Hard to believe, but after almost six years of posting here on this blog, last week I got my first official troll.
I feel so . . . edgy.
It happened over on my Facebook author page, where I echo this blog, and it was in response to last week’s post about my encounter with a young woman who was being harassed on the bus. As it was one of my social commentary posts, I decided to boost it, so that it would be seen by a larger audience. And that part worked quite well.
One particular member of this larger audience definitely did not see my actions as satisfactory. In short, he considered me a coward for not challenging the woman’s harasser and didn’t think I worthy of being called a man.
I don’t bring this up to knock him down or deride him. I bring it up to discuss my reaction.
Just as I described in last week’s post, my initial instincts were . . . um . . . less than helpful.
I’m a very sensitive person, and by that I mean that I easily get emotional. I get misty over small things. I get heart-thunderingly angry about events that have little real consequence. A couple of times a year, the news simply overwhelms me.
It was the bane of my childhood (“Oh, don’t be so sensitive!” was the common refrain.) and, over the decades, I’ve learned to keep it in check. It’s not that I no longer feel those emotions; no, it’s that now I’m able to generally hide those emotions. I still get weepy and rage-filled, despondent and exhilarated, but there’s a veneer between those emotions and the outside world. It’s why some people find me aloof or diffident, and it’s also why I have trouble sleeping, as in the wee hours I wake up just to second-guess myself, replaying my actual response and comparing them to my desired response, in order to determine if I overreacted or (more likely) under-reacted.
With that as backdrop, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my emotional response to having my courage and masculinity called into question was . . . strong, and my instincts were to lash out with all the snark and acid I could cram into a short, readable comment.
But I did not do this.
OK. Maybe I did, a bit.
My response had a small dose of snark, a soupçon of sarcasm, and a dash of wit. While I stuck to poking fun at the troll’s behavior rather than at him as a person, it still wasn’t flattering.
His response to that, predictably, was to double-down and ratchet up the vitriol.
Ha ha! Mr Bond, I have anticipated your reaction and you have played right into my clever trap! Yes, I had an even snarkier response all queued up.
But I didn’t post that perfectly plated serving of snark.
Why? Because Sarah Silverman made me think twice.
Recently, comedian Sarah Silverman was trolled on her Twitter feed, trolled in the most vulgar way, and her response was remarkable. Rather than go on the attack or respond with snark and contempt, she went to the troll’s page, learned something of his backstory, and engaged him with compassion and understanding. In the end, she gathered her minions (yes, of which I am one) and asked them to help the troll. Her minions responded, found him a clinic to help with his back pain, and donated to a GoFundMe campaign to help him cover costs.
Now, I don’t pretend I did anything as amazing as that. Firstly, my army of minions is somewhat . . . diminutive, if you catch my drift. Secondly, I found no obvious source of my troll’s reactive anger towards me and my actions.
What I did do was to imagine why he might have lashed out at me with such vigor. Perhaps there was someone in his life who was harassed or assaulted, and his anger at that made him strike out at me because, in his view, I let the guy on the bus get away with it.
So my response to this troll’s second bomb was much more measured. I acknowledged that, in fact, he might have been correct: the young woman might have wanted more than just an ally; she may have wanted a champion. I didn’t read it that way, of course, but it was possible. I also gave him some context on my experience with female friends who have been assaulted, and how they had wanted me to act.
Unfortunately, I didn’t hear back from my troll. I don’t even know if he read my second response; it may have been TL;DR, or he may have blown it off as more pantywaist justification.
But my mind is more at ease with that second response, and from now on, should other trolls pop up, it will be my first response.
On that, I will be able to sleep well.
k
Hello, greetings from one of your minions! Considering that you were on the bus and that you are not a policeman, I would say that you did all that you could, including asking the young woman if she needed an escort and watching to see if anyone followed her off of the bus. Consider yourself satisfactory! Since you did not see the actual interaction which had scared her, you could only offer such help as you did.
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Oh, trolls are tough. I’ve not had many. Thankfully. But I always have to fight my urge to doubt humanity when they crop up. Silverman’s response was world-changing, if only we could all master it.
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Progress, not perfection. That’s my new mantra.
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This reminds me of some years ago. There is a woman who plays cello on the ferry sometimes. She is very good. She has said she’s played on other people’s CDs and I could believe it. She is attractive, seems very sweet, is not not very big and has an adorable little girl I’ve seen with her once or twice.
One day I was listening to her playing on the ferry on the way to Bainbridge Island. A very large man walked up to her and started shouting at her. I was sitting maybe ten feet away. Everyone was watching, looking concerned, but unsure what to do. He was yelling at her that she wasn’t any good. I always thought she was very good. I got the immediate feeling he only listened to canned music, not live. Live music isn’t perfect.
My inclination was to immediately get between them. He was about five feet from her, she was seated and surprised by his rant. I would have had to go over or around a line of those ferry seats that are connected to get to him or between them. But as he wasn’t advancing on her, I waited. it seemed obvious he had mental issues, though.
Having been previously married to a very strong willed woman, and having had a few instances where my intervening between a woman and a random man didn’t fair well for me, I hesitated, unsure what to do. As for the reference, back in the 80s I was at a house party. Five skinhead types wandered in and started tearing up the kitchen. There came to be a standoff. I got between the two groups while the woman whose house it was, was dealing with the strangers who were looking for a fight.
It because obvious to me she was going to get hit. She was pissed. And rightly so. My judgement at the time (it was a party of a few Tower Records employees) was people were going to the hospital. I couldn’t calm her down. So I picked her up and set her behind me, told one of the guys to keep her back, and dealt with the strangers. Long story short, they left and to this day she won’t talk to me. She was once one of my favorite people. Back to the ferry….
On the ferry, I hesitated. I was sure the cellist was used to dealing with odd people being a busker. She handled it well, taking as you pointed out, more the Silverman method. Polite, spoke quietly, while the guy was shouting and ranting. But he was just so… big. I was worried, but ready to leap over the chairs to get between them if necessary.
As it turned out, the man eventually wandered off shouting all the way. I felt so bad for her. The thing is, intervening too soon, can offend the potential victim. Intervening in some cases, only escalates things. Something too many police are well practiced at, choosing the wrong method of deescalation.
What I got out of the event was to feel forever like I didn’t do something. In the end I believe it was the best how it worked out. She handled it, he expended energy toward her and finally he got bored and walked off. It left everyone a bit shaken though.
Intellectually it was just the right thing to do. Emotionally, I wanted to get in his face. But then he would either have cowered and run off, or escalated which would have been good for no one and, I could also have gotten a dress down from the cellist afterward for having intervened. The thing is, and she never knew it, had the man advanced on her I would have shielded her, and perhaps others would have too, though I was closest and no one else was very close.
Life, just isn’t perfect. And it doesn’t always leave the best taste in one’s mouth.
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That’s it exactly. My instincts are based on what *I* want, which is not necessarily what the person in trouble wants. Or needs. And in most situations, the more measured response is the best one for all involved, now, had the young woman I encountered asked me for more, or had her harasser followed her up to the front, I certainly would have done more. There’s courage, and then there’s discretion.
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