UPDATE: The lawsuit has been dropped! Details at the end of the post.
A brave hero in Austin Texas has taken his fight against the evils of misandry to the courts, filing a suit against a woman who skipped out on a date with him after he criticized what he saw as her excessive texting.
He is asking for S17.31 in damages, the cost of a ticket to a showing of the 3-D version of Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Galactic Boogaloo, or whatever it’s called, I don’t have time for fact checking.
Let’s go to KVUE.com to hear his side of the story:
Brandon Vezmar met the Round Rock woman on Bumble, a dating app. They went on a first date to a movie theater to see “Guardians of the Galaxy.” During the movie, Vezmar claims that she opened her phone between 10 and 20 times to read and send text messages.
This, Vezmar claims, is in “direct violation of the theater’s police” and adversely affected “the viewing experience of Plaintiff and others.”
“I said ‘listen, your texting is driving me a little nuts’ and she said ‘I can’t not text my friend.’ I said ‘maybe you can take it outside to the lobby, I’ve seen people get kicked out movies for this,” Vezmar explained.
The woman took his advice and left the theater, but did not come back.
According to Vezmer, he is less interested in getting his 17 bucks back than he is in the “principle” at stake here, “as Defendant’s behavior is a threat to civilized society.” He thinks her behavior represented some sort of civilization-threatening abdication of “personal responsibility.”
Needless to say, the woman’s version of events is a little different. She told KVUE she deserted her date because he was creeping her the hell out. And he still is.
I did have a very brief date with Brandon, that I chose to end prematurely. His behavior made me extremely uncomfortable, and I felt I needed to remove myself from the situation for my own safety. He has escalated the situation far past what any mentally healthy person would. I feel sorry that I hurt his feelings badly enough that he felt he needed to commit so much time and effort into seeking revenge. I hope one day he can move past this and find peace in his life.
Somehow I don’t think that will ever happen. Especially since this may be Vezmer’s last date for a very long time.
Check out the video on KVUE.com to see the literally neckbearded (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Vezmer explain his crusade in a little more detail. The odds that he’s a Redditor seem extremely high.
UPDATE: Check out this interview, where he explains how he’s fighting for men who are being “exploited” by women on dates. The article makes even more clear what a creepy stalker he is.
UPDATE 2: The lawsuit has been dropped! She basically paid him off so he’d leave her alone. Here’s the AV Club on how this all shook out:
We’re saved everyone: By Inside Edition, of all things. Apparently as sick of this story as the rest of us, IE set up a meeting between Vezmar and his date, so that she could give him the $17.31 back. In return, she asked for him to please god, “just leave this alone.” Vezmar carefully counted out all the money, and agreed to drop his lawsuit. We’d like to say that this will be the last we hear of this, but we would undoubtedly be wrong.
H/T — @RemingtonWild and @ami_angelwings on Twitter
Small claims courts have a max amount that can be awarded. I think it’s $3000-5000, depending on the state. Of course, since my knowledge on this comes from watching Judge Judy, so I could be wrong.
Francesca:
Good Caucasian Aryan men. Absolutely no relation to the area between the Black and Caspian seas where the scary middle eastern people live.
I hope it gets thrown out. This sets precedent that women owe men a certain experience when on a date and the courts can be used to coerce women into giving men this expected experience.
@Fran
Invented vaccines, for a start.
@Sandra
Questions of personal moral feelings aside, criminalizing sex work creates far more problems than it would even theoretically solve. And doesn’t solve the problems it purports to address.
@Z&T
AFAIK in this type of suit whoever the court rules against winds up on the hook for all court costs regardless. That’s part of the problem, actually.
Wow, this guy takes pettiness to a whole new level…nay, a whole ‘nother order of magnitude! And then these bozos have the gall to wonder why women don’t appreciate what Nice Guys™ they all are.
@Dalillama
Ah, right. You are right. My bad.
If sex work is to be criminalized, buying it should be criminalized. Not selling it. But otherwise, yeah, you’re right.
I would not have believed anyone could make me side with the movie texter in a dispute. Congratulations, Vezmer.
Her best response right now would be to offer him the 17$. Most likely he’ll refuse because dickhead.
But then he’s guaranteed to lose the case.
On the offchance he accepts, she’s down $17, but up wind out of his sails, and hassle removed.
Texting in movies is rude, sure, but a threat to civilized society? C’mon.
I can’t imagine a judge NOT laughing at that.
@Dalillama
Really? What’s the story behind that?
I read somewhere she was texting with a friend who was having a relationship crisis or something and had her phone “turned down” by which I hope she meant the screen brightness but who knows. Texting at a movie is not cool but I myself have talked on the phone on the train because of a cat emergency. Sorry no sources because I’m on break at work.
Oh, man, he just keeps digging his hole.
See this interview here, where he explains how he’s fighting for men who are being “exploited” by women on dates. The article makes even more clear what a creepy stalker he is.
For fuck’s sake. You went on a date. It didn’t work out. Shit happens. Suck it up and move on.
Fact is that your date has the right to leave at any time, for any reason. She is voluntarily agreeing to be around you and she can decide not to be, if she wants. She doesn’t even have to tell you why.
If you can’t handle the notion of other people having independent opinions, you really shouldn’t be dating at all.
I’ve been on dates where we just didn’t click, and ended up poking our phones until we finished our drink and left.
I’ve been on dates where one person clicked and the other didn’t, and they left at the end of the evening and never communicated again.
Some fraction of your dates will be washouts. This is normal. This is part of the dating experience. Does this dude not understand that?
My guess is that on some level he does understand it, and it’s so difficult to reconcile with his privileged entitlement that it makes him furiously angry. Cognitive dissonance is a scary thing.
“Drove her car”? I’m really curious about this. This was their first date. I wouldn’t let a first date drive my car.
Also, the second half of this sounds like complete sour grapes. Jeesh, transparent.
The guy who responds to a bad date with a lawsuit says that she‘s not handling it well. You can’t make this shit up.
@ viscaria
Maybe not, but that’s a spot on analogy.
Funnily enough this crops up most often about engagement rings. But to quote the wonderful Zsa Zsa Gabor “I’ve never hated a man enough to give him the jewellery back.”
What a massively sad wanker. I hope he gets his comeuppance. Glad I’m out of dating really.
And considering the pettiness and unpleasantness of this man one cannot help but think that this is totally his intention. The $17 and ‘civilised society’ stuff is just a ridiculous excuse.
@ David F
Gawd, that was borderline painful. So it’s not just the $17; he also wants €4 for pizza. It’s annoying that he’s even being taken seriously and the woman is having to respond. I wish there was a way one could just send him the $21 on her behalf just to get shut of him.
This is what I think happened:
1) Guy acts like a creeper. Girl gets rightfully worried and uncomfortable. Perhaps afraid of the fallout if she simply leaves and ditches him.
2) She opens her phone and texts a friend to ask what to do. Short conversation, I highly doubt it was 10-20 messages like this guy claims.
3) Guy gets annoyed, asks her to do it outside. She takes her opportunity and doesn’t come back.
@Sunnysombrera:
Judging by what he said, I agree with you:
Translation:
We were both bored. I rambled, and she didn’t try to raise any opinions of her own.
She apparently said she had a friend in the middle of an emergency texting her.
He asked her to leave. She left. He is now taking her to court for it.
He stalked her by tracking her down through family members in social media.
She has now taken out a restraining order.
He began a Twitter account just to crow about how awful she is and whip up other creepy fucks. I have no doubt she will be harassed and terrorized all because she went on one date with this loser asshole.
Now, why don’t more women give “nice guys” a chance?
Here’s food for thought: If men can sue women for not completing the date in a way the man likes, how long before they start during because they didn’t get a blow job?
According to MRAs, taking a woman out on a date and not getting sexually serviced after is as bad as rape. They aren’t being ironic. They actually believe that. So, how long before they sue for restitution when women don’t fuck them?
A)
(From this article.)
QUIRKY? If there needed to be more evidence we need less cis white men in our media, here it is. This is not quirky, it is frightening. This shows what sort of response a man who feels like he has been wronged can get from the wider media. He’s famous.
I don’t like texters either. But i am pretty upset with james gunn jokingly calling for jail time, a tweet which i am reading as siding with this asshole and not with the woman who is now pretty much guaranteed to be harassed.
Next week, when the story breaks about all the death and rape threats she is going to get, i hope everyone who wrote about this as a quirky story will feel horrified and realise their part in encouraging this damn harassment.
B) I am also super curious as to why he was driving HER car. If i owned a car, no first date or acquaintance is ever getting behind the wheel.
That fact alone convinces me that he was a creep on the date. Why wasn’t that examined in the damn article???
Knowing movie ticket prices around Austin, $17.31 is “2 tickets plus tax, no refreshments purchased.” It will cost him significantly more in court fees ($100 plus a little depending on which one) to file the case. He’s very unlikely to prevail unless she fails to show up in court, so this $17 date just turned into $117 + time to appear in court. Kind of an “own-goal” situation. I do wish she wouldn’t have to be there to deal with this idiot.
Alex Jones is also from Austin. I’m sorry to say that every time I find an info-oars business card display at local “leave your card here for people to take”, I do my best to take all of them.
After watching ‘Super’*, it’s pretty clear to me that James Gunn is susceptible to the ‘poor sad rejected heartbroken nerdboy’ worldview, so I don’t expect him to come down on the right side of this.
* Jesus fuck, I hated that movie. This is the only part I liked:
You’re always a kaiju in my heart, Michael Rooker.