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Unpleasant situation, urgh, how could I have made it better?

All Acting Regiment

18:59 / 02.03.06

I've been wondering whether or not to post this, but here goes.

So earlier today, after a seminar, I was wandering down the road to the cafe with three other guys off my course. "A" had just made a joke about bums and so we were having a collective laugh. I guess we looked a bit jolly- nothing hysterical though; I doubt we would have raised an eyebrow.

And then I noticed a guy about ten bus-lengths down the street. He was very, very big and brawny; he had a shaven head, and he looked Greek or Middle Eastern. He was wearing a black tracksuit, and he was staring at us and shouting a sound that was something like "Aoi!" or "Ahar!", and smiling, as if he'd just found someone he'd been looking for for a long time. He was totally unknown to us.

He came towards us quickly, becoming quite excited, and before we even knew what was happening, he'd got inside the group and squared up to "B", who's the biggest of our group.

And then he says, in a very strong, yet "soft", "southern UK" style accent, so strong that it sounded put on or mocking:

"Wouldn't it be funny if...What would happen if I put a knitting needle through your belly button and pulled out your liver"

And then he stared out "B" for a few seconds. All four of us moved away from him and carried on walking down the street, watching him to see what he might do- at which he started running in the opposite direction, then came back a bit, and then ran off.

Well, we were all a bit shaken. It wasn't as bad as it could have been- there was no actual violence- but the guy seemed to be too "together" to be just pissed, and too sincere to be threatening students to get a rise- and he didn't swear, something I'm used to in displays of "hardness". I don't know much about mental illnesses, but it seemed from people I've known with learning difficulties that this guy might have been suffering from such. I'm no expert, obviously.

Which makes me feel bad, because if that's the case, he's still out there somewhere, perhaps a danger to others but most likely a danger to himself, and we didn't do anything to help him because we were fucking scared. Help.

19:06 / 02.03.06

Sounds a bit off his face. How did he propose to extract a major organ using only a smooth, non-hooked knitting needle? He wouldn't stand a chance of a) snagging the liver, or b) pulling it out through a navel-sized hole. Clearly, he had little or no grasp of anatomy.

19:14 / 02.03.06

Or knitting.

19:19 / 02.03.06

Did remind me of several of us piling off a bus in a rough part of Edinburgh, some years back, looking for a friend's party. Lost, we asked a local for directions. He slowly pulled a large gun out from behind his back as he gave us directions. Then he said, pointing the gun at us, if you can get round the corner before I get this loaded, I won't shoot you.

We kind of knew he was taking the piss. But then again... It would have been so uncool to run like scaredy cats, and we so wanted to stride slowly and deliberately out of sight, but we ran like Daley Thomson on his way to the chippie.

(I had also been beaten up because someone didn't like my badges as I waited for the bus to get there. And the party was crap. Not a good night. The friend emigrated to Oz shortly after that. Which was probably a good thing.)

19:27 / 02.03.06

Surely what he meant to say was crochet needle.

19:29 / 02.03.06

You could always inform the police and give a description. Maybe they wouldn't be interested but on the other hand he could possibly be known to them.

*

19:30 / 02.03.06

Yes, that sounds pretty scary to me.

What do you think might have happened if one of you had asked him, in a very calm tone, if he was okay, or if he needed something? Or if you'd talked to him while one of you called someone for help (not that I have any idea who you'd call)?

On the other hand, you didn't get into an argument with him, and you didn't hurt him, and you didn't further aggravate the situation by acting too upset. Congratulations, you've already done better than probably 90% of all people on the planet, of whom I count myself to be one.

I think the odds are lower of him hurting someone else than being hurt. And I don't think you could have done much to ensure that he wouldn't get hurt. If you tried to restrain him, someone was going to get hurt. If you tried to engage him in conversation, you likely would not be able to keep it up until someone got there to help. If you had called someone to help, someone would have ended up having to restrain him— if they're mental health professionals they may have been able to do so appropriately. If they sent cops out, he'd probably have ended up getting himself shot, given his skin color (was that relevant in some other way, or were you just using thick description?) and likely unpredictable reactions.

All Acting Regiment

19:34 / 02.03.06

Thick description. It was clunky, but the best I could think of.

Thanks, all...yeah, we really should have got someone to help. There were plenty of people around, but they were mostly just students like us.

19:36 / 02.03.06

On wednesday a man car chased us round the centre of Birmingham for 20 minutes all because he was blocking the traffic on the roundabout and I beeped him as we went past. I briefly felt like one of Charlies Angels, me driving, Mixmage going 'go left, go right' but then the man started making pointy gun fingers at us and it got scary. He kept trying to overtake me and drive into the side of me.

Needless to say due to my WIKKID DRVING SKILLZ we lost him.

I probably shouldn't have beeped.

22:00 / 02.03.06

This type of situation where someone comes up with some random aggression always make me feel really bad, especially if it's more in the style of Xoc's experience. If I do the sensible thing and ignore it/ run away (depending on the level of aggression) makes me feel pathetic and weak - thought that's probably just a caveman style reaction. If they get my goat and I react I always feel ashamed for reacting to the provocation. It's a lose/lose style thing. For what it's worth Legba, given the undertone of the guy's possible mental disturbance, I think you handled it pretty well. Id entity, as ever, expresses this much better than I can.