I wanted to talk about an encounter with an aggressive drug addict I had today and get some thoughts on whether I handled the entire thing correctly. Today in my lunch break I met up with my mom for lunch and we sat down outside at a restaurant located at a busy plaza in my town. I mention this because I want to highlight that the entire thing happened in broad daylight and with plenty of witnesses. Shortly after we arrived, a somewhat disheveled-looking guy about my age (late 20s, maybe he was slightly older) with slightly dirty clothes sat down two tables away from us. He has a black eye and some other light markings of injury on that side of his face and he seems to be mumbling to himself, so I'm already kind of wary and try to avoid eye-contact. I notice the waiters having a similar reaction, but they nonetheless take his order.
After a few minutes, a couple with a small child walks past us - well not exactly past us, they were like 20-30 meters away from us - and the child is bawling her eyes out. The guy starts yelling at the child telling it to be quiet, calls it "mentally handicapped" and imitates a crying sound. My mom and I are beginning to feel uncomfortable at this point. I start thinking about whether I should step in some form, but he luckily stops after a few seconds. The couple didn't react, I'm not sure if they even noticed as the plaza was quite busy.
The homeless guy begins unboxing a seemingly new pair of wireless earplugs. Luckily, aside from mumbling to himself, he just sits there and sips on his drink peacefully. However, a few minutes later, after I had almost forgotten he was there, he suddenly gets up and first walks towards and then right around our table while muttering something unintelligible to himself before returning to his table and sitting back down. At this point, I'm getting more uncomfortable and start to consider changing tables. My mum is increasingly wary of the guy also. Nonetheless, we stay put. The guy clearly seems confused but aside from yelling at that couple earlier, he hasn't done anything yet. But then, like a minute later, I'm suddenly hit on the cheek by some projectile. I'm like wtf is going on here; I look down at what just hit me and it turns out it's the charging box or whatever you call it of homeless guy's new earplugs. I'm still thinking about what I should be doing when the guy stands up, walks over to our table, and picks up the charging thingy. My mom, who is equally shocked as me, confronts the guy and asks him what he thinks he's doing and tells him that he has injured me which is kind of an exaggeration as the hit didn't really hurt. Meanwhile, I'm still figuring out my course of action, so I just downplay it and say it wasn't that bad, trying to de-escalate the situation for now. Ngl, I was also a bit scared in that moment. Guy doesn't apologize but says he has Tourette syndrome and some neuro-something spasticity (don't remember exactly what he said) that causes him to sometimes lose control of his motor skills or something like that. All the while he's walking around looking for his earplugs which he apparently also threw away when he threw the charging box at me. He goes to another table where an elderly couple is sitting and out of nowhere just picks up on of the chairs at that table to look for his missing earplug which the couple of course isn't too thrilled by, but they don't say anything, perhaps because he looks and acts kind of erratic and aggressive.
So to finish this up as I already wrote a literal essay, eventually nothing happens, he sits back down and we stay at the table because my mom said she didn't want to provoke the guy by changing tables. He gets a talking to from one of the waiters and we quickly finish our lunch and leave. Even though nothing really happened in the end, I still felt kind of emasculated if I'm being honest. Like this guy threw stuff at me, didn't apologize and I just took it and even tried to de-escalate. I even told the waiter that everything was fine and that it was no big deal even though I was fuming inside and felt very uncomfortable with the situation. I'm not a small guy (6ft, not super muscular but also not super thin) but have no fighting experience and I kept thinking that this guy could have a knife or something. I still felt like I could have stood up for myself a bit more even when de-escalating if that makes sense.
Anyway. Sorry if something is unclear, English is my 2nd language.
Submitted September 02, 2024 at 11:35AM by Ahrix3 https://ift.tt/aXnm85p