The news of a man opening fire inside an aerobics class at an L.A. Fitness club in the small Pennsylvania town of Bridgeville touched a nerve for me as it did for the general public. Reports say the shooter, George Sodini, had been trying for years to find companionship with women and was continually rejected. After years of frustration, he succeeded, in his second known attempt, to take his pain out on those he felt had hurt him.
It’s hard to be one of those human beings who just can’t find a mate of any kind, even just a friendly social type of relationship with a person of the preferred gender. Of course, we never question our own fickle nature, we make it impossible for lonely people to find safe companionship, we have diseases like AIDS and an aversion to playing it safe for fear of looking like wimps. We are also so aesthetically picky about people, we often cheat ourselves out of getting to know some wonderful folks just because they may not be perfectly turned out.
What the rampaging shooters in our society learn too late is that dead people can’t help you. They can’t say they’re sorry that they don’t find you an acceptable prospect, or tell you the reasons why or give advice that would be beneficial.
Apparently Sodini was taking classes on how to “pick up” women, and he was hitting the gym to try to be shapely enough to attract women. So what went wrong? We may never find out from those victims who are still recovering from the shootings (three women died, and nine were injured before Sodini took his own life). We are left with another legacy of revenge and terrorism that we will ultimately forget until the next time it happens.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 