the Man from Oklahoma

[electricland]

i was going to go straight to bed, but...

Missed the bus. Walked over to St Denis on the off chance it was late. It wasn't. Got 2 all-dressed steamed hot dogs* at Lafleur (if memory serves this is the 3rd such meal this week, that can't be good for me) and ate them while reading Lonely Planet. Walked back down to Sherbrooke just in time to catch the next bus (phew). Continued reading Lonely Planet and therefore went right past my stop, fortunately the bus turns right to go up Decarie 2 stops later and I noticed that. Then remembered it was a good thing because I had to move my car if I wanted to avoid my second ticket in as many weeks. Anyway...

...steps from my front door I am stopped by a burly, compact, bald gentleman who's just parked his truck and wants to know how to get to the Champlain Bridge. I have a little trouble figuring this out because he has a broad accent and talks extremely fast and it is midnight and I am in my usual walking-around daze. But the Champlain Bridge is something I actually do know how to find. So.

That way, I say, pointing, they're doing construction, but follow the signs for the 15 Sud and that will take you right to the Champlain Bridge.

Oh, he says, are you from Montreal?

Well, I live here...

But you're not from here? Where are you from originally?

Toronto.

Oh, where's that? Is that a suburb of Montreal?

Um, no, it's the largest city in Canada actually... it's in Ontario...

Gosh, I'm sorry.

Hey that's OK, I say, it's kind of good you haven't heard of it, that's where the SARS outbreak is...

We continue. In the course of the conversation I learn:

• That he is from Oklahoma.


• That Montreal is the most glamorous city in the world and its people are the best dressed in North America. (Since I'm wearing my black Gap stretch pants and my Bravo Les Filles net T-shirt and my leather jacket, I am willing to take some part in this.)


• But we need to work on our hospitality. People aren't very friendly, they don't just strike up conversations.


• That he works in law enforcement and is here with 5 other Americans (where? where are they? I have no idea) teaching (something underwater, my Oklahomish had a breakdown at that point).


• That I don't look 29, no way, he'd have guessed 21 or 22, I must get that a lot, do I? 29? No way.


• That he wants to know how to get to the Champlain Bridge.


• That his folks don't believe him when he tells them what a lot of snow we get here.


• That he's going to be in town for five months and he'd really like someone to go around and take pictures of/with (? problems with light-speed Oklahomish again) but only if I'm comfortable with that, it's very important that the woman be comfortable and he has the utmost respect...

Um, I say, I'm really NOT comfortable with that, but thanks, I'm sure you'll find someone else...

I understand, he says, backing away. No offense meant.

Have a safe trip, I say, just go that way, turn left and follow the signs for the 15.

Then I walk the 6 steps to my door and open it. He asks me the way to the Champlain Bridge again.

*note to non-Montrealers and the uninitiated: steamies are the fast food of the gods. trust me.

Comments

[ex-mthrtong.livejournal.com]

I am always hearing about such exchanges (with Americans) from my non-American friends. Jesus. Embarrassing. People oughta have to take a test before they can leave the country. Not that I want all the morons milling about here, but I'd hope not to be stereotyped in their image. ::sigh::

(steamed hotdogs rock the haus-)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Actually I was rather charmed. Reading the papers up here you'd think the entire world now thinks of Toronto as Plague City. Meeting someone with no associations with the place at all was kind of refreshing.

People are strange.

[scapersuse.livejournal.com]

I have this thought frequently, but stories like yours definitely reinforce my opinion.

Re: People are strange.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

:D

[anaka.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that Oklahoma (and Texas, for that matter) does have a high local hospitality threshold. It's considered good local etiquette to react much as he described to a stranger. You respond with a friendly greeting if greeted, wave at people you don't know as a general gesture of friendliness (this applies to people you meet while driving as well), and go out of your way to help someone who seems to be unfamiliar with the area. Not everyone does this, but among the more settled residents (30 and up) or more rural residents, it's pretty common practice.

Then, of course, they eventually travel, and discover that most other places in the world don't do that, or certainly not to the same extent. This disillusions them and makes them homesick. By the same token, people who visit are aften astounded at the general attitude here, and will come back for that very reason.

Tis a strange little world....

[electricland.livejournal.com]

That's what I figured... poor guy, he's probably homesick.

(But I'm not feeling too guilty or standoffish because I DID chat and it WAS midnight...)

[mr-weasel.livejournal.com]

Then I walk the 6 steps to my door and open it. He asks me the way to the Champlain Bridge again.

Apparently this guy is a perv, a moron or both. When I went to U of T the last time, back in the early '90's, the campus police were warning women to be on the look out for some guy on campus claiming to be a Ryerson photography student who want ed campus women to be photograph subjects. The ones that agreed apparently were assaulted or groped when they showed up at the deserted classroom for the photo shoot.

The world is full of strange and dangerous people.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't know. I didn't get a creepy vibe off him at all. I mean except to the extent that I, as a prickly Northern city-dweller, always get a little freaked out by conversations on the street at midnight.

Although, if he really wants to see me again, and I have read the situation wrong, it will now be very easy for him to stalk me.

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

I have to say that although he is probably harmless (and just a touch, erm, simple), that bit about the pictures did ring strangely with me. I don't know many folks who take pictures of places with semi-strangers in them, just for the sake of having someone (a woman specifically?) in them, but as Michelle pointed out, Oklahomans are a bit strange. ;)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

It took me about 3 tries to grasp what he was getting at with that one, he approached it so ... what's the word I want? Hesitantly, I guess.

And I'm not kidding about how fast this guy talked. Man.

It was all a bit strange, but not in a bad way.

[mr-weasel.livejournal.com]

All I'm saying is watch yourself. Simple or not, this guy's behavior was abnormal. Why would you approach a woman at random on the street at midnight to just shoot the breeze? Since when would it be okay for a man to ask a woman he doesn't know at all to go picture taking with him?

Maybe I'm over-reacting...

:)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Well, true enough, and thanks. I find I don't always have good stranger radar; my social skills are awkward enough with people I DO know. On the plus side, I do live on a major street (sparsely populated even at midnight, a couple of bars around, etc.) and I have good neighbours. And rightly or wrongly (probably the latter) I think of myself as fairly invulnerable, mostly because I'm tall.

(On the minus side, a woman was attacked a couple of blocks away from my apartment a couple of years ago and left in a coma for several hours in a parking lot. But I try not to hang out at the metro after dark.)

It did give me pause, I have to admit. If it hadn't been RIGHT outside my apartment I'd probably have kept going.

...

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

My vote goes for relatively harmless bumpkin perv.

I bet everything he said was relatively sincere: he did need to get to said bridge, (probably isn;t in law enforcement but would like to be) and would really like a nice young woman to show him around the city and pose for (naughty, I'm sure) pictures.

And, Montreal being Montreal, he probably won't have much of a problem finding a willing tour guide/model. You may have been the 7th person that day.

An little Ecuadoran guy tried to pick me up in London once with a parallel approach--requesting language assistance rather than directions, commenting on the difference in mores between his home and England, then moving the conversation in a different direction.

I think a broad foreign

Re: ...

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I got a sincere, non-pervy vibe, really. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy. It's just that being me (i.e., just a tad uptight), I have a strong "Don't talk to strangers!" thing going.

Particularly at midnight.

I'm inclined to go with anaka's take on the situation.

[bryghtboy.livejournal.com]

On the whole I don't feel that welcome when I go through Quebec so I can kind of see why he would become attached to any of the natives who are friendly and speak sort of the same language :P

Perhaps I should qualify my above statement about not feeling welcome... just so that I don't catch a beating next time I see you :) I would never say that any group or place is homogenous by any stretch... I just find that almost every time I go through Quebec some yokel or another seems to be offended by my presence.

Last time it was in a Walmart of all places where I was trying to find some cheap and fast replacement shoes since my one pair had been soaked through the previous day. So at about 8:30am Walmart was pretty nearly the only thing open and I'm looking around and find something that isn't too ugly and look for a place to try them on so I ask a guy who had been using a bench to try on a pair of shoes if he was done with it... to which he responded "You don't speak French?!" and promptly walked off in a huff. Now I'm the first to admit I'm not the friendliest guy at 8:30... but that seemed a little much.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Em, yeah. We do have some of that attitude around. Sorry 'bout that. Not so much, I find, in Montreal. I do make an effort to speak French (if only to apologize for my bad French) when I'm in a very non-anglo area. Some people are still fighting the good language fight -- they don't seem to appreciate that inability to speak French is not always hostile. ;)

Re:

[bryghtboy.livejournal.com]

No need to apologize, its not like you own or are responsible for an entire province if that were the case I would be constantly embarassed by some of the asses that are here in Toronto, let alone the entirety of Ontario :)

People in Quebec who think that its unfair that anglo's expect them to give up their language and join us... we expect it of damn near every other group so why would we make an except for somebody we beat in a war about 200 years ago :) And if you want to keep your history alive cool, I'm not about to go around kicking people in the head for being proud of who they are...

[electricland.livejournal.com]

And frankly, if you're in a Walmart to start with, it seems a tad hypocritical to be complaining about being addressed in English... :P