I was the woman walking in front of you yesterday who slipped and fell in the rain on her fucking face. As I picked up the smartphone I dropped on impact and checked the bloody gash on my knee, you thought it a perfect opportunity to warn me about “staring at that square instead of looking at where you were going.” We live in a city where most of us rarely make an attempt at eye contact with passing strangers, let alone greet them. Your tsk-tsk tone and mini lecture showed a lack of humanity far more concerning than a commuter isolating themselves behind their device. You have no way of knowing what my relationship to technology is—it’s none of your fucking business anyway. What you do know for certain is that a woman fell in front of you. Are you too righteous to say, “Are you okay?” And fuck you! I wasn’t even looking at the goddamn “square.”
—Anonymous