2001-03-23 - 11:59 p.m.

Tiny Stalker

I fear That I'm turning into a kvetch, is that true? I do seem to complain a lot, but sometimes I get this feeling that my life is turning into a situation comedy that is funny to everyone but me.

How about this latest twist: I'm being stalked by a child.

Okay, laugh it up. It's real funny.

As I've mentioned before, I write the chess column for the local newspaper here in Frown Town. Since I'm only in the newspaper offices once a week, I usually have them refer any questions about chess to me at home. I don’t really like the idea of giving out my home phone number, but I view myself mainly as a popularizer of chess and I can't tell the people where to play it if they can't reach me. It hasn't been a problem - up until now.

A couple weeks ago this kid called at the paper looking for me. He wouldn't leave his name or number, but the secretary at the paper gave him my home number. I thought this was odd, but in retrospect I understand her reasoning now - she wanted to get the kid off the phone.

This kid got me at home later in the day and he had a million questions: where do the local clubs meet? When is the next tournament? and so on.

I don't usually have a problem talking with kids, really I don't, but I didn't much care for talking to this one. Part of it was he had such a shrill voice that just listening to him for a couple of minutes gave me a headache. Also, he talked so fast I couldn't understand much of what he was saying - it took me quite a while to understand what his name was. However, the thing I liked the least was the fact that he asked a ton of questions and didn’t listen to any of the answers. He'd just barrel along to the next question.

How do I know he wasn't listening to the answers? Partly because he didn't seem like he was but mainly because he called me the next day and asked me the same questions ALL OVER AGAIN!

Thereafter he would call nearly every day, sometimes twice or three times. Most of the times he gets my answering machine, and he leaves long, long messages.

The kid is a talking machine. One time he left a long message about how he was talking to someone about running a chess tournament in Frown Town City Park. Now I assume he was talking about running it in the summer because now it's cold as a penguin's ass. Besides the problems of running a chess tournament, which I want nothing to do with any more, you have to add variables like the frigging weather. Sorry, chess tournament called on account of rain. Also Frown Town City Park is not a place I would want to hang out in, especially after dark. It has a bad, bad reputation. So no thanks, times three.

You know, I do feel sorry for this kid. He obviously not have much of a life if all he can think of to do in the middle of the afternoon is call some middle-aged guy that writes a chess column. It's also obvious that his parents aren't paying much attention to him if he calling someone like me twice a day, every day.

Lily likes kids much more than I do, but she has no patience with this kid either. She heard one of his messages on the answering machine and gave me a look like she'd just seen the saucers land. The kid's voice was so shrill and high-pitched that the message was full of distortion. This kid's voice is almost beyond the rage of human hearing; dogs must go crazy every time he opens his mouth.

I actually saw what the kid looked like this past weekend. On Sunday I did some substitute directing at a small local chess tournament, and he was playing in it. I didn't identify myself to him, but for the first time I actually got to see what his name was by looking at the pairing charts. What I thought it was pretty far off for what it really was.

At one point during the day I was making a ruling on a game that was going too long and he started chiming in with a squeaky opinion about what I should do. I told him that I was the director here, not him. He was just as pushy in person as on the phone.

He had no clue who I was. I guess he didn’t recognize my voice, because he called me on the phone the following day talking about how he'd done in the tournament like I hadn't seen it for myself.

So what do I do? One suggestion was that I call the kids parents and get THEM to make him stop calling me. I didn't really want to do that because I didn’t really want to turn this into an international incident and get this kid in trouble with his parents. Besides, I'm a grown-up and should be able to handle these things by myself, right? Right??

Sigh. The plain fact is, I have trouble dealing with difficult people, or maybe with people period. My problems with the Chess Asshole were proof enough of that.

It's really weird. The way my life is set up, I am in a place where I shouldn’t really care what anyone thinks (except Lily) and yet somehow I care what EVERYONE thinks. I know, in my heart of hearts, that I really couldn't care less what other people's opinions are, and yet when faced with someone who might not think I'm a nice guy, I get into a panic.

I think it has to do with how I was brought up, or rather not brought up. I got very little input from my parents so I looked for clues on what was acceptable and not acceptable from the other people around me - my schoolmates, teachers, etc. Unfortunately this put me in a position where I was automatically assuming that everyone else was right and I was wrong, so I changed what I was doing to match everyone else, to blend in. It's a habit I got into early and I'm finding it hard to shake.

What I need to learn to do is center myself and find out what it is that I really want, and act from that. This doesn't mean trampling over other people, it means acting as an advocate for my own unique point of view. Hey, if I don’t do it nobody else is, right?

The fact that this kid makes me not want to answer my own phone shows how my world has shrunk. Is every obnoxious person out there going to be able to have this control over me?

Well, maybe not.

A couple hours ago the kid called me again and got me at home. Before he could start with his barrage of questions I told him that I wasn't so comfortable with his constant phone calls. I also said that I would be happy to answer and serious question he had about chess, but I was not his 24 hour a day hotline. I wasn't mean, but I was firm. He sounded disappointed, but not crushed, and he said goodbye.

Okay, let's see if he was listening this time.