Why George Sodini's actions disturb me so much

[puppetmaker]

George Sodini walked into an LA Fitness gym on August 4th, went into one of the classes, turned off the lights, and started shooting indiscriminately. He killed himself too so many of the questions that will never be answers went with him. He was a coward. He couldn’t face the women he was going to shoot but rather turned off the lights so he didn’t have to see what he was doing or who he was hurting.

Since his death, various pieces of his writing and a couple of videos have shown up or were found on the Internet. They paint a portrait of someone who didn’t understand why he couldn’t get a date. But even scarier is what he was looking for in a woman. He went to seminars on how to pick up women, bought books about how to date, and came to the conclusion that women were lying scum because they wouldn’t date him. The kind of woman he was looking for was younger (early 20s and he was in his mid to late 30s) and measured up to his impossible ideals for beauty.

But in reading his writings, I know I wouldn’t have dated him if I was single and he had tried to pick me up. He didn’t want to date, he wanted to have sex. He gives me a creepy vibe. He equates dating with sex and unless he got some, women were going to pay the price. Most of his bitching is about his lack of sex and he doesn’t understand why women are falling all over him. The sad thing is that I dated, for a short time, someone like this who equated dating with mattress mambo. And that was one of the reasons that I stopped dating him in rather short order.

In his mind, he did everything right and was rejected which was a shame because, according to him, he was a nice guy and proved that nice guys are looked at by pretty women. He was not a nice guy and those denizens of the internet who are saying that he might have had a point aren’t nice guys either. Nice guys don’t threaten to shoot people they don’t know and say that if they get some then they won’t shoot or won’t shoot for now but they are holding onto the option of going on a killing spree.

Another thing disturbs me is that police are saying that if anyone had read his writings and didn’t report them may have broken the law or at least could have save the lives of the women who died. But there are a lot of “ifs” they are putting in the mix. If he really did publish it over time or tossed it up at the last moment. If anyone looked at his website since it was his own domain name rather than a social network site. If anyone took it as real rather than someone writing fiction on the internet. There are a lot of ifs and some really strange finger pointing none of which is going to bring back the dead or help the injured.

George Sodini was not a nice guy no matter what he thought and that needs to be said out loud for all to hear.

I am grateful for the real nice guys out there. They do exist and don’t deserve to be thought of the way that some people are currently talk about them.

Comments

[paigemom.livejournal.com]

Definitely not a nice guy. I went out with someone rather like him once. I'll stop short of saying there was an incident of date rape, but I never went out with him again.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

I think that's the problem- people think that men like him are extremely rare and that his mindset is alien- but it isn't. Ask any woman and she will have a story about some creep she dated. Okay, so said creeps didn't gun down women, but I'm betting they either beat, raped, or emotionally abused women who wouldn't do what they asked, and that is the same mindset.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

We've all gone out with a guy like him. I'm just thankful I got away.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

There are too many men out there like him who are trying to coopt the "nice guy" label for their own nefarious purposes.

Real nice guys don't.

[lanofaylin.livejournal.com]

Here is what I don't understand...if he was after sex...they make these things called prostitutes. I guess he saw sex as his "right". I don't know. If he hadn't done this, he may have gone on to become a rapist either way he was broken. So sad that there are so many broken people in this world when healing, hope and answers are there to be had, you just have to seek them. My heart and prayers go out the the families of these women.

[queenanthai.livejournal.com]

Nice guys, real ones, absolutely exist. I married one, and have the other as a best friend. But there was one guy I dated a long time ago who also equated dating with sex, and got really, really pushy about it. I broke up with him, and then three months later got a call from his mother telling me he was in prison in California of all places for getting into a knife fight with his heroin dealer. He then constantly called me collect from prison, and I constantly rejected the charges. I ended up having to move and change my number.

A real winner, that one. And he did everything nice on the surface - bought flowers, opened doors, paid for amazingly fancy dinners. But all the surface-nice things don't mean anything if you have the personality of a CREEPY STALKER. In the end, it's really your decency as a human being that matters, and the rest is decor. This lunatic in L.A. obviously had none of the former.

[mythandwonder.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you said that. I've been watching the news reports on this, and the guy looks like a world class jerk and creep. He needed help, if in fact he would have been willing to take it.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiousity though, who is slagging off real nice guys?

i.e. who are these "some people" that think a certain way about them? Other than obviously so-called Nice Guys.

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose there might be this:

http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/ng.shtml

But it's not about guys who are nice, it's about Nice Guys.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

But it's not about guys who are nice, it's about Nice Guys.

Precisely.

[narniadear.livejournal.com]

Well spoken. This was so sad. :(

[ladytalker13.livejournal.com]

I am appalled at what he did, but I have to wonder about the elements that went into his mental make-up as he grew from boy to teen to man... I've also become increasingly disturbed by how many young people these days are exhibiting that same kind of social ineptness or downright dysfunction... makes me wonder what our society is doing - or not doing - that is creating people who think this way as adults...