I accidentally went on vacation with a Russian nationalist. I couldn’t believe it. There were four of us on the trip, and I had met this guy one year earlier.
During our first meeting, politics briefly came up. This guy parroted a position about the war that made it clear that he didn’t know anything about anything, but I let it slide; a village idiot, I thought, whatever.
One year passes, and we’re driving along in Serbia. “Why do the police in America keep killing n*****s?” he asks. In Russia, he proudly proclaimed, nobody dies at the hands of the police.
“Khokhlyandia [slur for Ukraine] will never join the EU, there’s too much corruption, more than in Russia,” he said with disdain. He knows I’m Ukrainian.
This is when I truly understood who I’m dealing with. Later, when I politely asked him to curb his aggressive driving, he responded, “respectfully, shut the fuck up.” I proceeded to rip him a new one.
His response — to call me a coward.
I’m the coward? You went to military school. You claim to know how to fight. I say go: serve your country, and live out your destiny as cannon fodder.
People reveal themselves very quickly. Don’t make excuses for their behavior. Take them at face value.