I would like to bitch about a specific male, a neighbor of mine.
I am one of those neighbors who walks her dog and rides her bike around the neighborhood, stopping and saying hi to everyone. I think it’s important to know your neighbors, so I know everyone who wants to be known: neighbors who walk around and use community features like the pool or the grills, etc. I’m not looking in windows, but I’m out here and I know what’s going on.
A few times now, I have come across a single man who appears to be the father of a little girl, she’s maybe 4 years old or so. I see them fairly regularly, even though I’m not home very often, but they have a dog and so do I, so that put us in the same places at the same time. I have never seen a woman around, so either the girl’s mother is dead or not in a relationship with the man, and it is far more likely that he was rejected by a woman than that a 30 year old woman is dead already (I’d guess he’s about 30 but he’s ugly and fat and hairy so I don’t want to look at him long enough to figure it out). They do have a dog, so I see them when I’m walking mine.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw them in the dog park. My dog doesn’t like it in there, so we just walk up to the fence and say hi to friends that way. I saw the little girl in the dog park with her dad, and she was curious about my dog, and my dog loves kids, so we went up to the fence. I forget exactly what he said to her, but it was incorrect and it was almost like he was talking down to her about how she interacted with my dog. My dog walked away from the fence, instead of staying to greet the other dogs if they come over, which is what she normally does, but the dad tried to make the girl think it was her fault for approaching too aggressively, like as if my dog was startled by the little girl, and it was the girl that caused my dog to retreat. It’s actually that my dog just says hi then keeps it moving because we’ve got a lot of people and things to check on. I spoke up at the time and basically told the little girl her dad was wrong and that my doggie just likes to walk a lot. I remember thinking at the time that the dad was way too eager to correct the daughter.
Yesterday, I walked past the pool with my dog as they were leaving, and I told the little girl she could say hi to my dog, and the little girl presents the back of her hand and does a great job letting my dog sniff (my dog is about 30lbs, not too big, slightly below eye-level to the girl). My dog is sniffing, and the little girl gives her a head pat, which my dog enjoys, but then big fat dad tries to come around and puts himself over my dog, so she pulls back to get away because she’s scared of the sudden movement from the man who is now bent over her back. My dog just walks away, but she’s clearly done with the interaction, and then the dad tries to tell the daughter that she was too aggressive with my dog and thats why the dog walked away and didn’t want any more pets.
No, you dumb asshole, it was YOU who made my dog walk away, YOU and your giant fat hairy man body scared my dog, not your tiny 4 year old child who is basically standing still. My dog likes men just fine, but she knows the difference between males and females, she is far more protective around men than strange women. I’m not mad about him mischaracterizing my dog in general, I’m upset that he keeps blaming this little girl for either things that nobody caused, or things that HE caused. I said to the girl, “No, it was your dad’s fault why my dog got scared, it wasn’t you.”
We were walking in opposite directions, but ultimately heading to the same place, my other neighbor’s garage. My dog was saying hi to him and his little baby when the man and his daughter come up, and the man just asks me, almost like he was angry, “How did you beat us here?” 1) I am not fat 2) I took a shorter route 3) shut up. The tone in his voice was more like, “Are you going to tell Garage Neighbor about me?” It was weird.
I know the things I’ve described here are not in and of themselves terribly alarming, but Ladybirds, I’m telling you, there’s something off and wrong and gross and I hate it, I just don’t know what it is, but I know it’s there. At best he’s giving this girl a terrible sense of guilt and shame that will probably cause dysfunction in her life, and I want to kick him in the kneecaps.
