Don’t touch strangers

This might be my dullest and idiotic post, but this has kept me awake for a few nights, because some time ago I lost my cool. And this is a way of resolving it and making sense of it.

So few days ago there was a fire right across my house, and you could argue that my actions are less than intelligent, you may be right, but it felt right. So I ran towards the fire to check if anyone needed help or if I can help out before the firefighters come, open the gate or something similar. So I was the closes one to the problem at hand, and there was this guy in-between me and the people that went outside.

And this guy, my god, he was an actual skit from some of the Jim Carry performances, where he acts his whole body out. Arms and legs moving around for no reason, his whole body posture screamed crack addict.

And he was mumbling the whole time, for the life of me I could not figure a single sentence this character was trying to communicate.

I jumped back over the fence and tried to communicate to him some ideas that I had that we could help the situation at hand, but he didn’t acknowledge anything. And then the trouble started.

He was grabbing me by my hoodie, arms, trying to pull me in random directions. I stood still in awe of this actual situation, and my adrenaline slowly started to kick in and about 20 seconds of his hysterical shenanigans, I grabbed him by the wrist of the hand that was holding my hoodie and squeezed. I elegantly advised him to calm down that there is no actual threat of the fire, and and warned him not to touch me again. He stood still for a few seconds and then walked away in what seemed like disappointment, continuing to mumble incoherent noises.

The fire was quickly dosed by the firefighters and the night was saved.

But this legendary encounter bothered me a while. Why was I so bothered by this random confused individual, he did not have any intention of harm yet I had to stop his “advances”. But then again he may have just been drunk out of his mind, it was a Friday night after all.

I’m certain that if I were a woman, I would even consider it to be a sexual assault. I mean pulling someone’s garments is… questionable. But in no way was that anywhere near assault in my situation, I was bigger and taller than him.

But then I remembered something that may be in the law, something against dignity or honour. Like how, at least that’s how I understood my mates, we would rather be punched in the face than slapped.

Even though both are an assault in a way, slap is way more disrespectful it seems.

But I just felt annoyed, rather than disrespected. There was no reason for him to bother me physically, nor would it be productive in any way.

And I thought of how I could’ve reacted better, and I could and will in the future. But this was interesting thing to go through and analyse, as I do not have similar encounters with people I do not know.
Especially since I believe you should always be “prepared” in a way, to have an answer to similar situations before they actually happen, so you do not react by instinct. I think that is a wise advice I once received and can be applied to most emotional based situations.