Money for Strangers

[kybearfuzz]

• In the summer of 1994, I started working in Cincinnati. One day, on a walk to lunch by myself, I had a guy ask me for a couple of bucks for gas as he'd run out. I gave him the money thinking he was truly in trouble. A month later, I had the same guy ask for gas money a block away when I was with friends.
  
  
• In December 2011, I was in Sacramento, CA for a training class. While walking from dinner with some local friends, a young bespectacled woman in a hoodie asked us for money. One of my buddies growled at her and she walked away disinterested.
  
  
• In September 2012, I was in Rockville, MD, walking from the metro stop to my hotel with my bags and got stopped by a frantic young woman who had "run out of gas." I gave her four bucks and she asked me if I could spare more. I growled at her, literally.
  
  
• Today, in the grocery store parking lot as I was putting a 20 lb. box of cat litter in my car, a young man walked up to me, telling me he was in college (he had a college ID around his neck --- no joke), and asked if I could spare some money. I just looked at him and said, "Dude, seriously, no." He got annoyed, "Why not? Did I offend you?" Really, he got annoyed because I wouldn't give him money. I thought he was picking for a fight, but he walked away cursing me.

These are four examples I recall of many years of my being asked for money by strangers. It annoys me because I've hardened a lot in my beliefs about giving money to people who do this. In 1994, when I gave the guy the money, I remember feeling like I had helped someone. My co-workers told me that I had been scammed and I had hoped they were wrong. When he reappeared some weeks later and repeated his begging, I knew they were right.

It is really a shame. Now whenever someone asks me for money in parking lots or on the streets (well... usually), I often shrug them off or kindly say no. It's starting to occur more often, not sure if it's the economy or not, so I'm becoming more surly in my attitude. What irritates me that if someone truly did need help, I can see myself snapping at them and I would guess a lot of people just might too.

I pray that I can discern the real people in trouble from the street actors.

Comments

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Very true.