BOTHERED:

Growing up I never understood the cowboys who would ask, “is this guy bothering you?” The cliché seemed always skewed, as if it leant too much authority to the arbitration of the lady who was addressed. At first, I thought it was only a film cliché: a cue for action, a romantic trigger for conflict. I understood it in the context of chivalry: the interrogator challenges the virtue of the other man, as if not only to preserve the dignity of the woman against lechery but to illustrate his own. As I grew older I came to lose faith in this tradition, not for lack of wanting to believe in it but rather for the lack of seeing the belief affirmed and valued. DID I bother anyone? Perhaps, and yet how rarely did they wonder WHY!! I was myself quite bothered, reasonably so, but even when my will was base my means were pure and my intent more scrupulous than any peers I used to call my friends. I have to ask them this: if they should ask her if this man was BOTHERING her, they should ask her WHY. Why was she bothered? And why would he want to? I refuse to fathom that for something universal I might be refused. If an intent is so transparent you can call it, it is surely general enough that you can’t judge of its humanity. It was not MY fault they were bothered. They had yet to prove me to have been unchivalrous, and if they were yet unattracted to me, then the REAL question is: HOW? How can one choose a man of lesser stature over one who values Righteousness? By what authority can I then be removed? By none. So long as I am right, I must remain persistent.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]