Letter to the girl at the Falling in Reverse concert in Indy 2025-

To the girl at the Falling in Reverse concert in Indy 2025-

I saw the skinny snot that laughed at you as you walked up the stairs minding your own business and excitedly going to catch up to your friend. I’d just walked past her at the bottom of the stairs as I went up to find a spot on the lawn after having just purchased a shirt. I saw her point you out to her boyfriend and they laughed as you walked up. I was just a few steps behind you but you paused when you reached your friend and I kept ascending. I had thought about what I might say to you as I passed but ended up not saying anything, although in my mind, I had already known you were aware of the laughter following you up the steps as I was hearing it clearly myself.

I wanted to tell you to ignore her because it takes a truly miserable person to go out of their way to try to bring a stranger down for no other reason than the judgment she chose to cast for her opinion of what you were wearing. I wanted to tell you to not allow her the space in your head to ruin your evening because that was exactly what her misery wanted. Misery loves company and the miserable seem most willing to try to ruin others’ good moods—and this—at an event we all paid to see.

Instead, I said nothing. I walked silently by as I stared at the steps I was continuing up as I heard you tell your friend that girl had been laughing at you. She didn’t seem as aware of the situation as the other 3 of us were, and I stayed in silence. For that I am sorry.

It doesn’t matter that somewhere in my mind I was imagining an encounter when I called her out and asked how miserable she had to be to point and laugh at someone for no other reason than her shallow judgment of whether she thought they “looked acceptable” enough to wear something freely without comment. The timelines of me standing up for someone else regardless of how the proceeding events might play out came and went silently by, just as I did, and while I had thought about saying something at the bottom of the stairs as I passed her, and while I thought about offering support for you as I passed you, instead I did as I’ve always done and kept my eyes forward and my mouth shut. I imagined saying something to her and she stood dumbfounded at being called out on bad behavior, and I imagined another scenario where she got indignant at having been called out and slapped me instead.

How any of it would have turned out, I can never know because I chose to remain silent. It’s been 5 weeks and I still haven’t forgotten that night where I chose silence over taking a stand for stranger. And while I can’t say it’s the first time I wish I would have said something and didn’t, I can say that I fully intend to do better moving forward and to prioritize doing the right thing even when it may be uncomfortable. I know that feeling of others’ rejection all too well, myself. It is the root of my silence, but silence in the face of doing something of value for a stranger is a weed in the existence of humanity.