For those who read my Yours Till Niagara Falls blog entry, you already know about the questionable motel accommodations I was subjected to for the duration of my Niagara Falls escapade…however what I failed to mention in the entry seeing as it’s a public blog, is the extent of the freakishness of the people who were with me on the trip.
I sensed almost immediately that I might be in for a trial of grace and patience. Within the first couple of hours on the bus to Canada, I had emailed Esther on my Blackberry and said that I feared this trip might have been a mistake. Naturally she encouraged me to not pass judgement too quickly and wait and see. I also had it in my head that perhaps I just needed to give them all a chance and perhaps it was a case of needing to get to know them better.
As it turned out, unfortunately my initial impression was correct.
These people were what my former NYC roommate, Kim, refers to as “Zoids” which is Kim-ese for “freakazoid”. Zoids are all around us, but definitely more highly concentrated in certain places. Christian Zoids (which is the category this group belonged to) are the worst. They are typically single Christians, they tend to lack social skills and have difficulty relating to others - especially people who are not also Christians. It really does sadden me when I meet these sorts of people because it causes me to wonder how we, as a church, have managed to so fail such a large demographic.
I believe there are less Christian Zoids to be found in places like NYC - I really didn’t come across too many of them there. However, out here in the wilds of the suburbs, they seem to just flourish.
The top Zoid on the trip that I met was this guy who I’ll call Frank. To be fair, I didn’t really know how big a Zoid he was until after the trip, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Allow me to set the stage:
I first spoke to Frank on Friday when a group of us had gone down to see the Falls after arriving. Frank had begun talking to me and then pretty much plastered himself to my side… I even went down into the majorly misty part of the walkway in an attempt to shake him to no avail.
In particular there was an event on Friday night that did not impress me. As a bunch of us were heading back to our flea-bag hotel, we were approached by a couple of Mormons. One was speaking to two of the women in our group, but they basically ignored him, so I started talking to him and asking questions (for those who may not recall, I had 2 Mormon roommates at one time so I was comfortable talking to them). After they left, one of the women turned around to me and said, “I admire you for being able to talk to them - I’m always afraid to because they’re always so prepared!” I thought (but didn’t say) “You know, they’re just people like you and me - what’s so scary about that?” But it was right then that Frank chimed in with his lunatic ravings (he had been talking to the other Mormon) and said, “Well, I just told him straight-up that he’s in a Christian cult and everything he believes is a lie.” He went on to say some of the other ways in which he had verbally accosted the poor guy. Needless to say, I was appalled - what was he thinking?? This is someone who claims to have gone to seminary…don’t they teach people how to evangelize in seminary?? I mean seriously! I did respond to this statement - not sure exactly what my words were, but they were something along the lines of, “Gee, do you think that was an effective way to win him over?” The whole thing just made me sad.
Saturday I had spent by myself except for dinner which Frank also attended, but we were sitting at different tables and I didn’t see him for the rest of that evening.
Sunday we were all together as a group again before heading back to Philly. We had gone to the Skylon Tower for brunch. Frank had somehow managed to get in line behind me and proceeded to totally invade my personal space until I was able to escape with a plate full of bacon and pancakes. After brunch, we all went up to the observation deck of the tower to take in the view. Alone for a moment, Frank managed to find me and came over to ask me out.
“So, Deb,” he said as he approached. “I was thinking, you know how I was telling you about the Sight & Sound theater in Lancaster?”
I immediately knew where this was headed and pretended to be preoccupied with setting up my 2000th shot of the falls. “Yeah,” I replied from behind my camera.
“Well, I’ve been looking for people who enjoy that kind of thing and I thought maybe if you were interested, you might like to see a show or two of theirs with me?”
“Oh…um…well, that might be fun,” I stammered (cringing) while trying to think of how I could basically tell him I was busy for the rest of my life without hurting his feelings. “Only thing is,” I continued, “I don’t know when you were thinking you might want to do something like that because I’m getting ready to go out of town for a few weeks on vacation and I have to work some weekends while I’m home, so I don’t think I can make any plans really until the fall.” There. I thought surely a normal guy would surely see a girl blowing him off for literally 4-5 months as a clear indicator that she’s not interested, right? I mean, isn’t that just common sense?
We talked a bit more and he forced me to take his business card and asked me what my email address was (which I dodged). He said he wanted to send me the Sight & Sound theatre info, etc. to which I replied that I was sure I could just Google it myself. He then said I could just email him and he’d have it. Perfect! I thought, Now I can just conveniently lose his business card (oops!) and will be out of this mess.
After that, I did my best to avoid him the rest of the day since as I knew he was interested (and I was most definitely not), I didn’t want to do anything that might further encourage. We spent the bulk of the day in the bus and he wasn’t sitting near me, so essentially my “avoiding him” boiled down to deciding to go to the bathroom before ordering food at Burger King when he again got into the long line behind me.
Apparently my blowing him off and avoiding him the rest of the day did not send quite the message I had intended. The trip coordinator also sent out a list of all of our names and email addresses which completely underminded my goal of keeping Frank from contacting me. I might also add that at Redeemer, they offer for people to opt-out of having their email disclosed to the rest of the group post-retreat/trip as a courtsey. I never felt the need to withhold mine, but this time I would have really appreciated that option. As you might have guessed, on Monday evening, I received the following email:
From: Frank
Date: May 21, 2007 7:12 PM
Subject: Sight and Sound and other things of interest
To: Deb
Hi Deb,
What an unusual email address. There must be a story behind it. Do
tell. I really enjoyed getting to know you earlier on in the trip and found myself rather liking you and attracted to you. I feel like I have quite a number of things in common with you- love of travel, the outdoors, writing(?), drama, and spiritual maturity. I would love to meet your puppy and I would still be interested in taking in some drama with you at Sight and Sound Theatre. However, I felt on the last day of the trip that you were avoiding me whereas you had been rather friendly beforehand. So I am getting mixed messages and not sure what to do. It is confusing to me.
In any case here is some info on S & S Theatre:
Sight and Sound Theatres
sight-sound.com
1-800-377-1277
PO Box 310, Strasburg, PA 17579
Here is Calvary Chapel of Phila infor:
Calvary Chapel of Phila
ccphilly.org
13500 Philmont Ave
Phila PA 19116
Single Group: 7 pm to 10 pm Tuesday nights- worship, message, small prayer groups, social time, and they do plan some special events Wed. Night Dinner and Service: Dinner in the Cougar Cafe from 5 pm to 7 pm and service from 7:30 to 8:30 or 9 pm in the main sanctuary Sunday Morning Services: Lots of them at different times going from like 8 am to 12 pm Sunday Evening Service: 7 pm to 8 or 8:30 pm in the main sanctuary
If you are a writer like me, this is the best place for workshops and connecting with critique groups, other writers, publishers, and editors:
Greater Phila Christian Writer’s Fellowship Conference
August 9th -11th at Phila Biblical Univ. in Langhorne Pa in lower Bucks
County
www.writehisanswer.com/Philadelphia
Marlene Bagnull, Litt D., Director
316 Blanchard Road
Drexel Hill, PA 19026-3507
I preached at Marlene’s church once. I go to GPCWFC almost every summer. One of the editors is a personal friend of mine from seminary. We critique together with a couple others. Want to join us? Do you write? I’ll edit your stuff if you will edit mine. I am writing a trilogy called Journey to Millennia: Book I Sign of the White Rider (The Great Commission), Book II Haven of the Messianic Temple Knights (The Great Tribulation), Book III The Second Coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (The Great Kingdom). My Twinology is Consumation of Middle-Earth: Book I Visitation of Illuvatar, Book II Dagor-Dagorwrath. I’ve also written some plays, skits, short stories, and articles (like some Creation Science articles that were published out in California.)
Hope to hear from you-
XP~Frank
To which I replied:
From: Deb
Date: May 23, 2007 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: Sight and Sound and other things of interest
To: Frank
Hi Frank. Thanks for all the info - I’ll definitely check it out, although as I mentioned, I’m out of town a lot this summer and have to work some weekends when I’m home, so I doubt I’ll be getting out to the theatre or anywhere else for awhile.
As to the rest of your message, I’m flattered, but I’m also sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I was only being friendly when we first met which is just how I am, and did not intend for it to imply anything else. I did get the sense on Sunday that perhaps I had come across the wrong way to you and so while I wasn’t trying to send you “mixed signals” (or avoid you), I was trying to get the signals straight. Just so you know, I do think you’re a nice guy, but that’s where it ends for me.
I wish you luck with your writing and the trilogy, etc. Speaking of, any chance I could send me one of your creation science articles? I’d be interested in reading them. Maybe I’ll see you at another event sometime.
Deb
At this point I was definitely thinking that he was something of a Zoid, but perhaps not to the degree that I do now. If I had even suspected, I never would have asked him for any of his articles (which I did primarily because Es asked me to). In any case, done bun can’t be undone and I received the response below (note the change in his display name):
From: Sean W W McKnight
Date: May 24, 2007 12:01 PM
Subject: astrophysics articles
To: Deb
Deb,
Thanks for being honest with me that you are just interested in me as a brother and friend, maybe, and that you are not physically attracted to me and interested in me as a boyfriend or relationship. I would be interested in you as a sister and friend if you are godly, sweet, considerate, flexible, and fun. I already revealed to you that I am physically attracted to you. However, as long as you don’t send me mixed messages and encourage me towards something that you really don’t want, I think it would be fine to do some fun or interesting things together once in a while. You’re probably about 40 minutes away from me. Since were just going to be friends we can just do things Dutch and I don’t have the burden of paying your way also and it is not expected for you to show strong physical affection towards me or strong relational and emotional commitment.
I had to use my old computer and dig out some old 3.5 inch magnetic disks to get the creation science articles I wrote back in the mid 90s for you. So you don’t get lost, they are one approach of four to reconciling super novas with a young earth. The basic premise is that Einstein was right and Hubble wrong. The universe is limited to one sprial galaxy.
Distant galaxies are nebula and gravitationally distorted star images or optical illusions. The size of the universe is much smaller than current coventional thought dictates. Also the universe is contracting, rather than expanding. I provide scientific evidence in support of this shrunken, contracting universe model that will eventually be sucked into a universal black hole in fervant heat at the end of world. Some of the pictures are not scanned in. I can send you hard copies with pictures through snail mail too, if you are interested.
XP~Frank
You may need to go back up and read that last email again in order to get the FULL effect. Trust me, the true insanity that lies within doesn’t really reveal itself until the 2nd or 3rd read-through.
I responded because, well, what else could I do:
From: Deb
Date: May 24, 2007 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: astrophysics articles
To: Sean W W McKnight
Hi Frank. Thanks for the articles - I’ll take a look at them when I get some time.
See you around.
Deb
Surely this would be the end of him. But no. On Friday night another one came through asking if I’d like to accompany him to a Christian Single’s Memorial Day picnic on Monday afternoon. I wanted to reply that I’d sooner dig my eyes out with a butter knife, but instead I said, “Sorry, but I’ve got plans all weekend.”
At this point, I’m pretty creeped out among other things and have decided that if he writes and asks me to do something again I will reply that I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to do anything together ever, although I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to say it nicely. Any and all suggestions are welcome!
Moral of the story: There are a lot of crazies out there and this is a PRIME example of why I’m still single. Do you see what I have to work with? I’d rather be single.
