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
Not joining the *cough* “discussion,” since every time I try, this image keeps flashing in my mind.
http://www.pointlobos.org/sites/default/files/sealionpoint.jpg
As for the story…the outcome is disgusting, and to say my sympathy goes out to the woman in question for being essentially subject to extortion by a petty, whining creeper feels inadequate.
My dad’s side of the family plays the white elephant game every year at our Christmas party. There’s a lot of regifting there and it’s totally socially acceptable. There’s a horrifying demonically possessed looking Nutcracker nutcracker that looks similar to this
that ends up in the game almost every year. Last Christmas I got this yucky Twilight ornament
and I fully intend on bringing it to this year’s white elephant.
That’s the only time I ever regift anything. I can’t remember the last time I actually returned a gift to a store. I would return an engagement ring if I broke off an engagement but I doubt this will ever happen.
Kimstu,
I’ve contributed money to this blog, and I’m having a bad time because of you. Therefore you owe me money. Pay up.
Not going to do the right thing?
WWTH,
That is a seriously ugly ornament.
@Hippodameia:
Well, apparently you don’t really want me to leave this conversation after all?
I’ll be happy to discuss with you our views on the etiquette obligations of blog commenters and the ways in which they are or are not analogous to dating situations for as long as you want to go on talking about it.
WWTH, that may be the very best gag gift I’ve ever seen. Also, sorry for not tagging you in my last reply to you. I’m not as consistent with that as I should be.
If some entitled douche bought a woman a drink, say, and then got mad that she wouldn’t talk to him or whatever, I could see giving it back to him and saying, “All right, here. You drink it.” I could also see downing it all just to spite him. Me, I would probably do what the woman in the OP did and forget all about the drink in my rush to get the hell away from this guy as soon as possible. To count only one of these options as Objectively Correct is just silly.
Edit: I don’t mean to imply that you, WWTH, are only allowing for one “correct” option.
@ Kimstu
People are making fun of you. Seriously , my ability to believe you’re here in good faith has now evaporated entirely. Shut up and go away.
@Kimstu
Dude, I’m pretty sure they’re trying to get you to knock it off with the etiquette bullshit and see the patriarchy woven in there. But with your thick skull, well…
Can you maybe do something else and stop bothering us? Nobody here seems to like you–and you’ve already worn thin any premise of good faith.
I can provide links to online games.
Where’s my money? You owe me, and must immediately show your contempt by paying me.
This isn’t a conversation – it’s a collection notice.
@Dalillama
That. I don’t believe they’re here in good faith at all. It’s been obvious from the beginning. Plus, notice they’re lying about why they’re still here.
They say “I respond to people because they keep talking to me”, but when it comes to people like WWTH and me and a few others who have conclusively demonstrated that kimstu’s points are nil at best and dreadful at worst, they ignore us.
Troll, troll, troll. All they are is that. A deeply misogynist troll.
@Dalillama:
That’s okay; it’s not as though we come here to do etiquette.
@IgnoreSandra:
Sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted me to go on responding to you. As far as I could tell, your last post about something I said was directed to @WWTH, so I figured I’d stay out of it. I’m happy to go on talking about what you said about what I said, if that’s what you want.
But if you really want me not to take any further part in this conversation, and then complain that I’m ignoring you, that’s kind of a mixed message.
So the troll is greedy, demanding, classless, lacks any independence whatsoever, and won’t pay up.
Also water is wet.
Yep, there’s the admission of not being here in good faith. If we’re not here to “do etiquette”, then stop going on and on and on about it.
And still not getting it.
@Kimstu –
I agree, and probably many people here do too. People aren’t piling up on you because they think you’re unequivocally terrible! But implying that someone isn’t self-respecting unless she does a specific thing seems a bit narrow-minded, don’t you think?
Re etiquette and gifts: At one of my cousin’s birthdays, I gave her some of my old books, and one was a media-criticism textbook. I told her it was an old book of mine and I’d thought it might be useful in a course she was taking. She said it wouldn’t be. I asked her, then, if she wanted me to take it back. She said no, it was okay: she’d keep it to resell at the college bookstore.
I’m sure we broke several etiquette rules each in that situation. And neither of us were unduly bothered!
Now, I realize that’s because we both know each other well. Between strangers, things would be different. But my point, if I have one, is that Etiquette Isn’t Everything and not everybody uses it the same way, anyway.
If I cross my legs the right way to imitate* a white woman who has and who grew up with money, men will understand that I have a lot of social capital and so I will be Safe.
*Edited this so as not to make undue assumptions about anyone’s race or SES, because I should bloody well know better.
@JS:
Like I said, though, “doing etiquette” and “discussing etiquette” are not the same thing. People can be discussing etiquette even when they’re doing non-etiquette-approved things like telling each other to fuck off and shut up, for example.
@JS:
I most definitely do not get whether posters who continue to reply to me and/or complain that I’m ignoring their posts, but also complain that I’m still posting, want to go on talking to me or not.
http://linda.curious-notions.net/images/blog/meme/prompts/etiquette.jpg
@Kimstu
What wavelength are you even operating on?
Somehow it’s even worse in person.
http://img.over-blog.com/241×385/2/78/88/99/mes-images-2/kiltissime-et-chapeau-melon/good-manners.jpg
@e of i:
Sure, and I’m sorry if I implied that. Like I said, I’m not making any assertions about this unfairly harassed woman as a person, or about any other individual as a person. I just have strong views about perceptions of behavior and their etiquette implications in general.
(And it really is okay if you or anyone else honestly don’t want to go on discussing this with me, I recognize I can be very didactic and tedious when I get going.)
@e of i:
Yep, Miss Manners somewhere makes the point that individuals in private are free to ignore or rewrite etiquette rules in whatever way(s) they mutually agree upon.
@Troubelle:
Um, mostly around 400-100000 nanometers? Not sure I understand the question.
http://m.likesuccess.com/quotes/22/1051449.png