[JustJo]

Oddly enough I am rarely, if ever, head-patted in my real life. I get the occasional head pat locally in environments that are related to cars, home improvements, etc. Part of this may be because I'm female....and part may be because I truly don't know what is going on most of the time in these areas and it shows.

Tcountry and I laughed about this when hy came out to fix my roof. We were in Lowe's, in the tool section, and hy was about 6 or 8 feet in front of me. No doubt I had a bewildered look on my face, standing there in my floral dress, when a very nice man came up and offered me his card.....general handyman services.

He did not offer one to T.

Is this condescension? It could be seen that way. I prefer to think of it as good marketing and a good sense of who future customers might be. And, yes, I kept his card.

I have NEVER experienced a head pat in my professional work, even though I work with a lot of bio-males, and many people who technically outrank me in the workplace.

Where I have most often experienced it is in our community....online...and most often by femmes.

I think, in part, it's because they don't actually know me. They may have read my posts for years, but if we've never met then they only THINK they know me. I think the anonymous nature of the internet makes people more willing to be rude, condescending, or just plain nasty.

In person, I doubt the same dynamic would be in play.

Having said that....has it happened often here? No. It's been isolated, and only from a very small handful of people.

I prefer to think of it as their issue, not mine.