In which a self-hating bisexual becomes angry.

Posted byWaldo Jaquith 34 Comments on In which a self-hating bisexual becomes angry.

On January 12, 2005, I received the following e-mail, sent from a feedback form on one of my websites.

From: Dell Griffith Subject: You are such a fucking asshole!

Hey Waldo Jacquith (what kind of name is that anyway? sounds like Mom decided you needed to be beaten up a few times in school and gave you that moniker!) I’ve read about you over the years and your absurd stances, observations, beliefs,etc have been a great source of amusement for me during that time. But now, trying to commandeer the term family values for your own perverted use just shows what an asshole you really are. Fortunately, as evidence in the recent election, people like you are vastly outnumbered by people like me. And what is even better is that difference will continue to widen thanks to such antics committed by hate-mongers such as yourself! I can only hope that the government will gain some common sense and start sending people like to Guantanamo Bay so that you can experience the fun the terrorists down there are experiencing right now. Or, maybe ship your hippie ass to Iraq and use you for hostage fodder for terrorists operating over there. I wouldn’t mind see your faggot ass on a website, in an orange jumpsuit, blindfolded with a knife to your throat. Wouldn’t that be just poetic justice?
Yours Truly,
Dell Griffith, CWO4, USN (ret.)

I responded with my standard template for nutjobs — “thanks for your e-mail, I appreciate your kind words, but I’m too busy to respond personally.” This often puzzles them, or so I like to think.

The next day, “Dell” sent me this reply:

From: Nathan Sxxxx Subject: Re: You are such a fucking asshole!

Your very fucking welcome shithead! If there is anything I can do to de-rail such a bullshit website, please don’t hesitate!

(I’ve omitted the last few letters of his last name because I’m ashamed for him.)

I checked the headers on each e-mail. The first had come from a Central Virginia Adelphia cable modem. The second had come from UVa’s network. Though his e-mail was clearly threatening, and he’s obviously crazy, it didn’t strike me as actionable. After researching the guy for a bit — googling him, his e-mail address, etc. — I decided I could safely ignore him.

While archiving old e-mail a couple a weeks ago, I came across ol’ Nathan S.’s e-mail. Out of curiosity, I googled him again.

It turns out that Nathan S. has a membership at an adult personals website. The sort of website where men don’t post their photos but, rather, photos of their genitals. On his listing, he describes himself as living in the “Charlottesville area,” married, bisexual, and seeking “sex friends with no strings,” “hush hush.”

My goodness gracious.

I e-mailed him suggesting that an apology is in order, since his concept of “family values” clearly aren’t what he claimed. He wrote back threatening to “out” me (as what, I couldn’t even speculate). The IP address that his laptop sent the e-mail through, for what it’s worth, is citywbo.wb.mvl.ntelos.net — Waynesboro’s internet connection for city employees.

His e-mail address is in my bozo filter so that I can avoid future interactions with him. There are myriad ways in which I could make his life difficult, but that would require vindictiveness or even anger, neither of which I can muster. I really just feel sorry for the guy. He’s a classic self-hating gay man (or bisexual, ostensibly), and that’s a tough way to go through life. Why should I make it any worse for him?

There are several morals to this story. First, the individuals who react most violently to the mere suggestion of the existence of homosexuality may well be gay themselves. Second, don’t try to reason with or be clever with the insane. And finally, let sleeping dogs lie. Or, as the case may be, let lying dogs lie.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

34 replies on “In which a self-hating bisexual becomes angry.”

  1. Excellent tale, Waldo,

    and it does back up the idea that some of those who most violently attack an idea are those who have a secret affinity for that very idea.

    But my question is for you: why did you include so much information about this angry man in your post? I suspect that, like you, I could discover a lot of information about “Dell” by googling him, etc.

    You say “…(I’ve omitted the last few letters of his last name because I’m ashamed for him.)…” but unless you used pseudonyms and fake email addresses, “Dell” could still be tracked down and “outed” by others with less scruples. Maybe some editing on your half is in order? I don’t mean to be a school marm, but if the point of your story is to illuminate how you pity “Dell,” make sure you protect him, too. If not I’m afraid you end up being passively agressive against him.

  2. It strikes me as pretty unlikely that, without his last name, any readers of this blog are likely to be able to figure out his identity. I kept a draft of this for a few hours to think it over and return to it, at which time I excised some additional personal information. I’d like to hope that I strike a reasonable balance between providing enough information to tell an interesting story and preventing him from suffering unfairly.

    There’s surprisingly little information about him in Google. Other than a few posts on one of my other blogs, some years ago, and the personals site, he’s largely an unknown quantity on the internets. Most of the information tied to his screen name isn’t anything that can be connected to him IRL, at least that I could determine.

  3. Thanks, Waldo–
    On further reflection I came to the same conclusion. I think part of my reasoning was that “Dell” or whatever the guy’s name is may now read your post about him and just become more of a hassle for you. Of course maybe you’ll have scared him off. Your first advice is the best: don’t feed the trolls.

  4. I bet someone in Waynesboro is reading this and knows a guy named Nathan S. who works for the city and makes a big deal about having been in the Navy. Probably there are even Waynesboro city officials and employees who read this and work with Nate every day. They’ll guess it’s him in about 30 seconds.

  5. I checked the traffic logs a couple of days ago — nobody from the City of Waynesboro’s router has visited the site in the past two weeks, which is as far back as I checked.

  6. Very Entertaining read.

    I’d also guess this fella identifies himself as a conservative christian republican, it’s certianly the type of person/ality I’ve come to associate with any (or all) of those three words (especially if lumped together as I just have done).

    Additionally the one truth I’ve observed about people (men mainly) that are homophobic is that they all have a pretty preditory attitude toward women. And as a result they’re expecting that homosexual men will treat them the same way they treat women.

  7. People who can work computers have all the power! Scary stuff, but I think you have the upper hand.

  9. The burning question everine wants to know Waldo is if you responded to his personal ad?

  10. Any man that won’t exercise the common courtesy of specifying on a personals website whether or not he’s circumcised simply isn’t up to par.

    Hey, a guy’s got to have standards.

  11. I’m not sure what he meant by outing you… but I’m sure we could find a place for you in the Virginia Partisans if you ever decide you’re one of us :).

    Course, you and Amber really ought to join the Partisans anyway… we don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation :).

  12. Hey, believe me Josh, if I could work up a good bout of gayness, I’d give it a shot, or at least I would have pre-marriage. I mean, here I am a bleeding-heart lihbrul, but I’m a straight, white, able-bodied, land-owning, married male. I mean, c’mon, I’ve got nothin’.

    I’m optimistic that my progressive hearing loss will leave me functionally deaf within a decade or so. Newly-disabled, I’ll develop a passionate advocacy for ADA regulations that I just can’t muster so long as I’m in possession of all of my faculties.

  14. I’m impressed by your ability to track someone down. Note taken.

    Question — Could the IP Address reserved for city of Waynesboro have originated from the city’s public library? In other words, can you be certain this guy is a city employee or had acesss to a city employee’s account?

  15. I’m impressed by your ability to track someone down. Note taken.

    I’m not in the habit of doing so. :) It’s actually from running a large and popular discussion board for many years. We get legitimate death threats a few times each year, which necessitates calling the police, the supplying of evidence, etc. It’s almost always a college student, and the kid sometime gets expelled, sometimes on probation, which is much better than dealing with the law, because it’s easier for us to deal with.

    Could the IP Address reserved for city of Waynesboro have originated from the city’s public library?

    I considered this, but rejected it. Firstly because the e-mail came from Outlook, rather than a web-based e-mail service, which would be highly unusual for a public terminal. Secondly because the headers trace the e-mail clear back to his actual laptop (conveniently named “nslaptop” on the network), and if Waynesboro provides WiFi in their library, they don’t advertise that service on their website.

    It’s certainly not impossible that Waynesboro provides non-employees with the ability to plug in a laptop and get internet access via their primary internet connection, but I do think it’s unlikely.

    Good question, though. :)

  16. Sounds like this guy needs counseling or serious mental help. I must admit, the venom he spewed reminded me of an Ann Coulter speech.

  18. Waldo, umm, what were you doing trolling around that C-ville swingers’ website?

    Not C-ville swingers — they’ve got international penises. (Penii?)

    New rule: If you’re pluralizing “penis,” you’re saying something you shouldn’t be.

    Speaking of googling the guy, it seems he sells baseball gloves on eBay, and lots of ’em. Not that I was trolling around for baseball gloves or anything.

  19. Waldo, I agree with you that it is very rude of Nathan S. not to specify in his international penis ad whether or not he is cut.

    I know from personal experience that nothing is more annoying than answering one of these ads and finding something that you didn’t expect, or not finding something that you did.

    Pleeze, guys, listen to Waldo and me and show some consideration out there!

  23. I seem to recall the title character in Philip Roth’s novel, “Portnoy’s Complaint’ having, shall we say, an onanistic relationship with his baseball glove.

    I’d be real careful about buying one of this guy’s baseball gloves on eBay.

  26. Aw shucks, you guys are right. I guess that making fun of other people kinda made me feel better about myself. I guess I really learned something today about the importance of other people’s feelings; also about the importance of sharing and never giving up.

    So I hope we can all still be friends?

    Attachments: dong.jpg, navycircumcision.jpg, homoeroticdweebfromwaynesboro.jpg

  32. So wait. Nancies gets hate mail? What the fuck? Why??

    You know, with ~100k rabid Dave Matthews Band fans, there’s always a few crazies. :)

    Gotta get me one of them “bozo-filters.” I could cut my work day in half!

    *Laugh* Actually, “bozo filter” is a term that dates back to the 80s (at least, that’s the earliest usage that I’ve seen), also known as a “kill file.” It was used on Usenet by individuals to ignore trolls or fools. I’ve got a couple of dozen e-mail addresses in my bozo filter, and I use Procmail to silently discard any mail from them. It’s for crazies, mostly.

  34. As a Nathan S. myself, this story makes me a little sick. For the record, anyone who may know me, this story is not about me. Scary.

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