How to lose the moral high ground #1: Use the bigot route.
Tensions were already running high by the time we got on the train at Glasgow.
You see, due to a fatality on the line, our train from Dundee to Glasgow had to be rerouted around Perth, and thus we arrived at Glasgow an hour after we wanted to, thus missing our train to Nodnol. There had been stress and worry and more stress for about four hours straight from the time we heard about the fatality. When we arrived at Queen Street, corchen ran, with luggage, to Central, while the rest of us took a taxi, and Scottish taxi's are ridiculously cheap, and if I had tried to run at my level of anxiety, I would have had an asthma attack. I don't approve of asthma attacks.
So emotions were high when we finally got onto the next (and last) train to London, which is why conversations got intense, and why there was a lot of alcohol. And we involved other people in our conversations, including a very clever Arabic father-of-two who works as a safety inspector on oil platforms, and a South African of the sort of person I also describe mentally as 'Aussie liberal backpackers'. Conversations included Milliways (of course); personal experiences with suicide and divorce; the hotness of Eliza Dushku; Madeline McCann, Jamie Bulger and Sarah Payne; hazeljnutt the pocket lesbian; the sex life of parents; character motivations in Casanova and other such tidbits. So we eventually had a lot of fun, and it may have been fun that was obvious to other people.
I have experienced the annoyance of being around boisterous people (read:stag parties) on a train. I also know that we were trying to be respectable (we may have failed, because when the Millibrits are together, we tend to forget other people exist), and I definitely know that IF ANYONE HAD SAID "hey guys, keep it down?" we would have.
So that is one of the reasons it was so annoying when the 60-something woman who had been semi-galring at us the entire journey, decided to give us a piece of her mind. The real cincher, though, was the phrasing she decided to use.
I didn't notice requiem2adream was upset until I noticed she had left the train suddenly, leaving her bag behind. I later found out it was because the woman had said to another passenger, quite loudly and for us all to hear, It must be nice to be that messed up. A moment later, she had addressed all of us with:
Can I say something? You know, just because you're lesbians, you don't have to rub it in everyone's face. I have plenty of friends who are lesbians and they're nicely discreet about it. You people are being really immature about it. Other people don't want to hear about your sexuality, OK?
And there was probably more. However by that time Lauren had returned, clearly upset, and I chose to hug her instead of listening to more of this homophobic rant.
It left me stressed, angry and utterly depressed all at once. I'm not used to that kind of attack. Had she said 'you were loud, annoying and offensive', I would have been chastised, guilty and worried. As it is, I haven't felt that level of insulted anger and desperate sadness since the last time I cared about Crazy Internet People.
Bitch.
You see, due to a fatality on the line, our train from Dundee to Glasgow had to be rerouted around Perth, and thus we arrived at Glasgow an hour after we wanted to, thus missing our train to Nodnol. There had been stress and worry and more stress for about four hours straight from the time we heard about the fatality. When we arrived at Queen Street, corchen ran, with luggage, to Central, while the rest of us took a taxi, and Scottish taxi's are ridiculously cheap, and if I had tried to run at my level of anxiety, I would have had an asthma attack. I don't approve of asthma attacks.
So emotions were high when we finally got onto the next (and last) train to London, which is why conversations got intense, and why there was a lot of alcohol. And we involved other people in our conversations, including a very clever Arabic father-of-two who works as a safety inspector on oil platforms, and a South African of the sort of person I also describe mentally as 'Aussie liberal backpackers'. Conversations included Milliways (of course); personal experiences with suicide and divorce; the hotness of Eliza Dushku; Madeline McCann, Jamie Bulger and Sarah Payne; hazeljnutt the pocket lesbian; the sex life of parents; character motivations in Casanova and other such tidbits. So we eventually had a lot of fun, and it may have been fun that was obvious to other people.
I have experienced the annoyance of being around boisterous people (read:stag parties) on a train. I also know that we were trying to be respectable (we may have failed, because when the Millibrits are together, we tend to forget other people exist), and I definitely know that IF ANYONE HAD SAID "hey guys, keep it down?" we would have.
So that is one of the reasons it was so annoying when the 60-something woman who had been semi-galring at us the entire journey, decided to give us a piece of her mind. The real cincher, though, was the phrasing she decided to use.
I didn't notice requiem2adream was upset until I noticed she had left the train suddenly, leaving her bag behind. I later found out it was because the woman had said to another passenger, quite loudly and for us all to hear, It must be nice to be that messed up. A moment later, she had addressed all of us with:
Can I say something? You know, just because you're lesbians, you don't have to rub it in everyone's face. I have plenty of friends who are lesbians and they're nicely discreet about it. You people are being really immature about it. Other people don't want to hear about your sexuality, OK?
And there was probably more. However by that time Lauren had returned, clearly upset, and I chose to hug her instead of listening to more of this homophobic rant.
It left me stressed, angry and utterly depressed all at once. I'm not used to that kind of attack. Had she said 'you were loud, annoying and offensive', I would have been chastised, guilty and worried. As it is, I haven't felt that level of insulted anger and desperate sadness since the last time I cared about Crazy Internet People.
Bitch.