Given some of the recent outcry about street harassment (aka catcalling), I thought I might share my stories. PART 1!
I used to live in San Diego. I've covered that before, right? Well I did. I actually loved the city, but my year there was a bit* marred by the relationship I was in at the time and my lack of personal transportation. Meaning I had to use public transportation and/or walk most places. This left me open to street harassment, with which I had very little previous experience. While there, I had tons of relatively minor encounters and several not-so-minor. Since I hadn't experienced it much before, it took me a while to catch on and enact measures to protect myself when in public space.
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I used to live here! Not this part, I could never have afforded this part.
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I've always been a rather private person. I'm just not much of a sharer. Yes, I realize the irony of including that sentence in a blog post, but in my offline life, it's true. I just don't generally interact with random strangers and passers-by when I'm out and about, and it usually even takes me several months to warm up to new friends. That's just my personality. After moving to SD, where I knew no one, my ex insisted this tendency was why I didn't have friends. (That was actually more his doing in an endeavour to keep me isolated while making it look like it was my fault, but we've talked
that story to death.) He kept telling me about all these interesting people he'd meet when on the bus or trolley or waiting at a stop. They would strike up a conversation, laugh, and exchange names, maybe even numbers so they could find each other on social media. He insisted that if I was just more friendly, similar things would happen to me. Of course, that's not at all how it worked.
Looking back now - with more experience and knowledge at my disposal - that conversation in which he encouraged me to interact with strangers because it worked for him is very revealing. Most (straight, cisgender) guys don't get why catcalling is a problem because in their experience, it never has been. They legitimately can and do make friends by chatting up strangers. For many - dare I even say all - women, it is a much more dangerous endeavour.
Four years ago, however, I didn't consider myself a feminist and I didn't have that knowledge and experience, so I thought perhaps my ex had a point. I resolved to try and be friendlier when approached by strangers, despite my gut instincts even then telling me that it wasn't a safe practice. I had typically ridden trolleys and busses with earphones in - even when not listening to music - and/or reading a book as clear visual deterrents to interaction. It's interesting to me that even without prior street harassment experiences, I'd still had enough exposure to women's treatment in public space through representations in media to pick up these kind of habits. However, at my ex's prompting, I set them aside and tried to look, if not obviously friendly, at least not outright angry. I made great effort to shut down RBF.
So there I am one evening on my way home from work, sitting in a window seat - rookie mistake! - when a guy says hello to me from another row. It's relatively late at night on a weeknight, so there aren't many people riding and we're only a couple of rows apart. It didn't seem that unusual that he would greet me, and operation "somehow-make-friends-on-public-transpo" was in effect so I greeted him back. We exchanged a few pleasantries and he got up to move to my row.
Cue alarm bells! At this point, he seemed genuinely nice and harmless so I wasn't exactly scared, but I definitely didn't like the idea that a stranger who could easily overpower me if he so desired was blocking my only exit - barring climbing over my seat, which I did mentally prepare myself for in case of emergency.
We chatted a little more and it was nice enough, and inwardly I was pleased that my strategy seemed to be working, Maybe I'd have a friend! Which could maybe lead to more friends! Maybe I wouldn't be struck in a strange city with no support system except my abusive dick of a fiance!
I should also point out that I was wearing an engagement ring at the time, so to anyone paying attention, it would be clear I wasn't single.
I don't really remember any of my conversation with this dude. I couldn't tell you what we talked about or how long we talked. I don't even remember what he looked like anymore, though for a while after our interaction I made the effort to memorize his features in order to avoid him. What sticks out in my mind even to this day was the one of the last things he said.
"Hey, can I ask you a weird question? Can you take off your shoes so I can see your feet?"
My vision instantly whited-out for a second and my heart-rate rocketed. Now I knew this man was clearly not interesting in me or my friendship, but had approached me because he wanted access to my body. Now I was scared. We were virtually alone, it was late at night, I had several trolley stops, plus a bus ride and a walk before I got home, and he was blocking me in. The factors that made it seem normal for him to approach me minutes before now made me feel trapped. If I made him angry, he could easily hurt me.
"....No."
"Ok."
He didn't seem angry, but he didn't leave either. We just sat in silence for a few seconds, not looking at each other.
"Could you go back to your seat?"
I tried to evoke confidence and strength that I didn't really feel, but it worked nonetheless. He stood and moved a few rows away, As I mentioned above, I studied his features and tried to memorize them so I could steer clear of him in the future. As far as I know, we never crossed paths again, but that was the end of my friendship quest in public space. I restricted myself to chatting with coworkers, other grad school students, and other residents in my apartment complex. Still, this was my first real experience with street harassment - though we weren't actually on a street, but you know what I mean - and I convinced myself that he was an anomaly. I would quickly learn otherwise.
