As for personal attacks, I can’t help it. Just when I think I’m done, I re-read the clueless girl setting up the guy and then bragging about it, and I get outraged all over again.

I’ve always found overly chatty, arriviste 24 year olds to be annoying. Even when I was a 24 year old myself. And there’s never been a shortage of them in the city, not since I’ve been here. The only difference is there weren’t blogs back then.

You seem to think that by explaining yourself and your situation enough I will finally understand. That’s the hubris of a young, naive mind on display. Setting up a guy like you did was awful. And the way you chose to discuss it was tacky, to say the least. Generally 24 year olds have more to learn from the world than vice versa. Of course, many 24 year olds don’t understand that at the time.

Since you seem to love the Mission so much, I thought you’d appreciate a taste of how it was way back in the 90s, before people like you displaced people like me. But I guess some authentic Mission experiences are a little too authentic.

And I”m quite confident that you have indeed learned a lesson here. Although you still are in denial about setting a guy up and the tackiness of your bragging over it, consciously or subconsciously, you will tone down your act a little bit from here on out.

It’s a big internet out there – you’re obviously free and welcome to say whatever you want, as loudly and as often as possible. But I feel like the dead horse has been beaten enough. I’m sorry that you disagree with me and I’m sorry that you think I embody everything that’s wrong with your neighborhood. But I’ve got a lease that exists through October, so I can’t really go anywhere. And I don’t think getting rid of me is really the entire solution to whatever problem you’re exploring here. I have asked you politely before to stop telling lies – “overreaching”, if you will – about me, so all I can do is ask politely again:

Please, stop telling me what I have learned (“A San Francisco style lesson in proper social etiquette”), what I will do (“You’ll adjust your demeanor accordingly”), stop making assumptions about my character and what I do (“While you’re twittering away over organic mojitos and oysters at the new yuppie bar”), and stop taking out your hatred of everyone who has moved in to your neighborhood on me. I’m sorry that you liked the mission from whenever you moved here – you’ve never mentioned, and it doesn’t really matter – and I’m sorry that it’s being ruined for you. But I can hardly believe that I, individually, have completely changed the face of this neighborhood and ruined your life. I am certainly not that significant. But I feel like you are personally attacking me, in the face of that insignificance, and I’d just appreciate it if you’d stop so I could stop having to correct you.

Please, honestly, consider this. I appreciate your potential consideration.

I go to Shotwell’s during happy hour because I think the people are really great to talk to. I don’t know many people in this city. I don’t get out very much. So I drink discounted beer where I can find it. I spend most of my days working from said basement apartment and it’s nice to be able to get out and socialize once in awhile since I don’t have co-workers.

I have lived in neighborhoods over the course of my lifetime that were in various stages of gentrification. I certainly live in what you might refer to as the gentrified part of the mission – I’m close to Dolores Park. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that seemed like they were about to turn into something else, neighborhoods that were far from being gentrified, and neighborhoods like the one I’m in now that have already been hit by it.

MissionMission is a blog geared toward local interests. Absolutely. I wrote my post on my blog and wanted it to be searchable by people in other cities. Allan linked to it and used that headline. Maybe he should have called it something else, but the format of MM is to use the headline it’s linking to, so he kept with that style. That’s it.

Anything I’ve said above is not to make it seem like I’m some old soul or elicit any feelings of pity or bullshit – I think my life is fantastic. I get to live in a great city. I didn’t move here for the allure of San Francisco. I moved here because I am a motion graphics designer. It’s what I spent five years of college learning how to do. And while I tried to get a job back in the midwest where I could afford to live, I stayed there for four months and couldn’t find anything. So I came to a city that has more job opportunities for me. I didn’t want to live in L.A. because I didn’t know anyone, and I’ve already lived in New York, so San Francisco was the remaining logical step.

I take bike rides on the weekend that don’t cost me anything and I’m a freelancer, so I’m lucky enough to be able to get to bars before happy hour ends. I like to shoot pool with my boyfriend, and bars are the best place in my neighborhood to do that. I couldn’t have paid him $400, because I didn’t have that much money in my bank account.

So, honestly, Dave? If you think I got my lesson, here’s the only one I can give to you. Not all people who are my age and move to the mission are the same. You can make all the judgment calls you want to about me being a yuppie leaving pricey bikes around the mission, but it’s completely inaccurate. It was a $550 bike that we saved up for four months to buy as his first post-college big boy purchase, because for three years prior to that his only method of transportation was a $200 bike and he wanted to upgrade. We locked it up so we could get groceries and come home to cook them rather than going and drinking our mojitos and eating oysters because we can’t afford to live like that. And someone cut the lock and stole it. I’m not sure at what point I was supposed to trust a stranger that had my stolen bike and hand them $400, but I did what I thought was best in a dicey situation.

If a San Francisco lesson about social etiquette is that you have to trust everyone that has your stolen property, and you should spend a couple weeks having people make incorrect assumptions about your character and broadcast them on the internet, then that’s great. You have taken a simple situation – asking the community for advice on what to do after a crime, taking that advice, and returning a story to the community about what happened – and turned it in to an opportunity to make a lot of rude, insulting comments about a 24 year old that moved to a city to get a job in the face of a recession. Congratulations. Overreaching has certainly made me look like an asshole for wanting to reclaim property that was legally mine.

sf has no more certain cache? much less the mission?

what was that cache-of-yore you miss so much? can you define?

also, what’s wrong with yuppies again? it’s been so long since they (we?) came to the hood, or since folks living here just got older and got settled…i kind of forgot.

but i’m old already. i been old. i forget shit.

Have I overreached in my posts here? Almost certainly. But the important thing is you’ve learned a :San Francisco style” lesson in proper social etiquette. While you’re twittering away over organic mojitos and oysters at the new yuppie bar, you’ll never know if the guy coming out of the taqueria across the street is one of those self righteous old throwbacks liable to get angry if he overhears some yuppie who can afford to leave pricey bikes around the Mission bragging about setting up some guy who thought he was doing her a favor. You’ll never know, and you’ll adjust your demeanor accordingly.

Congratulations, New to SF, not only have you just learned a lesson in not-totally-gentrified-yet neighborhood humility, but you’ve also been treated to an authentic, old school, San Francisco style cultural experience.

So, your entire comment was to say that I haven’t earned the right to discuss the neighborhood that I live in, and you’re certainly allowed to feel that way. I don’t know how long you’ve lived here, but you’ve made it clear that I’m not allowed to feel like I live here. But if you’re going to pick at details, you should re-read and remember that the exact phrase was “San Francisco style” and did not mention “Mission style”. It isn’t found in Allan’s post and it isn’t found in the headline of the post he linked to.

Also, he wasn’t set up at a trendy eatery. The cops were eating dinner there and asked me to meet them there to discuss it ahead of time. I met him at a very different location.

Dave, you can sit around and be excited that you won. I’m done defending myself. I wish you weren’t making up information, since most of your recent comments have been both very detail oriented and also incorrect. If you quote me, or say something that’s accurate, then it’s just a judgment call. If you give incorrect information, it’s lying, and it doesn’t make you look like you were successful. If I’m such a bad person, and you need the internet to know that you’re right and I’m worthless, I gave you lots of words that you could choose from directly rather than making things up.

1. A girl who’s been in the Mission about eight months describes an operation in which a guy is set up by cops at a trendy eatery as “bike recovery Mission style.”
I find that set-up to be obnoxious, and to call it Mission-style is an even greater miscarriage of justice.
I’m not gonna be silent when the Mission’s good name is abused like that.

2. As for labels like Old Mission and New Mission, I don’t place much stock in them myself. I’m not interested in some pissing contest over who’s lived where longer. Labels are merely shorthand for making points. For me, the descriptives ‘Mission’ and ‘Marina’ get the point across.

3. I’m glad Jen exonerated Allan from the creation of the phrase “bike recovery Mission style”. It’s beneath him and there’s nothing Mission style about it.

the “how dare you go to the man in my dirty (old) mission” notion related by folks critiquing jen makes me puke.

but i feel people would not like it, so i won’t.

that said, jen, you’re not a dick. you’re a person who stood up for themselves.

i say good for you. more people ought to, here in the hood, be it “old” or “new”.

I appreciate the support.

Regarding #3, as much as I would like to agree with you, I don’t want someone else attacking you for false information – I don’t know if I’d necessarily call it “reselling”. I guess it kind of is. The way he viewed it, he bought it for $400 and didn’t want to lose that money. After all, I’m no more his responsibility than he is mine. It’s not like he’d just give a stranger $400. He wanted his money back. I suppose if you buy something for X amount of money and then someone else gives you X amount of money for it, that’s reselling. But he didn’t tell me I could have it back for the full $595 that he was attempting to sell it for to anyone else.

Thanks again.

Everyone ignores the actual FACTS:

1. Bike is Jen’s property
2. Stealing bike is illegal no matter how it was locked or where it was parked. Simply parking a bike with a lock that thieves find easy to break does not mean Jen is culpable for ANY of the negative events that proceed from this act. The thief is culpable, both morally and legally.
3. Jen tried to deal with the guy who was selling stolen property fairly. She alerted him he was in possession of stolen property and asked him to return it. HE decided to break the law and attempt to resell what he knew to be stolen property. Again, Jen is the victim of this crime and is simply not culpable for the man’s decision to try and resell a bike he KNEW to be stolen goods.

Someone please argue with this instead of hurling ridiculous class insults and pretending you’re so “old mission” (whatever the fuck that means. All I know is if Zin Zin doesn’t know what “new Mission” means, it doesn’t make much sense because Zin Zin’s been around forever).

Let’s not blame this otherwise well-written blog for syntax that isn’t its own fault. Choice selections from words in the page that it’s linking to – this is a fairly common practice.

Also, he was not arrested and cuffed. Handcuffs were put on him presumably so he wouldn’t run away while the cops spoke with him. He leaned against a wall while they spoke with him. And I “looked the other way” because the conversation the police were having with him was between him and them. There would not have been a single thing I could say at that moment that would change the situation. I believe they let him go, but the cops took us back to the station before they were finished talking to him.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it when I called and they asked if I knew where Weird Fish was. I got to sip fabulous lemonade and chat with cops that were hugely knowledgeable about bikes – it was a shockingly pleasant situation.

We met at Weird Fish because it’s a block from the police station and they were already there having dinner, and wanted to consolidate time.

Also, I think I’m done apologizing for using a cable lock. It was locked up. Someone brought bolt cutters to a grocery store, destroyed the lock and took the bike. Sure, there are stronger locks. If it had been a u-lock that got destroyed, would I get shit for not using a New York chain? Friends of mine got screwed over the summer because someone filled their u-lock with glue, presumably so we’d leave the bikes there until we could figure out a solution (this was not in San Francisco), and they’d come back and steal them. This is my guess, anyway. So we had to cut the u-lock with bolt cutters. Heavier ones than would go through a cable lock, sure, but we were certainly able to do it. It was locked up to a bike rack in bright light under what should be a security camera, but isn’t.

So, I’m a dick for having a beer at my neighborhood bar to celebrate having the bike back. We weren’t clinking glasses and giggling about how some guy had handcuffs on. We were celebrating two months of searching for the bike, finding it, and getting it back. I know you don’t see a difference, but there’s only so many personal attacks I can read before I feel obligated to come to my own defense.