That One Time I Live-Tweeted about a Guy Who Couldn’t Handle “Travel Blogger” as a Career

People tend to have interesting responses when I tell them I am a travel blogger.  I don’t even usually list it as my “main” job. Honestly, when strangers ask me what I do for a living I generally just blurt something out, sometimes I just make it up. They’re strangers, what do I care?

Not too long ago while visiting St. Louis, MO, I arrived for a dinner early and decided to wait for my friends at the bar. I’m sure any woman who has ever sat alone at the bar can attest to the fact that you have a 80% chance of being engaged in a horrible conversation. Today was one of those days for me. It was so bad, that I decided to live-tweet it, but I’ll use this post to elaborate a bit.

It started with the usual “You from around here?” to which I responded that while I was originally from St. Louis, I currently lived in Puerto Rico. When he asked why I chose Puerto Rico I said “Well, I work remotely so I can work from anywhere and my boyfriend is originally from there and wanted to get his doctorate, so it worked out for both of us.”

His response?

Ok, again, I don’t usually even say I’m a professional travel blogger right off the bat, but this guy was an uber-douche. I added that I did writing and other work, trying to just shut down this conversation, but I had no such luck.

I tried to explain to him that while I know a good amount of travel bloggers, “based in Germany” was not quite enough information. I pity whoever this woman is, for reasons that will soon become obvious.

He really wanted me to understand how traveling and blogging works, guys. He was just trying to educate me.

This is where it got really bad. Halfway through my margarita, and a lot of feminist, solo female traveler feelings were boiling to the top. I feel my friend, Stephanie, had the most appropriate reaction to this comment:

I tried to reason with him. I really did. I calmly explained that I, as well as many other females, travel solo all the time. I also pointed out that no one writes a news story that says “Sunny day in Detroit!” because it’s not as flashy as “10 shot dead in an abandoned bowling alley” or something like that. This guy wouldn’t let up.

ISIS lives there, guys. In the whole country. If you want to contact ISIS, just contact “some travel blogger based in Germany” because she basically went to their front door. She was like OH HI ISIS! My husband let me out of the house and I was just wondering if I could clean yours? Maybe make you a sandwich? 

This guy eventually picked up on the fact that I was pro solo female travel and not interested in his thoughts on the topic. Instead of bailing on the conversation all together, he tried a slightly different route.

I lied. I lied so hard.

What I would have given for a bottle of Visine, some hot sauce, anything to drop into this drink.

When he came back, I continued to tweet about him. He didn’t seem at all deterred by the fact that I was paying way more attention to my phone than to him.

Again, I lied. I’m clearly writing an article about him anyway. Sorry not sorry.

To be fair, I said I wouldn’t write an article about him BEFORE he said “Can you believe this girl just gets to go to 5 star resorts and then write, what, like, 2 pages? That’s it?! I could do that! I mean I’m not trying to be condescending or anything, but I could definitely do that.” 

The guys were also a gay couple, which seemed to REALLY upset this guy.

Thankfully, my friends showed up at this moment. I guess I’ll just never know how inferior I am to this super popular Germany-based blogger. What a shame.

I had such a great time live tweet-shaming this guy. I’m a bit of a creeper magnet, so feel free to follow me and keep your eye out for more of these adventures.