open letter to that blue shirt pedestrian on 5th this morning

dear aqua-blue-shirt lady walking down fifth avenue this morning who felt the need to comment as she crossed 33rd street and passed me and my boyfriend,

i thought that your comment was not only unnecessary and unhelpful, but actually damaging.

my boyfriend and i were doing nothing innapropriate or harmful by kissing while we waited for the light to change so that we could cross the street. there was no groping. no body parts revealed. we did not hamper the flow of traffic. we kissed a little and then we crossed the street.

what did you hope to accomplish, i wonder, by admonishing us to "get a room?"

certainly, no room was required for our activity - we neither needed privacy oursaelves nor owed the public a shield from our behaviour.

were you hoping to let us know that you disapproved of our public display of affection? how is that any of your buisness?

perhaps it made you uncomfortable to see us together? but, there are lots of things that we see day-to-day that make us uncomfortable (the homeless, clothes worn in bad taste, giant costumed characters). Further, your personal discomfort (or mine. or anyone else's) at seeing any of these things neither indicates nor requires that those things be hidden away. It is MY problem that costume characters freak me out - no one would suppose that because they give me the willies, that costume characters should be forever banned from public life. The same is true of public kissing which is at worst, harmless, and at best a sweet reminder of what a lovely and special thing it is when two people really care about one another. Why hide signs of the nice things in the world?

blue shirt lady, i believe that your comment was mean-spirited and i wish you hadn't made it. by being small yourself, and by allowing your smallness to be made manifest through your actions, you are helping to make the world a smaller and more hateful place. that's something that deserves to be hidden away. get a room for your crummy attitude.

ee