Girl, startled

I’m sure that female readers (maybe even some guys?) will recognize the issues that I talk about this time. Allow me to dive in and sketch it for you: a Moroccan guy (his origin doesn’t matter to me, but it helps explain the story) whom I thought I knew (but didn’t) sent me a friend request on Facebook which I accepted (again; because I thought I knew him). Pretty soon it turned out that we didn’t know squat about each other, but he was pretty insistent on having a conversation with me. Since I didn’t know him, I didn’t really feel like “building a friendship”. When I ignored him he used a particular slang word that I didn’t know (being: ‘kapp’) so I asked an Armenian friend what it meant. I shouldn’t have done that, because he thought -and he meant well- that it meant ‘whore’ (which apparently translates as ‘kahba’ so there you go). I’m sure that everyone who knows me won’t be surprised to learn that instead of just ignoring this dude, I furiously asked the Moroccan guy if he had seriously just called me a whore. And that’s when it went from weird to crazy in a split second.

Admittedly, I was in the wrong by assuming something that wasn’t the case (and excuse me for not being up-to-date with the slang that kids use these days) but what happened next was plain absurd. The boy, probably feeling like a gangster behind his computer, basically exploded and fired line after line at me, aggressively asking for my address because he was going to look me up, come over and show me something; ‘understand?’
… I really didn’t.
Initially I tried to calm him down and apologize for the misunderstanding but seeing as that didn’t really work and he didn’t cease threatening me, I deleted and blocked him (as you do, because there are no other options left). I’m pretty sure that the guy is now thinking that I’m some sort of extremely white racist chick who presumes that all Moroccans are trash and herein, for me, lies the (biggest) rub. I’m pretty white, sure,
but me, racist?! Hell. No. You. Didn’t.

First of all, guys should take note (or, you know, behave as you were raised / should have been raised) that chatting a girl you don’t know line after line is not all that cool to start with. And if she’s ignoring you and telling you that she doesn’t know you, it seems pretty clear that she has no intentions to change that. Secondly, where in the hell do you come off threatening a girl you don’t even know? Seriously, has no one ever told you that you don’t do that kind of stuff? Not just to women; to no one. I bet that if this guy had this happening to his sister or girlfriend, that that guy would be in some serious trouble. Somehow, however, they don’t seem to mind to do it to other girls themselves.
Thirdly, and now we’re getting to my main point: I am not a racist. I have plenty of friends of different origin than me, but to be honest; I have never looked at them in that particular way. There’s this movie Guess who’s coming to dinner from 1967 where a black guy tells his father something like: “you think of yourself as a black man; I think of myself as a man”. Apparently not a lot of people get that, but it’s actually how I perceive all the people I know (= as people). So, for fuck’s sake, don’t ever call me a racist. I don’t vote for racists and I don’t act like a racist. If I see a bunch of guys in the street coming my way, I’ll be uneasy whether they’re white, brown, black, yellow, red, blue or green.
So basically I’ll also run from the Teletubbies.
Seriously, though, stop the generalizations. Not all Moroccans steal and not all white people are racists. Amen.

Moving on to another issue: he was perfectly aware of my having a boyfriend (he even said I had to ‘keep’ him at some point), but then didn’t stop talking which felt weird to me. Maybe he just wanted to be friends, but it doesn’t seem likely and the problem is; if I don’t say that he probably wanted more than friendship; I’m being naïve and if I do say it; I’m being a bitch who won’t make friends. Quite frankly, I don’t like those girls either who scream that they’re taken, but that’s not at all who I am as a person. I’m quite happy to make friends; I made a bunch last year and they were all “different”: some came from Russia, some from Armenia, Assyria, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Belgium, Spain, and so on. Lucky thing that I met them too, because with the incident that happened they were the people I could count on.

The Armenian friend -who is a total beast, by the way- knew the asshole who’d threatened me and took measure by sending the guy a message, saying that he had to ‘stop harassing my good friend’. It was incredible: he showed me the screenshot of the conversation and I swear, the other guy’s tone was completely different with him. No wild sentences following each other every 2 seconds, no threats, no violent use of words, no nothing. Just some weak explanation of ‘I’m just telling her I didn’t call her that’. Mon dieu. Anyway, not only did the Armenian angel help me, he also promised that I only had to ask him for help if something like this would happen again. Another Moroccan friend also volunteered to protect me (and to bring friends in the process) and so did my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s brother (who also said that he had many friends who wouldn’t mind helping me, and they’re beasts as well, so yay!).
My point isn’t that I’ve got an army -LOL, imagine-, but that I’ve got friends of all skin color, ethnic origin, religious opinions, sexual orientations and that it all doesn’t matter. Let’s shorten the sentence to (and I’m damn lucky to be able to say this):
I’ve got friends who have my back.

I realize that some of you might think that I am blowing this out of proportion, feeling the need to write a post about it, but I was very frightened the night that it all happened and that is just not okay. It got so bad that I was actually crying and afraid for the well-being of my parents and loved ones. My boyfriend calmed me down (I admit that I overreacted a little due to my tiredness and overall emotional being as a human), but I never deserved to feel that way to begin with. I do not agree with the conclusion that I should have to ‘toughen up and deal with it’, because that is just not a society that I want to live in. So dudes and dudettes (and I can barely believe that one has to ask this):
don’t threaten people.
You have no right to make someone feel so scared, not even if you think that they are accusing you of something. Use your words in a good way and explain, calmly, what your intentions were.
(I’m pretty sure, by the way, that not a single Holy Text mentions: ‘if thou threatens over the internet, thou shalt get a cool hat in heaven.’
So that’s another excuse out the window.)
Finally, please always remember: we’re all just people. Not [adjective] people, just people. Lose the adjectives; they’re used for plenty of other good purposes, not to worry.
‘kay? ‘kay.

As always you can contact me if you want to react to what you’ve read.
Shout-out to my bodyguards and all my loved ones: I’ve got your backs too. Even if I’ve only got the upper body strength of a kitten; I’m here. With my verbal ninja skills.

XOXO TheFienTeam