I feel quite vulnerable posting this. I don't know how people are going to react, I don't know that this won't backfire, I don't know that this won't impact my life in some way.
That said, I've been holding onto this for four months and it's time to let it go. On my previous account I asked a lot of questions about feminism and expressed my frustration with the movement. Originally, I was going to use studies and logic to explain why I don't like feminism. But why bother? If I post a MyTake with the title "I don't like feminism, here's why" feminists probably won't read it and people who don't like feminism will just hear the same things that have been said countless times.
I don't know if any feminists will read this, but I'm confident somebody will and even if nobody does I'll finally get this off my chest.
Names and places have been changed and exact wording has been omitted just in case.
I'll start by saying this: No, I was not falsely accused of sexual assault. I can't even begin to imagine what that's like. I know there are bad men out there who have done some truly horrible things. I'm not going to dismiss that. I cannot imagine what that is like. Hopefully I will never know what it feels like to be falsely accused of sexual assault or to actually be sexually assaulted. For those who have, it's incredible that you're still fighting today.
Here's my story. I don't want to be overdramatic, but I do want to convey how these events have effected me. The last thing I'll say is that I am not entirely faultless in this situation. I have done my best to present the events as they happened, not as I wish they had happened.
For a while, I was in a predominantly female community. The community was a treatment community. That's all I'll say on that. Not entirely my choice to be there.
When I first arrived, I met a girl in that community. She seemed interested, she flirted with me, all the signs were there. Time passed, I got to know her better. I got her number. I told her I liked her. She responded that she liked me as a friend but just wanted to stay friends for the time being. I should have focused on “stay friends,” but my emotional side overpowered my logical side and I instead zeroed in on “for the time being.” When I had asked her to hang out before she told me we’d raincheck and hang out some other time. The reason she gave seemed dubious, but I chose to believe she was interested especially since she initiated conversation and flirted with me (for a time, I wasn’t interested in her and she seemed interested in me.)
Fast forward to the next day. Flirting with me (and yes, I know what flirting is) engaging with me bringing up previous inside jokes. I think she likes me.
When we played games she would use sexual references and what not, but only with me (there were other guys there as well.) She would initiate conversation, bringing up inside jokes, smiling, flipping her hair back, whatever. One time she rubbed her foot against my leg for a period of time.
I was infatuated, head over heels for her. My heart jumped when I saw her.
We stopped texting at a certain point, but it still seemed as though she was into me. A year later, we texted at night and she added me on her Snapchat account.
I return to the community, still head over heels for her. She doesn’t say a word to me at first. Eventually we start talking but, at some point, she randomly deletes me off Snapchat saying “she doesn’t want to give me the wrong impression.”
There was another guy she would flirt with as well sometimes. When he wasn’t there she would flirt with me.
After the wrong impression point my feelings subsided and I told her I wasn’t interested anymore. Though the feelings lingered, I accepted that we were just friends at that point in time. She was a good friend and I still consider her a good friend.
Well, the second time I’m in the community, a new girl joins. At first I don’t like her- she gets offended and is quite sensitive while sometimes saying insensitive things. I was never sure how I felt about her. She was quite pretty though and, as much as I’d like to deny it, maybe I was overtaken by her beauty.
She’s not as flirtatious with me and, though I’m kind of interested in her esp. As I get to know her better and discover she has a good sense of humor and is quite intelligent, I don’t delude myself or try to read too much into her calling me cute or whatnot.
On the last day I’m in the community we go out to dinner. At dinner she initiates conversation and both of our hands are on the table, very close to each other, and she’s asking questions about my life. Eye contact and flipping hair. Even after all of that I’m still not sure- flipping hair and eye contact are not foolproof signs. We arrange to stay in contact afterwards and that’s that.
I’m a very, very bad texter. I text once, worry I’ve said the wrong thing text again apologizing text again apologizing for apologizing and so on and so forth. I don’t know if she liked me before texting- I’m going to guess no because she was out of my league, but I can’t say for sure. After the texting began she certainly didn’t. In a “more than friends” way I mean.
She says she’s feeling down at one point I text her way too late because I’m concerned about her, she’s fine etc, etc. You get the picture.
She stops responding to my bad texting and I suggest we maybe not text. The first time hoping she won’t say yes, the second time a genuine question. She says she’s busy but once she has time she’ll respond ;). I read into the winky face too much she clarifies it’s a smiley face but since the colon and the semicolon aren’t close by on the phone, I figure she originally sent it as a winky face. And, so, history repeats itself and I tell her I like her. In the worst way possible that makes it sound as though I think she likes me. I clarify. Long story short she doesn’t feel the same way but friends. I’m not sure about being friends, so I go back and forth on whether to be friends or not. She says if I keep going back and forth she won’t keep talking to me. She sends this text at midnight. I respond and then I apologize for responding so late and so on and so forth.
Her friend (the first girl) texts me the next day. Says she was very uncomfortable with what happened the previous year (me telling me I liked her after she flirted with me and her using sexual innuendo before and after if I’m not mistaken) and accused me of repeating it. I apologize to the second girl who says she is too uncomfortable to respond right now.
By the way, I found out from my friend at a later point that this girl knew I was into her from early on. So it’s not as though she thought I wanted to be friends.
I text a week later “Hey just want to make sure everything’s cool.” Maybe I said we’re cool. Maybe “making sure.” Want to be accurate here. No response. Following day I see her, she immediately turns and starts talking to somebody whilst looking over her shoulder at me. Next day I text asking her not to tell anybody. No response. I’ll say, and this was a mistake, I’ll buzz off if she tells me she did not tell anybody. I used that terminology because I felt like a bug, but that is problematic terminology and could be interpreted as a threat. Based on her reaction, I feel as though I’m being the asshole so I call myself an asshole and say I won’t harass her because I worry I’m at fault and have been harassing her.
I have her added on facebook, where I communicated offering to leave the community if she felt uncomfortable. No response.
A month passes. At this point in time I have communicated with her on Ipod back when we were friends, facebook back when we were friends, and phone back when we were friends. Ipod is the one device she might not have blocked me on. I send her a text wishing her well, which was a mistake, and explicitly saying don’t worry about responding. She tells me she’ll look into filing a restraining order.
For a month or two after that, due to threat of restraining order, I don’t even leave my house. I don’t want to take the chance of running into her.
A different friend tells me we (me, first girl, second girl) can coexist in the community. I go to the community first girl reports me I’m kicked out of the community because they fear for their safety. And that’s that. Almost nobody from the community will speak to me and some people are scared of me. As she told it, I made her feel unsafe and she felt like she was in danger. As actually happened, I texted too much a girl who knew I liked her who had flirted with me and then confronted her about spreading this information to the entire community and tried to resolve the mess a month later so we could hopefully both be OK. When I said I didn’t want to be friends but then reneged that’s when she got uncomfortable, but she knew I liked her and I repeatedly asked if she was OK texting. The first girl outright harassed me after flirting with me and then said a year later that I had made her uncomfortable.
As I say, I am not entirely faultless in this situation, not by a longshot. But did I deserve to be kicked out and ostracized? That’s up to you to decide.
In the extremely extremely extremely unlikely event that anybody sees this, all I can say is that this was a difficult situation for me to deal with and I wanted to get it out there. I took many steps to ensure nobody could figure out who I was talking about.
I intended no harm, I had no idea what I was doing. I got angry when, after promising not to tell anybody, she told somebody.
It’s hard not to wonder, after seeing Ex-CDC director Tom Frieden arrested based on allegations filed a month back that one year previous he randomly groped a woman, despite numerous background investigations turning up no instances of this behavior. If I had heard what happened between me and these people, and how they didn’t feel safe around me I would have assumed I had some sort of bad intent or was actually dangerous. I can say with great certainty that I didn’t and never thought about harming anybody. I was trying to navigate a difficult situation and fell flat on my face.
I want to say one more thing, not strictly related to this take. The men being destroyed here are not the men who are just looking for sex and have no problems abusing women and using them for physical pleasure. Those men, the alpha males, are doing just fine. The men impacted by all this are the men that want relationships. The shy men who are less sure of themselves and less confident and secure. The men that would care about you, wouldn’t disregard you, wouldn’t cheat on you, etcetera. When a guy pulls out a chair and is branded a sexist, that’s not some misogynistic asshole trying to make you feel small, that’s a guy who wants the date to go well and is following advice media/ his father taught him. When a man barely stammers out the words “You-You l-look very nice today” that’s not an evil, nefarious specimen of the patriarchy that’s a man taking a risk because he likes you and just wants to give you a compliment. Not saying pity- date him, but maybe try to put yourself in his shoes for a second after rejecting him, gently but firmly and clearly.
Finally, consider the fact that there could be another side to the story. Not always of course, but sometimes.
I can state with certainty that most men are decent men who want a relationship with somebody they find attractive- physically but mostly emotionally and personally. Most men are confused. Don’t let your guard down, but don’t brand them as creeps and weirdos just because they took a chance.
Keep this in mind the next time you see men complaining about being scapegoated for something they didn't do, trying to understand a man's side as well, say the wrong thing: It’s not easy being a man.
Most Helpful Opinions