saturday september 27

today i was walking down bloor street when i thought i saw a guy walking toward me tell a girl walking about 20 feet in front of me to "smile." this is a pet peeve of mine, and it annoyed me enough that i wanted to say something about it, but i was also far enough away that i wasn’t 100% sure that was what had actually happened — before i could decide how confident i was that i’d just witnessed street harassment, the guy was already by me. for the next five minutes or so, i continued to walk down bloor behind the girl, thinking maybe i should say something to her, but it seemed like a lose-lose proposition — even if i'd accurately assessed the situation, the last thing she'd probably want is another random guy coming up and saying something to her, even if it was just a well-intentioned "that dude's a jerk."