Dear Ladies,

I hope you enjoyed yourself at the KDWB Jingle Ball. You certainly seemed to. You told me you’re teachers, and God knows you deserved a night out. You made the most of it, pre-gaming at a bar down the street and then keeping the buzz throughout the evening with $7.50 cups of Miller Lite. That’s great. What’s not so great is the way you harassed my friend and me all the way from “Want U Back” to “Drive By.”

First of all, it’s just rude to be in someone’s business all night because they happen to have the seats next to you. A polite hello, maybe some light conversation, and then let it go. Isn’t that what you’d tell your students? Wouldn’t you also tell them that being drunk doesn’t make it okay to bug someone for five straight hours? Does being nice teacher ladies make that any more okay?

Noticing that we weren’t dancing, you kept asking why we were there. We there there for the same reason you were: to see Psy, Ellie Goulding, Cher Lloyd, and, yes, motherfucking Train. We were glad we went, but no, it was not the single most thrilling night of our lives, and we remained in our seats for most of the night. Isn’t there anything you’ve ever done that you’ve enjoyed even though you remained sober and seated for it? Actually, don’t answer that.

Yes, we spent a lot of time on our phones. If we were at dinner with you, that would be rude, but this wasn’t a dinner party, it was an arena rock show. We weren’t sitting at a table with you, we were sitting next to you, minding our own business. I could get into the fact that I’m a journalist who was tweeting about the show for a news publication, or into the question of whether it’s really always a giant fuck-you to everyone within eyesight if a person dares to look at his phone when he could be making IRL conversation about Train, or OneRepublic, but I’m not even going to go there.

I would like to mention the constant dancing up on my face when I was seated there, talking to my friend or looking at my phone. If I was a woman and you were men, how would that have looked to everyone around us? I’m guessing the security guys wouldn’t have responded by flirting with you, but of course I could be wrong about that. I’m not saying there’s an equivalence here between woman-on-man and man-on-woman harassment, I’m just saying that if you give a guy one chance to enjoy having your business bumping all up in his face and he doesn’t seem to be into it, most people would say you ought to let him have a little more personal space for the next…oh, five hours.

I hope you did get lucky with that Santa-looking bouncer…after all, it is Christmas time. Next time, though, please remember that not every boy wants to be your toy.

Sincerely,
Jay Gabler