Dear Advice Giver,

I encountered you on the bus. You're probably around my father's age, a bit more gray hair and a visible receding hairline. Dressed pretty simply, dress shirt paired with jeans that looked way too stiff. Now, I didn't say anything to you and you was sitting in front of me on the bus. And then you decide to turn around and start talking to me.

Y: You won't get a nice decent man to marry you if you continue to dress like a slut.
M: [I slowly pull my earbuds out at this, I thought I misheard you over Lily Allen] Excuse me?
Y: You won't get a nice decent [insert race here]* man to marry you if you continue to dress like a slut.
M: [blinks slowly] Okay, right. Umm, thanks.

Politeness: 1, Random Stranger: 0

Because my answer kinda rendered you speechless for a moment, I took that as an opportunity to go back to listening to my music.

Of course, I took a few seconds to address my outfit that was visible for the day. Runners, not slutty. Black pants, not slutty. Navy blue hoodie that was zipped up, not slutty. Red jacket to keep me warm and dry, not slutty. Hair? In pigtails. I had to text a friend and she informed me that pigtails were probably what resulted in the slut comment. After all, schoolgirls just get such a bad rap in the world, right?

However, I am not impressed with your generalization. For all you know, I could have been under the age of 16 and the biggest worry in my life is wondering if the boy who sits next to me in math class even knows that I'm alive. For all you know, I could be the next Virgin Mary and have a miracle birth. For all you know, I could cat around and be sleeping my way through the men's water polo team at my school. Luckily for me, I'm none of those things, but you don't know that. You based your decision of me on... what, exactly? The way I was keeping to myself and reading a book? The way I was keeping to myself but, oh wow, I have my hair in pigtails? Really? Do you have that little of a life that you have to randomly start talking to girls who are sitting by themselves on a bus and start giving them little life lessons?

Because what I learned from your encounter is that I really don't care about attracting the attention from the race that you're so adament that I won't attract a guy from. I really don't care at all.

Sincerely,
Girl without a care

* The race that he was very adament that I'd never attract the attention of is the same one that I'm ethnically part of.

Dear Sketch Artist,

It's not everyday that I notice someone that keeps on looking up at me while I'm reading the newspaper on the bus (the finance section, in case you were curious since you couldn't see). But when I was flipping the page from finances to the health section, I noticed that you were looking right at me before you looked back down.

You had a coiled notebook and a black pen in your hands.

I'll admit that it rather creeped me out at first. I was too tired this morning to figure out what you were doing. And after maybe about three more minutes, you stopped your cycle of looking down and looking at me and started focusing on someone else on the bus. And you flipped the page over and I caught sight of this rather good sketch of me. Done on a moving bus. In pen. However, from what I could ese, I do believe that you may have put my ponytail just a little bit too high. But that's about it.

You moved onto the next person quite easily and did a quick sketch of them. When you yawned, you let your sketch book rest on your lap and I saw this great full-page sketch of the girl who was sitting across from me. You sketched out what you could see, and the way her eyes were intently staring at her cell phone.

So while it was a bit creepy (and they do teach people that staring is considered to be rude), it's some kind of awesome that you were doing sketches that quickly and that nicely. So I'll give you props for that.

Just... Try not to stare so intently next time. It's kind of creepy.

Sincerely,
Drawn

Dear Woman with Books,

When you accidentally hit someone with your bag full of books, it is customary in this country (Canada) to apologize to said person and then, perhaps, sit down (since there were available seats on the bus). It is not, however, polite (or legal...) to look at the person who said 'ouch' when you first hit them (that person being me) and then giving them a look of disgust while you go "That didn't hurt!" and then proceed to swing your bag (full of books) back at that person, that you had already hit once, right in the ribs.

Let's have a lesson today from the Criminal Code of Canada:

(1) A person commits an assault when
(a) without the consent of another person, he applies force intentionally to that other person, directly or indirectly;
(b) he attempts or threatens, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, if he has, or causes that other person to believe on reasonable grounds that he has, present ability to effect his purpose; or
(c) while openly wearing or carrying a weapon or an imitation thereof, he accosts or impedes another person or begs.

And next time you want to hit someone with something, don't do it on a bus with witnesses and a bus driver who asks the person being hit if they want to call the police. It's not particularly very smart.

At least you had the intelligence to run. I really wouldn't have had an issue with the first hit (the unintentional one) if you had at least the manners to apologize for it. I wasn't asking for a gold engraved plaque stating your apologies, just a simple "sorry" would have done.

Sincerely,
Girl with the bruises

Dear Leash Holder,

I really don't understand the point of putting your child (your child, by the way, who was a little bit older than a toddler age, I believe) on a leash. I don't understand the point of it unless, perhaps, you were in a very busy place like an amusement park and you know your child is prone to wandering off because something shiny caught their little eyes.

See, proper child leashes I can understand (sort of, I'm still at a lost at why you would want to leash your child to begin with). Made of real fabric, probably a padded harness that fits around their shoulders and loops around their middle, a long strip of something resembling the ends of the straps on a backpack to lead from the child to you. The 'real' child leashes.

Putting your child onto a leash that was a chain with it being looped around their middle and extending to your hand? It was like you decided to take Fido's leash and use it on your child one morning and decided that it'd be perfectly okay.

I question the intelligence of people fairly often. But putting your older-than-3 (or so) daughter on a leash meant for a canine while you're walking on the sidewalk and getting onto the bus and you're holding onto her hand the entire time is kind of overkill.

What did people do before child-leashes were made available on the market? Just lose their children everywhere or were they maybe better at disciplining their children and better at keeping track of their own children? At the very least, just get something to leash your daughter that doesn't look like you stole it off of your poodle.

Sincerely,
Disgusted

Dear the Boy that Darwin would have loved,

I've been having a decent week so far. Lots of snow coupled with slow transit service. I'm back at school and there's ice everywhere and unpaved sidewalks.

And I have a very short complaint today.

If you're on a bus that's quiet at 6am and no one is saying a thing and the only thing to be heard is the bus going through slush, you really shouldn't be speaking so loudly on your cell phone to your friend about how your mom just made up a new batch of meth and how you were going to go score some E and maybe some roofies for your girlfriend after second period because some teacher wasn't ever going to realize that you never showed up for biology and the girlfriend still wasn't giving it up. You don't need to advertise your extracurricular activities to a somewhat full bus of people.

And maybe if you showed up for biology once in a while, you would know a little something about 'natural selection'. Charles Darwin would have loved you. You could have been the ultimate poster child for his theories to do with evolution and why some species die out.

Cheers,
Science Geek

P.S. Rape is rape is rape. Illegal in so many ways. Plus, if you're religious, you'll end up burning in hell. With fire. And brimstone. Or so they say. Or you'll get your just desserts when they try you as an adult for aggravated sexual assault.

Dear Girl with Rose-Coloured Glasses,

I wasn't feeling particularly down or up today. But you came over and sat down next to me and asked me if I wanted to be your friend.

Now if I were to receive the exact same question from someone who looked like they were in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 60s or if they were male and a teenager, I'd probably wrinkle my nose in disgust and attempt to be polite in my declination of their offer.

But since I recognized (and knew!) the woman who was with you (Your 'au pair', I think she said she was? Whatever.). And she said it was okay to talk to me. And you're like... 4-5 and cute as a button. So of course when you asked to be my friend, I said "yes".

Of course, this was a really awkward conversation in that you're kind of young and you're kind of silly at times. Like for instance when you were telling me about this really super icky and gross boy that you know from school/pre-school. Because all he ever does is pull on your hair and try to trip you and then you said the funniest thing.

"I'm not going to date him, you know, that boy? He thinks I'm going to, but I'm not. Because when you date someone, you're practically married, you know. And you have to let them hold your hand and you have to let them kiss you or else they won't let you use their credit card to go shopping with. And I don't want to get married to anyone until I'm at least ten."

Do you realize how difficult it was for me not to laugh at that? I suggested waiting until you were at least twenty and then you asked how many fingers that was. Oh boy.

And really? All you have to do is hold their hand and let them kiss you from time to time and you get to use their credit card? Really? And I bet you think unicorns come into your backyard at night and that elves make your Christmas presents still. You'll learn.

But you know what? It's okay. Because when you're ten, you're going to realize that no one your age is getting married (not in this country, anyways). When you get to middle school, dating is like a contact sport. You touch someone and you're suddenly dating and it lasts for like... a week. A month, tops. Wait until high school, then you'll see that it gets a little bit more intense.

But I have to say... I never considered being fully reliant on someone as a life's goal. And I hope that changes for you. And that you don't become a gold digger, because that's not really that attractive.

Sincerely,
Over 10, but not married

Dear Saturday Stranger,

I generally don't take public transit on weekends if I can avoid it. If I can avoid it, I'll get a ride from someone or I'll drive myself. Then again, getting home from the public library when I had no clue where my personal chauffeur was is kind of tricky. And I wasn't about to trek home in the rain so... I took the bus.

I'm sitting down and about to get off at my regular stop. The bus is about to pull to my stop so I get up and walk to the door and then suddenly there's someone tapping my shoulder. Which was you. I was about to tell you off since I'd just about had it up to here with guys and public transit and the propositioning for sexual favours just three feet away from the bus driver and everyone else on the bus.

And you're holding out a cell phone.

Correction: you're holding out my cell phone.

Guess it's a good thing that I didn't bite your head off for touching me, eh?

And thank you so much for getting my cell phone back to me before I got off the bus. It probably wouldn't have been a very good thing if you or anyone else kept it. Just saying...

Thank you again.

Sincerely,
Girl who is not quite surgically attached to her cell phone.