You ever do something like this? What's your story?

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I feel very sorry for the beggars where I live but also hate them with a passion. I can't go for groceries without two or three hawking the entrance to the store, ready to barrage anyone who looks mildly compassionate with sob stories.

Worst I got taken was by a young woman who looked very in need of help, asking me to buy some food for her family. Gullible me thinks alright, I can spend 10 € on some kitchen staples so these guys don't starve over the weekend, and took her into the store. Woman proceeds to absolutely stuff her basket with expensive meats, brand laundry detergent, diapers, to the point she literally can't carry the fucking basket any more. Cost me almost 120€ in the end, about 6x what I spent on food for myself.

Ever since then I will immediately recoil from anyone asking for help beyond the "classic" sitting quietly on the ground with a cup in front of them, because my scam alert has been readjusted in a bad way. I suppose I resent the woman more for destroying my compassion than for the money she tricked out of me.

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My rule is I give them cigarettes if they ask, but not money.

They'll usually never admit the money is for booze and I never carry cash anyway. Plenty of people have stories of the beggars throwing food back in their faces. They only want money, they don't want to be fed. Hell, when I was a kid and a beggar asked for money and my mom said she could go to the store and buy some food for him, he just straight up refused.

And I'm fairly sure some of those beggars make more money than I do at my day job as a software engineer. If you have a really lucrative spot, I think you could probably make 50 euros an hour, if not more. Multiply that by the standard 168 hours a month and...

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You know better beggars than I've seen, then. Usually I've seen them refuse food, they only want cash.

It's good that you ask them, instead of just buying food. The honest ones will accept your offer and the dishonest ones will at least tell you to fuck off if you offer them food but they really wanted vodka or drug money.

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I don’t know this guy, so this is just based off what you wrote and might be wholly unfounded. To be clear, I also don’t think you should set yourself on fire to keep anyone else warm.

I got a little hyper focused while writing this, so tl;dr: I get why he would lash out in that circumstance, which is why we need a social welfare system.

Having a bad reaction to cheese when you don’t have a safe, dependable, and clean bathroom sounds awful. Even if he doesn’t currently have lactose intolerance, he could easily develop it at any time if his dairy intake becomes inconsistent.

I also totally understand him getting annoyed and shitty about people skateboarding late where he sleeps. He’ll probably wake with the dawn, so if people are skating at 11pm throughout the summer, that’s going to cause awful sleep (compounding all the other factors that cause people to get worse sleep outside in public). Sure, it’s not his house, but just because he doesn’t have a legal place to live, doesn’t mean that he no longer has the need for quiet and safety. I’m not excusing actively chasing people away from a public area, but I do understand what might have led him to do it.

My sympathy with the rides bit depends on what his access to other transportation is/how far spread out needed services are. If there’s lots of free or very cheap options for getting places or there’s a grocery store, place to get mail, laundromat, bathroom services, and a place for him to register and receive support within walking/skating distance, then yeah, it’s a dick move. If not, he was still being rude, but I can empathize. I empathize when customers at my bakery are rude because they don’t understand the bathroom code, and that’s probably much less of an emergency situation for them.

People are generally rude when they have an unmet need and those around them could easily help with that need. It’s not productive or prosocial, but it’s pretty predictable. Most of the time, it’s directed towards service workers or really close relationships (my dad’s a bear before breakfast, which most of his acquaintances or more casual friends probably don’t know, for example). It only really gets directed at those in our larger acquaintance circles when something catastrophic happens in our lives, like the onset of a terminal/chronic illness, becoming disabled, the loss of a loved one, or losing a home or financial security.

I’m not at all saying that people should subject themselves to abuse because someone else is in an emergency. In fact, I think that tendency is one of the main reasons we should create stable welfare and medical systems(second to the moral imperative I believe we as a social species have to do what we can for others). That way, we don’t have to come to the point of aggression caused by desperation.

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My lease ran out and I was unable to get a new place for me and my then partner (who was otherwise completely unable to support themselves, very long story) to stay while I was the only employee working under the table and basically running a hookah bar. We stayed in a hotel for three or four weeks, but that was running me about €1800/month, and I couldn’t keep up for long. My boss offered us the couches in the hookah bar, which was an absolute godsend. I only stayed there for a couple of months, but but it kept me from sleeping rough.

Later I realized that if I hadn’t been working under the table (which was my boss’s choice, I had legal work allowance), I would have been entitled to much more… traditional aid (and the air quality in my residence would definitely have been at least closer to safe levels), so I’m a little more conflicted. He definitely stepped in when he didn’t have to, but in return he got to keep his only employee and there was no investigation of my finances that would have been necessary for government services and would probably have ended up with him paying some hefty fines. I’m very much still grateful, just a little jaded.

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I was backpacking with my boyfriend and our dog one time and sitting in front of the supermarket with the dog while he went shopping. It was hot so I had a bowl of water for the dog. First a person dropped 5 euros in the water bowl, which I quickly gave back, explaining in broken french I was not homeless. Next, a kid gave me a bag of croissants and a bag of dog treats! I couldn't refuse, so now we are always on the lookout for beggars and dogs to pay it forward. We already succesfully bought treats for two dogs and gave a bag of croissants to a woman with a young child begging.

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More context on Tyler, he was probably in his late 20s, light skinned, huge stoner, and had like 3 or 4 kids. The skatepark he was staying in was in an urban area, and connected to a community center that had some programs he could have (and probably had) been using.

Before he got kicked out, he was at the skate park ALL of the time. He wasn't in college, and had no job and no money. He would ask to bum weed off of everybody all the time, even from strangers. Which isn't crazy weird for skaters, but not cool. Essentially living like a beach bum, living off the kindness of others so he could skate all day, PRIOR to losing his living situation.

The craziest part in my opinion was what he said AFTER we heard him get kicked out over the phone. We asked him what his plan is, and where he's gonna go. Tyler said:

"I could move in with my parents [in a town like 40 minutes away] but then I wouldn't be able to get to the skatepark"

Maybe he was lying about the reason. To me, he seemed totally real when he said this shit. Homie chose not to have shelter because he wanted to skate.

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I'm glad you are so morally just and a paragon of justice that you get to be judge of who is worthy of help. We definitely need more judgmental people in this world.

Have a awful rest of your life

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If we need more judgemental people, you're certainly doing your part! Resorting to personal attacks, too. Stay classy!

thermal_shock

here,they have you buy the groceries, then take the cart back in for a refund

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These particular characters have deliberately been given stereotypical mannerisms that lead the reader to think that they are the kind of people who would act in such a way. The joke then ends up being on the reader because it turns out that they could not have read these characters and their intentions any more wrong, and illustrates the folly of stereotypes.

If your culture does not have this particular stereotype then I can see how this was lost on you.