āSome time ago, I was having lunch with a group of friendsāfour men, one woman, and me. Iāve known most of the group for five or six years. We were talking about shared past experiences when one of the men mentioned that he missed Larry. āGotta like a man who can make a good cup of coffee,ā he said. āNo, I donāt,ā I blurted out, and described how that man knew precisely where the lines of āinappropriateā behavior were drawn, and had spent the last couple of years nudging those lines whenever he came across a woman he considered āavailable.ā I mentioned heād been called out for failing to heed polite turn-downs, that he got offended when the turn-down became less polite. I mentioned how women who werenāt even the focus of his attention breathed a sigh of relief when he left the room. None of the men discounted my experience or my descriptions. But every one of them said they hadnāt seen or noticed anything like that. I do want to be clear that their responses were not in the spirit, tone, or words of dismissal. Instead, they were genuinely puzzled that their observations had missed something they assumed would be obvious. One said he felt bad he hadnāt realized what was going on. So I pushed the issue. Without explaining what I was going to do, I got up and stood behind one of the men. I put my hands on his shoulders, then stretched my fingers as far down his chest as possible while still seeming to give a platonic shoulder rub. I pulled him back against my chest, digging my fingers in when he resisted. That action alone let him know I acknowledged he didnāt want me to be pulling on and touching him, and I didnāt care. āYou look so tense,ā I said in a nice, soft voice. Not sexy, not husky, but more intimate than standard conversation. Not intimate enough to be āinappropriate,ā though. āYou just let me give you a rub and Iāll make you feel better. I can tell you need that.ā Then, while he say immobile with surprise, I leaned past him to pick up his coffee cup, keeping my chest close to his face and my other hand firmly on his shoulder. To the others, it likely looked as if I was just resting my hand there. That man, though, could feel the pressure I exerted to keep him pressed close to me. He would have had to make an obvious, rude-looking push to get away. āIāll get you some more coffee, too. You just let me take care of that.ā I gave the man a sweet smile in answer to his shocked stare, then returned to my seat, put my napkin back on my lap, and said, āThatās what Larry does.ā The man Iād touched totally understood in that moment. Heād experienced how it feltāeven at the hands of a friendāto have your personal boundaries violated and your āpoliteā signals of resistance ignored. The other men had that slack expression that comes when surprising facts suddenly jolt long-held assumptions. āCreepyā was uttered, as was āawfulā and āscaryā. Their words held a tone ofā¦ almost fear? As if they were suddenly running through all sorts of past interactions in search of similar behaviors, and finding some. *Now they are able to see it.*ā
