A man tried to steal my bicycle, and I thanked him three times.
I recently was given a nice bike as a present, and I've been riding it around everywhere. It was an excellent gift. But I live in New York city, so either you lock up your bike or you don't have a bike anymore. I know this. I've been told it a million times, and I take unnecessary precautions.
However, today I rode over the bridge into Jersey and was riding up along the palisades. It was a beautiful paved ride through the woods on a road shared with cars, but barely any cars were on it. Locked up my bike and did some hiking. Then on the way back I spotted a ruin of a building by the shore. I took my bike off the main rode and put it in the grass. There was no where to lock it up, but there was also basically no one around. A parked car a ways away, a few passing cars, in the middle of the woods. I figured I'd be quick, so I went down the path to take a couple pictures. I was gone about five minutes. I get back, and all I see is my helmet.
I must have looked quite shocked, because then I heard someone say "Hey was that your bike?" I said yes. Ok, this guy knows where my bike is, that's a good thing. Maybe he saw someone take it? "I moved it over there, off the road" I said thank you. Great! What a good samaritan. I see that he's all dressed up in his bicycling clothes, so this fellow bicyclist moved my bike to a safer spot. I'm so relieved. "I didn't know whose bike it was." I said Yeah, thanks. Cool, I see my bike now. Whew. That was close. "I really like bikes like that. I was going to take it, but I didn't know whose it was. You should be more careful." I said thank you. Great, getting on my bike now.... wait.... 'I was going to take it'? Fuck... that guy just tried to steal my bike.
Looking back on it, my mind was searching for every possible scenario that didn't mean this guy was stealing my bike. I'm sure a lot of people would have jumped to that conclusion immediately, but my mind was working overtime to paint this guy as a good person to avoid conflict. He looked like a nice guy, and the cycling clothes really threw me off. What a dick. Either he's a selfish asshole who has no concept of property despite being a cyclist himself, or he dressed up that way to make stealing bikes easier. Either way, fuck that guy. But that's not what my mind was thinking at the moment. It was happy to have a plausible reason to avoid conflict. I'm sure that guy was happy to avoid conflict too. Just a weird situation. I wouldn't consider myself a coward exactly, but it would take a lot to convince my subconscious that violence was necessary. Just glad I got my bike back.