Saturday 23 July 2011

I am a Loony Beacon.

Right this way, weirdos.
By that I mean, there seems to be something about me that tells stranger-than-average people (particularly on public transport) that they must come interact with me and make me feel uncomfortable. When you combine this with my accident proneness, absent mindedness, and curse you can see why I've got some issues!

Allow me to give you a couple of examples...

When I was 16 or 17, we went to see Shakira at our local shopping centre. The place was completely packed with people. One advantage of being 'the short one', was that my friends let me stand in front of them. During this time, I had long hair that was out, and my friend was occasionally stroking it. I thought it was a bit oddly affectionate, but didn't think much of it until later when she said to me:
Friend: "I can't believe you let that man pat your hair the whole time!"
Me: "I thought that was you?!"
Friend: "No why would I do that? He kept turning to me and telling me how pretty it was and patting it".
Watch out, Shakira!
Me: *vomits a little in my mouth*
(It also was not really worth going anyway. Shakira sang like half a song, and someone threw a cement bag at her so she disappeared).

Another time, walking from the train station to uni, a man came up to me and asked me what the time was. I said I didn't know, but instead of walking away to find someone else to ask, he just kept walking with me. He kept asking me questions, but I was (I thought) not really answering and trying to make it clear I was uncomfortable. When I crossed the road, I thought he'd get the picture and stop following me, but alas, he came too. This is when he asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said yes, to which he answered "ME?!" and tried to hold me hand and put his arm around me. I gave out a little shriek of no and moved away from him and started walking extremely quickly towards uni. He stopped just outside the gate and I ran away. Funnily enough, I was speaking to a uni friend about this and the exact same person (we think) did the same thing to her. She also has the same first name as me. Weird.

Quack - be nice to me!
There also seems to be something about me that makes strangers think they should tell me overly personal details about themselves. For example at a school party, I guy I'd never met before decided to confess to me that he was the one who had thrown a rock and killed a duck in the school pond (it had been announced in assembly and everyone was wondering who it was because nobody stepped forward). He was quite upset, and we talked about how perhaps he should become a vet to make up for it. He then thought this was an 'in' to start hitting on me. 
No dice, duck killer.
[via]

At least one good thing to come out of these situations for me is lessons in assertiveness. I'm quite shy and try to be very polite, but I've definitely learned there are just times where you have to tell people to get the hell away from you. 

Before I go, I will share one other person to be drawn to my loony beacon. I met this guy who told me I had beefy arms, dressed up like The Shadow one time for no reason, regularly tries to engage strangers in random conversation and - oops no wait that's Husband... 

Awkward. :P

9 comments:

  1. awesome blog! love the title name. feel free to follow/look at mine! :)

    Kristin Noelle
    http://kristinsblogofshenanigans.blogspot.com/

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  2. HAHA oh my god! Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I shuddered when I read about the guy who was stroking your hair. That is awful.

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  3. OK, that hair patting thing made me laugh to the point of tears. I thought I was the only one who had those kinds of bizarre experiences.

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  4. Ha! Love it! I mean, not the creepy guys...obviously, but the last part about the hubby. Hehe! Yeah, the hair petting guy is especially creepy. I would've freaked out. I think I am a magnet for weirdos, too...although maybe NOT quite as weird as your weirdos :)

    Stopping by from Comment Love Day and glad I did, hilarious post.

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  5. Haha the last few years I've worked my way through school working night shifts at a psychiatric hospital, so I have to say, I completely know what you were going through! Great blog, I'm a new follower!

    http://marleeindebt.blogspot.com

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  6. haha, quirky husband :)

    Sad little duck killer!

    This stuff happens to me, too! If we go out somewhere and my husband leaves me alone for a full minute some weirdo finds me! He used to think this was an exageration but now he knows. He left me alone at the store once to get something, came back not even a minute later, and a man was talking to me about vegetables and when I tried to tell him to leave me alone, was following me around the produce section. Robert says it's because I'm polite and make eye contact with people, so I worked on stopping that, and it still happens! Last week I had my headphones on, was working on my computer at the library, and was staring at my screen. This woman comes up and just starts talking at me (I couldn't even follow what she was saying because I missed teh first half because I was, you know, unaware she was talking to me). I didn't want to encourage her so once I realized she was talking to me I just stared back at my screen and made no response whatsoever--but she still came back up to me and did this multiple times over the next couple hours.

    I've been followed by people. One guy in a grocery store cornered me and asked me my name, where I lived, how much money I made, where my parents lived, etc. I told him I needed to grocery shop and asked him to leave me alone-I thought he had left so I left the store and went to walk home, which included a brief walk along the highway (there was a sidewalk) and the guy pulls up! He stops his car ON THE HIGHWAY and shouts for me to get in his car.

    Life is hard when you're a loony beacon.

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  7. BAHAHA! Oh that hair stroking thing was hilarious! Creepy as hell but funny! haha. Oh and the cement bag? What on earth? Who brings a cement bag to a shopping centre?

    Haha. Random weirdos are so much fun when you are not the one being targeted! haha

    HAHA! I killed a duck, wanna go out with me?

    Aww, I thought I was the only Looney Beacon out there. Im glad I am not. Haha. I had a great looney come up to me in a dark side street in Surry Hills when walking back to my car ask me to put on his necklace... long story short, he was likely to rob me (or steal my shopping bags full of work mail which he thought were shopping haha) if I hadn't told him that someone was in the car up there waiting for me. .... there was no one waiting for me but I figured I had better say there was.

    Oh the joy of Randoms.

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  8. LOL thanks everyone for your comments - glad to hear I'm not the only one with a loony beacon out there! Some of your stories are very concerning (but also a little funny).

    What I want to know is - how do we turn this beacon off? Or do we want to? It does add some amusement for sure, but it's also creepy!

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  9. Bahaha...the story of the man patting your hair the entire concert was hilarious, and disgustingly creppy. And you poor girl, with all the stalkers and duck killers coming after you!

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