Dear men I meet in public transit,

If you need to ask if I’m legal and say that I look as old as your stepdaughter, you have serious issues. You should probably join a support group and get some professional help, because it sounds like you’re Humbert Humbert from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.

Sincerely, the girl who was disturbed by this morning’s proposition (and honestly does not see what older men see in her, besides someone who’s legal but has the appearance of a 13 year old)

For those unfamiliar with Nabokov’s work, Humbert Humbert is the main character who marries a woman in order to get closer to her daughter, Delores (Dolly, Lolita, Lo), whom Humbert Humbert is sexually attractive to. Of course, in Lolita, Dolly isn’t above using manipulating her step-father with sex to get what she wants and he isn’t above extracting sexual favors from her to give her permission to do things. It is a beautifully written novel that you should read if you’ve never read it before, the film is also worth a watch. Granted you should probably not watch the film around your parents or where you parents can see you as I did when I was 13 and had just finished reading Lolita and absolutely loved it. Of the two films (1962 and 1997), both were accurate representations of the novel and if you get a chance, watch both.

(I got away with watching Lolita because I told them that I was reading the book for school. I lied. My grade 8 class was reading S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders.)