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
@msexceptiontotherule: That’s because they are their own sidekick…like Dr. Fate in The Great Race or Doofenschmirtz in Phineas and Ferb. Except that at least Fate and Doof are both kinda lovable.
@(((Violet…)))….*sorry trying to abbreviate :P*
If they weren’t such assholes they might actually be able to make some real live friends who would hang out with them. Which would give them a way to pass the time, some social interaction, though they’d have to do some serious self-work if they want to not utterly repulse women when not creeping them out from a semi-distance. 😉 Definitely not the lovable sort, they could be – if they realized they were assholes and changed their whole mindset and behaviors.
@msexceptiontotherule: No problem with the abbreviation and you are totally on the money with your point about how they’d have friends if they weren’t such assholes
@Kimstu
Yes. Sometimes that is an appropriate response to the situation. Some people might also keep it because if they did anything else, they would be putting themselves into a situation they feel is dangerous.
As everyone has been SAYING, the pushback you are getting here is because you have said that this is the one. Way.
It is not.
Or you can think of it as an asshole tax. Someone can spend money on something, turn out to be an asshole, and that is it.
You aren’t wrong that it can create sticky situations where people feel obligated to do things they otherwise wouldn’t, because there was money involved.
You also aren’t wrong that, in an ideal world, there would be a more egalitarian view towards paying for dates.
We don’t live there, right now. Your way of resolving this situation is one way to resolve it. One that will leave the person disdainfully paying for the date now remembered, for being so ungrateful.
The date was set up somehow. Let’s say (for the purposes of argument) on Tindr. The guy decides that he wants to make his displeasure clear, so he wants to find his dates contact details.
Perhaps he sends messages to people with the right last name, in an area, hoping to find family.
He find her contact information, through some asshole who should have kept their damn mouth shut. He then proceeds to find out where she works, her email, her friends, her facebook, her twitter, etc. He makes his displeasure over her ungratefulness clear over all of these things. Perhaps he uses colourful language. Perhaps he calls her job. Perhaps he has access to photoshop, some porn images, and photos of her face. Perhaps he has time on his hands.
Perhaps he finds out her home address. Maybe he has a gun, maybe a knife. Maybe he’s really angry over this interaction.
Maybe he shows up where she is. Maybe he’s angry. He’s probably bigger and stronger than her (statistically speaking), so maybe he can force her to do something.
BOY I SURE AM GLAD she knew the Throw Back the Mink way to always always always solve the initial situation! Who needs instincts that say ‘get the fuck out of there, he is creepy. Cut all contact. Don’t antagonise’ when we have perfect etiquette guides, amirite??
Ran out of edit time, but wanted to add: If you think that this is a ridiculous situation that pushes hypotheticals, it is not. It is what disadvantaged people have to worry about every time an interaction goes south.
Will this end badly?
Will this end badly for me?
Will I be blamed for the consequences, and not be able to get help?
How do I get out of this situation without making it worse?
If you repeat, AGAIN, that giving money back is the only way to handle this… I honestly give up on you.
@EJ, yes, those are actual Judith Martin books. Available on Amazon. Judith Martin has written a lot of etiquette books. She is one of the wittiest writers ever.
@Kat, our library just weeded out the Gay Head books in the past two years; ’tis a pity, since some folks clearly need some good old-fashioned, common-sense etiquette.
@Alan, I’d like to imagine myself a modern-day Belle, but, alas, not from my personal collection. But those books are still fun!
@ peevee
I bought a book for my god-daughter when she was learning to drive. She uses the word ‘kyriarchy’ a lot, so I thought she’d appreciate the cover.
“With this book even your wife could learn how to drive!”
It was written in the 40s. It contained some real gems. The author disapproved of dipping headlights (assuming your car had a dip switch) for oncoming traffic:
“If his eyes are so weak he has no business driving.”
There was a bit of a samurai spirit about it though:
“If your only options are to swerve and risk hitting pedestrians or continue forward and crash, then the real man of course chooses honourable death”.
(In the end she just took lessons)
Turns out that the dudely dumbass has been involved in other dumbass things too:
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/865523488542437377
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2017/05/19/when_cinema_texting_goes_bad/?thanks=3183413#c_3183413
It’s these things that tend to turn me off of reading tech-related news.
@Rhuu:
I get that, and I’m certainly not crying over the poor widdle asshole having to pay an asshole tax. Fuck that asshole.
The problem is the fact that in that situation the asshole-tax collector, so to speak, is the one who gets the benefits (such as they are) from the asshole tax. In the sense of having received a free meal/drink/entertainment/present/whatever from an asshole, which is an unpleasant and awkward position for a non-asshole to be in.
Well, that’s certainly very true. And again, I emphasize that the whole root cause of the problem in this particular situation was the behavior of the asshole who decided he was entitled to pull a bait-and-switch about the social expectations of paying for dates in the world that we do live in right now.
@Pie:
Um, you’re implying Hippodameia is an asshole? I don’t think she’s an asshole, I think she’s probably just funtrolling.
In any case, I doubt whether Hippodameia’s spent more money “on me” by contributing financially to WHTM than I’ve spent “on her” by contributing financially to WHTM during the years I’ve been reading and commenting here.
(And really, of course, to belabor the obvious some more, all of us contributors are jointly supporting the valuable work of this blog for all its readers, rather than bestowing favors on one another individually.)
@Kimstu:
Fine. Snip out the part where I describe the obvious problems with your rule, and completely ignore it.
The root of the behaviour described in the OP is indeed that the fellow was an asshole, and a woman had to deal with it.
The root of the behaviour/conflict here is that you have been unable to see that the etiquette you are describing is not a one size fits all problem solver, but rather something that should only be used when the giftee feels safe enough to do so.
I hope that, should you ever employ this technique, nothing goes badly for you. It shouldn’t go badly for anyone. I worry it will, but I hope it won’t. Please listen to your instincts, and if it feels off, don’t feel like you need to do this grand gesture.
Stay safe.
@Kimstu
At this point (and probably earlier), you are trolling. Please stop.
@Rhuu:
Whoa, sorry, I didn’t “ignore” that part of your comments to try to disparage or deny it. I just felt it was perfectly reasonable as it stood, and needed no argument from me.
More explicitly, I think you are absolutely right that neither this etiquette rule nor any other etiquette rule is guaranteed “always always always” to avoid or resolve a difficult situation. Nor should this etiquette rule or any other etiquette rule be trusted to protect one from situations of actual danger, which definitely override etiquette considerations. And I don’t think I’ve ever claimed otherwise.
So if I am dating an extremely wealthy person I should insist that we only ever eat at Taco Bell, because if I had to pay them back it’s all I could afford. And forget agrering to go away with them for a weekend on their dime, even though they really want to and can easily afford it. What if they don’t have a perfect time and thus I owe them thousands of dollars?!
A glimpse into the bizarre world of respectability dating.
@JS:
“Trolling”, how? I’m doing my best to make courteous, thoughtful and sincere replies to those posters (and only those posters) who keep on directly replying to me.
If you (anyone) want me to stop talking to you, then feel free to stop talking to me. Honestly, I’m fine with that.
Even if we apply contractual principles to dating (which I would submit is a bit daft) then what’s the ‘consideration’ for your ‘investment’? That is to say, what is the obligation on the party receiving the payment?
With my lawyer head on then arguably the only requirement is that you turn up. That is the essence of a date after all. This chap seems to be seeking an implied term that you’ll also be an absolute delight.
Well sorry mate, you try suing your travel agent because when you arrived in Paris it was a disappointing experience. All they have to do is get you there.
I had a reply, but as it seems that everyone is tired of this conversation, I’ll leave it be.
@Alan:
Haha, I like this way of looking at it!
Dave, we have a sea lion that needs to be put to bed…
Come on you guyz! It’s all about being the bigger person. So when you feel threatened and unsafe, REMEMBER, it’s all about the manners.
Kimstu
You still refuse to acknowledge the potentially dangerous situation the woman was in. You actually said her safety wasn’t an issue. GO FUCK YOURSELF. don’t try to explain your position A-fucking-gain.
Bottom line. She felt unsafe. He stalked her demanding money And you said her safety wasn’t an issue.
You have lost this argument…..unless you think women don’t deserve to feel safe. Cuz that’s what I think you are implying, throughout your constant over explanation, her feelings dont count in all of this….except her self respect right?
Fuuuuuuuck yoouuuuuu
Don’t bother responding to me, I know now what kind of disengenuous person you are.
Content note: death
This reminds me of a personal story.
I was widowed at an early age. It’s was unexpected and obviously fucking terrible. We had no wills or anything legal set up, cause ya know, we were in our early 30s, and so there were zero preparations (aka were are you being buried?) and I was in the worst time of my life. A few days after my husband dies, this fucking piece of shit family member says “you know, it’s RUDE, to send out thank you notes for the flowers after two weeks” I could barely eat and was contemplating suicide every night.
But holy shit! I better write those thank you notes to all the people whose lives WEREN’T ruined or I’d have been just the WORST person ever within that 2 weeks. Thank goodness I got that sage advice to have manners while staring at my young husband’s corpse. Because thank you notes, and now 17$, are the most important things in the world.
Ban the troll, please. They are now blaming people responding to them for their trolling and that kind of gaslighting about whether or not a certain behavior is wanted is too much for me.
Cornychips,
That’s awful. I’m sorry that person was so foul.
Cornychips:
I got the same treatment after I buried my son.
Those people? They can go fuck themselves. I could not believe that was where their tiny minds went. Honestly, fuck those petty people.
I am sorry for the loss of your beloved.
Thank you PV, Lea
I don’t pull the widow card much, lots of bad memories ya know. But I HATE this manners bullshit. It’s amazing how awful life can be, but those etiquette Assholes are always there, waiting to make you feel less, while they get to ride up high on that manners horse. They give two shits about actual people and their well-being. Ugh.