One week into my mid-twenties I come home with a sort-of stranger from the club. We discuss his ex-girlfriend the morning after. I give him coffee with soy milk and we laugh about how i still wear another man’s shirt while he lays on my bed. I haven’t thought of this shirt as belonging to another man in over a year. It is my possession. He puts my shorts on and laughs about how I dress like a man when I sleep. I laugh harder and think about how girly I have become over the years yet some of my tomboy habits remain so ingrained in me.
He leaves and I take a nap.
I get ready to go visit a colleague of mine expecting only to play board games and perhaps out for a drink (for which I only wanted a warm tea). The night starts out fun and we play the wormpjes game. Eventually he becomes more and more forward and I try to avoid all his insinuations until l tell him to stop because I find it uncomfortable. He is now half a wine bottle deep. He apologises and says he thought we were bantering. I say thank you let’s return to the game. I should have left then.
We continue our games and he keeps trying to get me to dance with him until I say I think I have to leave now and encourage him to drink water. He now 1 and a half wine bottles and an espresso martini deep. I start cleaning up because despite my ability to say I’m uncomfortable I was not raised to be a rude guest regardless of how dangerous the circumstances are. He cages me in and I start panicking. At one point where I had no escape I thought I was dreaming and that surely this could not be the case? We work together and I have no indication of ever wanting anything further- I only wanted to play board games and get to know my colleague better. In that moment I thought that it was over for me.
He steps in closer. I snap back to my senses and ask him what he’s doing? He takes another step and I ask him again, this time looking for any exit I can run out of. He stands there and grabs my waist and I shrilly say his name but still not loud enough because I’m scared of drawing too much attention to what is happening here even though it is just the two of us in his living room despite his promises that his housemates would also be present.
Thankfully, there must be something in my voice that reaches him because he lets me go. He tells me to relax and touches my shoulder and I push his arm off and tell him I don’t want him to hit on me. He says sorry that he didn’t mean it that way. I wonder if I over reacted.
He still walks me to the busstop in this town I don’t know. He says he finds me attractive. Feeling more bold in the open space I tell him that’s his problem not mine. I tell him he has a girlfriend and that he tried to flirt with me because I don’t want to use the word attack. He tells me he’s happy that I handled it this way and didn’t hit him in the face because I would have been right to do so. I think about how he knew I was scared and kept going. I am only grateful he stopped.
I keep going back to that moment where I was stuck between him and the wall. I think about how I thought then that it was over. I sized him up and knew I couldn’t win. How he touched my waist and I thought it was so disgusting. I couldn’t stand it. I think about how womanly I really am. And is this what it means to be a woman? That you feel that small in front of a man? That you take his feelings into consideration and don’t scream and that you don’t report it to your boss because what is there to actually report? What did he really do that was wrong, you shouldn’t have been in his house in the first place!
I think about how I put on my skirt. I should have worn jeans. I shouldn’t have put on makeup or perfume. I shouldn’t have gone like me. I still can’t stop thinking back to it. Even 36 hours later it plays on my mind and I make jokes about it to my friends. But I can still not get over it all.
What it is to be a woman.
