sadness

The only downer of the weekend (and it was a huge downer) was when Lauren and I got in the middle of an abusive argument between a British man and a Thai woman. The situation brought Lauren to tears and she felt she needed to talk to the woman. So keep the man distracted, I sat at the barstool next to him, gave him my most hateful glare, and then picked a fight about a person’s opportunity to make the world a better or worse place, help or hurt others, through one’s every day actions. Meanwhile Lauren got the woman’s heartbreaking life story and held her hand while they both cried. The scumbag and I continued our debate about whether it matters if we do good or bad unto others for about 20 minutes before he saw Lauren talking to his girlfriend and put 2 and 2 together. Selfishly, that was good timing for me because I was more physically intimidated by this man than I’ve ever been in my life. He was thin but towered above me as soon as our argument moved away from the bar. This man just absolutely emitted violence and aggression in a way I can’t describe. My whole body was tense speaking to him. I know it was not our smartest decision to get involved and act as if we could fix anything in the world with this one intervention. But as Lauren said, we also could not just sit there. My only worry is that the woman’s night may have actually gotten worse because of us rather than better. It really scares me to think about that. I gave the woman my phone number and email address, but she said she doesn’t have access to internet or a phone. Of course she doesn’t. She broke our hearts. And the worst part is that this “couple” is just one example of a situation that is far too common.

As Lauren and I walked away, we stole the asshole’s unopened bottle of whisky and practically finished it between the two of us as our own personal (and admittedly meaningless) “F you” to the bastard.

So that was the heartbreaking part of our weekend.