Hi there, I agree with your first point: the lack of question marks might have been a language issue. However, the fact itself that a stranger hits you up online and demands personal information from you, including your relationship status, is in itself “demanding”, don’t you think? Patriarchy socialises men into believing that it is their right to demand things from women. As for the second point: I am not saying he is to blame for me unnecessarily apologising. However, I am pointing out that in a patriarchal society, women are socialised to be more apologetic than men. That is a structural problem, and so neither Parthiv or I are directly at fault. Point three: Ethics is not black and white. Lying is not always unethical, especially if it is used to protect yourself. Here I was approached by a stranger online who asked after my personal information – I am by no means obliged to be truthful to someone behaving inappropriately towards me, like asking about my relationship status. In such interaction, I am vulnerable and because of that I reserve the right to pretend I am more powerful (i.e. I have the authority of a journalist) than I really am to scare off a possible scammer. It was also not an outrageous lie, considering I truly wrote about Parthiv and our conversation and published the article online.