Don't be that guy.

Last weekend, I went to the Gunks with Eric. I led my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, (and 5th? I lost track...) 5.8 trad leads, and I did them with style and grace. Well, style and a lot of grunting. Eric threw himself at a 5.10b siege-style until he beat it and made it cry. It was a fully stellar limit-pushing weekend.

This is not a story about our unmitigated mutual badassery.

This is a story about a lovely fellow we had the good fortune to meet and interact with repeatedly, and why you should never be that guy.

First Contact: I'm belaying Eric as he leads the second pitch of something in the vicinity of Arrow. This guy, we'll call him "Jerk Face", is belaying his second on a climb to our right. I have no way of knowing she was his girlfriend, but that's the vibe I got. It quickly became clear through overhearing their high-volume conversation that he knows everything about climbing, the Gunks, and life and his supremacy is not to be questioned. At one point he gave a speech about how wearing socks is what all real climbers do, and only total newbs wear climbing shoes without socks. Girlfriend was struggling following the pitch, clearly unnerved by some wet holds at the crux, and expressing her stress quite loudly. Rather than say reassuring and encouraging things to his climbing partner, Jerk Face decided that berating her was the way to go.

JF: Come on! What is your problem? This is easy!
GF: The holds are wet! I feel like I can't grip anything!
JF: They weren't wet when I climbed it. Clearly you're using the wrong holds. Use the dry ones.
GF: I can't find dry ones! I don't think I can do this, I don't remember how to do this part!
JF: Come ON!!!!!! Just CLIMB it already!

I could feel Girlfriend's stress increasing and felt so bad for her that eventually I yelled something encouraging at her. It probably didn't help.

So, we meet again:
Our plan was to climb a bunch of pitches right in the same area, and this lovely couple clearly had the same idea. We rapped down to the GT ledge, and clipped into the bolt anchors on Arrow. Jerk Face was also on the ledge, anchored about 5 feet to my left. Girlfriend was still on the ground below, thinking about putting her climbing shoes on.  Eric put me on belay and I prepared to lead the second pitch of Arrow. This would be only my third 5.8 lead, definitely a tough climb for me. Also, the first moves off the ledge are especially difficult, not to mention that the first moves off the belay are always a super special brand of stressful for me, whether I'm leading or belaying, for obvious reasons.

I'm ready to go and Jerk Face yells out "Hey, I don't mind if you throw your rope on my head or steal my climb, but if you blow the moves on this overhang I'm going to be pissed at you."

I stop, look over at him, genuinely baffled. He said this very pointedly, without any hint of levity in his tone. We didn't drop our rope on his head. We also didn't, as far as I'm concerned, steal his climb. If his second is still on the ground, they are most decidedly on the first pitch of the climb, and can't really monopolize any others. Still, if he truly thought he had dibs for some reason, he could have said so calmly and politely. We might even have let him have it. Instead he waited until I was on lead leaving the ledge to be all snarky and passive-aggressive.

I think I said something really eloquent like "....whahuh?"

He clarified: "If you fall off that overhang up there and land on my head, I'm going to be pissed off at you."
This caught me totally off guard. Not having actually done anything rude to him, I was really not expecting this kind of interaction from a random fellow climber. So rather than respond with some indignant sarcastic retort, I got all flustered: "I won't! I mean, I'm going to put in gear, of course! There's good gear up there, and even if I fell, I wouldn't land on anyone, and obviously I'm going to protect it well! I'm going to be careful!"

Jerk Face had no way of knowing this, but he couldn't have chosen a better comment to seriously rattle me. Eric knew this, and said some reassuring things which didn't help much. If this guy's intention was to get us to hurry up climbing this pitch so we wouldn't slow him down, he picked a fabulous strategy. My head was not in a good place anymore, and I struggled with the first move. It was a bit dynamic for me and I just needed to commit to it, but I just couldn't do it. I could feel Jerk Face and his mean vibes from 5 feet away.

He said "Have either of you even done this climb before?" Eric replied "Yes. We both have. Several times." in a very this-conversation-is-over sorta way. At some point another pair of climbers rapped down to the ledge and shared the anchor with us, and I think they stayed for a while just to try to counteract Jerk Face's negativity. I asked if I was in their way to continue their rappel, and they said "No, we just want to watch you get this move! You can do it!"

Eventually, Girlfriend joined Jerk Face on the ledge, and they wandered off to do some other climb. Almost as soon as he was out of sight, I relaxed and pulled the move off the ledge. Then I cruised the overhang, thank you very much! I felt pretty good about that, but still my mojo was all retardified, and I was at least as annoyed with myself for being so easily messed with as I was with Jerk Face for being such a jerk face.

Oh no, not you again:
After cruising through the rest of the pitch, I arrived at the crux of the climb: the last few delicate balance-y face moves protected by a bolt. As I pondered the sequence, I heard Jerk Face yelling at Girlfriend again to my left, as she climbed up to his anchor. I attempted the move but fell onto the bolt, and Jerk Face yelled over to me "I thought you said you climbed this before!" Realizing that any response would result in endless escalation, I completely ignored him.

Wait...seriously?? Dude, not cool!!:
Later, after finishing the climb and while belaying Eric, I overheard Jerk Face and Girlfriend again. This time, they were rappelling and Jerk Face had paused about 15 feet below the top-out to attempt to remove a fixed tri-cam that a friend of theirs had left behind earlier that day. His method of choice was to whale on it with a nut tool and a softball sized rock that he had brought down with him from the top of the cliff. Unless he had figured out some method of clipping the rock to himself that I couldn't see, this was a terrible idea. He finally decided that it was not coming out and told Girlfriend he was going to finish rappelling. Girlfriend asked him to clip the nut tool to the tricam so she could give it a try. He gave her a scathing glare and she quickly timidly added "If you can't get it out I'm sure I won't be able to! I just felt like trying.... nevermind."

Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot:
Jerk Face says "I'm going to leave this rock right here - haha, some newb is going to grab it and think it's a jug and pull it off! HA!'

...and then he continues on rappel. And leaves the rock there. On a classic, well-traveled climb where no "newb" or expert would reasonably expect to find a large loose rock on a small ledge. This wasn't just a careless and stupid action, he actually thought through the potential consequences - that some unsuspecting climber could encounter this rock and pull it off, endangering anyone below them, including their belayer and therefore themselves (not everyone is badass enough to catch lead falls with severe concussions!). He thought through the consequences, and did it anyway. And laughed about it.

I sincerely hope no one will be hurt by that rock. This guy cast an unpleasant funk over our entire afternoon. Still, we were able to head on over to Pink Laurel and have a great time on a stellar climb despite both of us getting our heads stuck in the chimney. That guy, however, had to continue being him. What a miserable existence.

Eric wondered why Girlfriend put up with such a world class d-bag. I speculated that for every total a-hole, there is a girl with low enough self-esteem to be willing to date him. So fellas, don't be that guy. More importantly, ladies, don't DATE that guy. Behavior like that should not be encouraged. You can do better. I promise. If you have a vagina and a pulse, you can do better. 

This has been a public service announcement.