How to tell someone not to text you again

How do you tell someone to stop texting you? Don't send them a lame error message. Do it properly. Unless you're under 15, in which case an error message is legit.

A year or two ago I met a guy at a birthday party. He was a bit odd but he was quite nice and we talked for maybe 10 minutes. Mr G left to go to the bathroom, and I got up to leave as well and the guy asked for 'our' number. I gave mine to him. I figured maybe he'd text if he was around the Brunswick area with our mutual friend or something.

Anyway, he started to text me regularly. And they weren't your average text. They always gave me detailed information about what he was doing. I gave some dull responses then just stopped responding because the texts were getting weirder and weirder. Eventually they stopped. Then yesterday I got another one. Finally I decided to harden up and just tell him to stop texting me. I considered saying 'I met you once, for a short time over a year ago. That does not make us friends. FUCK OFF, you're being weird.'

Instead I went for: Hey, sorry but I'd really prefer it if you deleted my number. Thanks.

That's where a normal person would delete the number. It's awkward sending those messages. I wasn't happy doing it, but all social conventions had been ignored and to be honest, as a librarian, I know enough socially awkward people.

Instead of just leaving me alone, he wrote back asking "So do you remember who I am? I will delete your number if you are asking the right person". He told me his name and described where we met (he threw in Mr G's name for good measure). I spent ages wondering if it was worth writing back. After deciding that I was old enough to be able to deal with this, I texted: Yes, I do have the right person.

Case closed. He hasn't texted back, and I really hope he doesn't. I also hope I never have to see him again. Why hasn't someone pulled him up on this kind of thing? A friend of mine who also attended the party says he's done this to quite a few people - so why haven't his friends explained the finer points of social interaction to him?

What else should I have done? I'm not sure if I could have gone about it a better way. I probably could have been kinder, but I'm not sure how.

Leaving children in libraries

There's a debate raging on the mamamia website about leaving children unattended in libraries. I very stupidly got involved. First I read, then I wrote. Imagine my surprise when I realised that the people on there are continually ignoring what the actual librarians are saying - don't leave your kids in libraries alone.

But what did I expect? We deal with parents on a daily basis. Some are awesome, some are completely unhinged. We know it's no different online. Everyone thinks their kid is fine. Most middle to upper class parents (and lets face it, I think I know who the target demo is) think their child is a perfect angel. Bookish, smart, well-behaved.

BULLSHIT.

I was a very bookish, smart and well-behaved pre-teen. It didn't stop me cutting up a book that had nice pictures in it when I was 5. It also didn't stop me eating paper. It certainly didn't stop me reading some rather inappropriate things (Gore Vidal's Caligula for one). And I was supervised (clearly not well enough).

'My darling child would NEVER do anything like that. They know the boundaries'.

Well. I've read the debate, and both the author and publisher seem to be ignoring the fact that their kids might not be as perfectly behaved for us as they are for them.

Anyway. Mia is no Cherry. And that's my mean comment for the day.