary to the Barron's book college rankings. He was oblivious to my obvious disinterest - a dating cue that most men observing me at that moment would have picked up on in a heartbeat.
And then he caught my attention when he told me that most people look better in their pictures than they do in person but that I am the exception. I thanked him for the compliment then quietly thought to myself that in that case he was the rule. He continued to discuss plans with me in the near future, but I forget now what we were supposed to do.
I stared blankly to the side, trying to avoid eye contact with him as he spoke in broken paragraphs that made no sense.
He then suggested that we go to a bar on the next street, which was conveniently located near the municipal parking lot where I would make my escape.
"I have something with my family tomorrow morning and don't want to stay out too late," I said and rushed toward my car with him trailing slightly behind. We went by happy couples holding hands, and I bitterly wished I had one of those guys with me instead. He was reaching out his hand for my shoulder. I knew he wanted to get cozy, but he looked more like a scout leader trying to pat a kid on the back - probably because I was taking large strides. I walked faster so he missed me.
I clicked on the remote and hopped hastily into my car to avoid any physical contact with him.
"Nice to see you again," I said quickly, "Good night." I slammed the door shut, locked all the doors and revved up the engine. I still got the sense that he didn't take a hint. If I let him keep yapping, he probably would have told me that he finally found The One.
As I was on the fork on New York Avenue, the phone rang and it was him. I didn't want a ticket from the Suffolk cops. Fighting a ticket downstate is a bitch! So I let his call go to voicemail to deal with later. I continued home to Nassau from Huntington on the Northern State, the highway I take to and from work every morning. In the meantime, he left me three text messages, one after the other.
Now, I had made up my mind that he was a throwback, but for me there's no worse way to reject or break up with someone than disappearing after a seemingly perfect date. And the more indicators you give to someone that you are interested in them, the more frustrating it is for that other person to follow up with you for the plans you said you'd make with them only to be blown off.
If the guy tells me up front he doesn't think it will work or he simply doesn't lay a hand on me and we walk away from the date without even kissing goodnight, I will take a hint and move on. I might initially be disappointed if he outright tells me he doesn't want to see me again, but I won't harbor any resentment down the line because I will not have had false hopes.
But it seriously pisses me off when a guy disappears after telling me how attracted he is and how he wants to be with me. Sometimes being given false hope is worse than the rejection itself. Knowing what a pain in the ass that is, I've promised myself I will never do that to a guy.
While most people would realize I wasn't interested if I behaved the way I did on my date with Lightweight and wouldn't mind if I just disappeared, this guy just wasn't getting a clue. He was so into me and not afraid to express it. I would have to spell my disinterest out for him like you do the ABCs for toddlers. He was so socially tone deaf I thought he would be crushed if he never heard from me again.
There were so many text messages from Lightweight I didn't bother reading them before responding. (Big mistake!) I cut to the chase: "I don't think we're compatible. I don't think we should see each other again. Good luck."
And then I scrolled down to see the text messages. It was inevitable. I'd have to free up some room in my mailbox.
I suddenly wished I had read what he wrote to me before I sent him that very polite, respectful message of rejection.
"You seem very shy and nervous. I'm not used to this. Is it just me or are you like this with everyone?" Okay, he mistakens disinterest for shyness. He's totally out of it.
"Is there something you are afraid to tell me?" he types and follows with, "TS." Now "TS" were not his initials and in either case he didn't really have to sign a text message. I could tell who it was by the number.
Scroll down some more. "Are u a ts?" read the next message.
"What is a ts," I began typing then realized what he was asking me. Holy shit! I couldn't believe what I was reading. Nobody had ever asked me such a vile question in my life.
"Please don't tell me you are asking if I'm a transsexual," I text Lightweight. "I am not a transsexual. That's a disgusting and inappropriate thing to ask."
"I think you are," he simply said, "Come on. I know a lot of Thai's and Flips are."
Okay, first this guy gives me the creeps because he's completely strange. So I want to get rid of him in a nice, polite way because I'm not an insensitive bitch to just disappear on someone who is so obviously infatuated and not taking a hint. No good deed goes unpunished, so I actually read his texts to find he is insulting me by making random assumptions about my gender assignment. There's another strike against him. And now to add insult to injury, this bigoted asshole is making ethnic slurs against me and stereotyping two countries as places where the women are likely to be transsexuals.
I called him a racist for using those terms. His excuse? He just used the term "flip" as a short cut for text. I spoke to some people about this incident who never even realized that "flip" was a derogatory word for a Filipino and that's solely because they've never heard the term before. Those who are familiar with it are aware that it is intended to be racist.
Come on! If he wanted to shorten it, he could have said "fili." "Flip" is not an appropriate shortcut. It's a racial slur that was once used by American soldiers in the Philippines to insult the natives there. It stands for "Fucking Little Island People" or "Funny Looking Island People." Look it up in any standard dictionary or even Urbandictionary.com.
He then went on to say there was nothing wrong with being transsexual and then he said, "I'm not lashin' at all. I still think you are. It's my opinion, observation" after which I informed him that I was "female from birth with a period" and that he got me at a very bad time when I was expecting my period. Again, I told him I was not a man in drag. I then reiterated that it was very disgusting and inappropriate to suggest I was transsexual.
Lightweight defended his comments saying furthermore that "there's nothing wrong with what I said. It's like me saying you're black when you're really Spanish." Okay! Now, he's on a roll. This racist sack of shit had just insulted almost every minority group you can think of. Not only does he not take a hint when someone is not romantically interested, but he just doesn't know when to quit. And, his inappropriate social behavior extends to freely making racial remarks. I almost wished I were face to face with him so I could punch his nose, but then I thought about my license to practice law. I wasn't going to throw away everything I worked hard for over this loser.
I then explained to the clown that I was acting "nervous" as he described it because I was just not interested in him and that I had tried to be nice to him by being up front instead of leading him on. It was quite obvious he was smitten with me. I also told him to never text or call me again upon receipt of my final message. Once I texted that, he was surely "lashin" by now.
This is when I really confirmed he was socially inept. I now knew why he hadn't had so many romantic relationships. I could taste his fury when I read, "I am deleting this number right now. You should have known by the first date if you weren't attracted to me instead of wasting my time this late at night."
This late at night? We got off our date at around 11:30! Give me a fucking break! Two in the morning is not late for a Saturday! Is he fucking kidding me?
And someone can decide after two dates as opposed to one that they are not interested. People can discover after being married for twenty years that they are not with the right person. Giving him a second date was an act of generosity on my part, a benefit of the doubt even though I found him a little too gawky for my taste.
I told him at some point in the texting thread that I could sue him if he told people I was transsexual. He said I could not "on the basis of this." He treated it like it was a serious conversation, so he wasn't even trying to insult me. He was so socially tone deaf that he didn't even know how offensive he was being. I don't even think he was trying to be malicious.
When I was taking the Bar exam, one of the lectures revealed that there is a civil cause of action in the State of New York that allows someone to sue another person for calling them gay or lesbian - even if the assumption of plaintiff's sexual orientation is true. I would assume this statute would protect people who others refer to as transsexual without their consent regardless of whether or not they are.
So, yes I can sue Lightweight if I find out that he uses my name and claims to one of his next dates or to anyone else for that matter that I am transsexual. I have mountains of pictures from childhood which show that I was a female from birth.
Does anyone remember that "Friends" episode when Brad Pitt made an appearance as a former high school classmate of his then wife Jennifer Aniston's character Rachel? When they were in school, Brad's character started a rumor about Rachel that she was a transsexual cheerleader. That's how comical this lunatic's crazy question was. It's so messed up they included a sitcom story line about it.
Who someone is likely to date or sleep with based on gender is a private matter as is someone's gender itself.
I don't dislike transsexuals. But I am not one of them. Someone asking another person if they are a transsexual is like one of those awkward situations where a three year old's Mommy becomes embarrassed because her toddler decides to ask every person he meets if they have a penis or a vagina, based on that little talk Mommy gave him. And then Mommy has to say, "Sweetheart, we had that talk, but it's inappropriate to bring that topic up with people."
I would hope that a man over thirty would realize that questioning people about their genitals is inappropriate and would constitute sexual harassment had it been a workplace environment. And what a random conclusion to make upon trying to decipher my body language that most people would easily construe as disinterest. So bizarre!
I guess this guy wouldn't mind dating a tranny. He still sounded interested even after his suggestion that I was really a dude in disguise. His last message revealed rage at my wasting his time with my disinterest - all that intense anger after he argued with me that I really was trans when I told him I wasn't.
I even shared with him the fact that I graduated from an all-girls' Catholic high school during a time when society was not so trans-friendly. So, I'm not even the kind of girl he's looking for. Why did he have to become so enraged that I rejected him?
In either case, you don't ask someone if they are transsexual even if you have every reason to suspect it. I think that's a general consensus among everyone. If someone wants to come out as gay or trans, let them do it themselves. They know more about themselves than you do. And I think I am a better judge than Lightweight is of whether I was born female or transitioned to become female later in life.
Lightweight had only been on Plenty of Freaks for a few months, yet according to him he had been on about 20 first and last dates.
Maybe Lightweight needed a story to tell his future first and last dates. One woman had to be the lady with the fucked up face. As my luck would have it I was going to be the designated chick with a dick. He sure had plenty of stories to tell me about how fucked up all these women were. I think the problem was him, not them. He made them run like I ran.
Hey, I've seen some beautiful transsexuals - the ladies at Lucky Cheng's make me jealous whenever I attend a Bachelorette party there. Maybe I'll dress up as a character from the Rocky Horror Picture Show for Halloween this year.
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