An open thread for personal stuff, continuing from here.
As usual for these threads: no trolls, no MRAs, no I’m-not-really-an-MRA-buts, don’t be mean.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
Soooo…I’ve gone to all the irl supports I can with this and have mostly been told I’m being overly sensitive because of my prior abuse. Had a regular at the coffee shop I’m working at come in today. Really friendly Marine vet, usually comes in with his girlfriend. I was on lunch, and they saw me through the window and waved. He comes in and makes a beeline for me, grabs my arm and yanks me half off my stool to kiss me on the cheek. Okay, fine, kind of thrown off by that seeing as I’m a newer barista there, but whatever.
I go to ask a co-worker for a cigarette after I finished my lunch because I locked my keys in my car with my cigarettes on my previous smoke break. The guy’s standing there waiting for his drink. He reaches out and touches the ruffles on my skirt–which are on my thigh–and makes a comment about how ruffles used to be handmade and a sign of a good seamstress. I kind of flinch back because that’s just what the fuck I do when people touch me unexpectedly. Directly after that reaction, he reaches out and touches a button on my coat that happens to be located on my left breast and makes a comment about it being loose (which it is, but what the actual fucking shit).
Am I far off in thinking that was completely inappropriate? And it’s great, because I can’t even say anything at work. He comes in all the time, and everyone loves him, and I’ve been there all of two months. Plus that can all be totally passed off as “over-friendliness” and/or over-sensitivity on my part. It’s great. Everything is fantastic. Excuse me while I go kill some pixels and brain cells.
Ryeash, first of all, you have every right to be uncomfortable even if someone’s intentions are innocent. Second, you should trust your instincts. Odds are this guy knows exactly what he’s doing, and has been “accidentally” pushing women’s boundaries for ages and getting away with it by being, as you said, friendly and beloved. It’s not uncommon for abusers to cultivate a charming and likeable exterior – all the better to make sure their victims aren’t believed because “he’s such a nice guy”.
I wish I had some advice for you. Would you feel safe saying something like “I’m really uncomfortable with being touched” and playing it off like it’s a hangup of yours rather than anything he’s doing wrong? That’s worked for me before. Of course, he might get angry or pushy, but then at least you’ll know for sure it’s not an innocent mistake…
If you’ve not read The Gift of Fear, I recommend it. The tl;dr version is that your instincts are usually right.
I was kind of thinking of going with that when I speak to my GM about it. I really just don’t want that to happen again. I’m not there for touching, especially like that.
Skye, Buttercup, grumpyoldnurse, thank you!
ryeash, yes, that’s totally inappropriate. He has no business touching you whatever his intentions. NONE.
That d00d is totally testing your boundaries to see how much you will tolerate. I personally make the sign of the cross with my fingers and say “no touching” when people reach for me. That way they can laugh it off while getting the message loud and clear. If a scene gets made they are the ones making it.
Ryeash, I’m sorry you suffered abuse. Whatever happened was not ok and I want to make that abundantly clear.
I do want to say that this guy has no right to touch you w/o your permission and you have every right to feel uncomfortable with what he’s done. This statement would be true even if you had never suffered abuse.
I like Emilygoddess’s framing of things when talking to him or to your GM or someone who could stop this. Hopefully that works. I’m sorry you have to deal with this.
Also, I hate that women (& often kids) get pushback seemingly all the time for setting their own boundaries. People have no right to say so-and-so is “just overly friendly” and you are “too sensitive” when you want to limit how much and in what ways someone else can touch you. That is pure BS
Whoa yeah about the pushback. Creepy BiL of a friend once planted his hand on my back and when I told him to keep his hands to himself he went and whined to my friend about how no woman had spoken to him like that since his ex-wife. Yeah, well power to her for being your ex, slimefest.
Kittehserf, what a charmer. I hope your friend took your side in that
Skye, would you believe she was asking me to apologise for upsetting him! She didn’t even like the PoS and she knew he was a handsy creep. I presume she was getting shit from him or her sister.
No, I didn’t apologise; in fact I think I managed never to set eyes on him again.
Ugh. This part is good though; “No, I didn’t apologise; in fact I think I managed never to set eyes on him again.”
I know I’m late but I want to chime in to agree with everyone else: ryeash, it’s not okay for this guy to be putting his hands on you. In fact, I’m a believer that it is NEVER okay for one person to touch another person without permission in the absence of some kind of emergency. This no-touch policy extends to anything that is in direct contact with my body, such as my clothes or my jewelry.
I agree with everyone who said that his intentions are probably not innocent, but his intentions are irrelevant in this situation. His actions are not okay regardless of his intentions.
It’s okay to do whatever you need to do to set a boundary with this guy, and with anyone else who might feel overly entitled to handle your clothes and body. I hope your managers have your back on this one. You’re not being oversensitive and any history of abuse you may have is not relevant; you’d have the same right to set boundaries if you’d never been abused. Your IRL “supports” who are telling you otherwise are not actually being supportive. They’re being dismissive. That’s not okay of them.
OK. Nthing everyone else who’d commented on this, ryeash.
You are the one who sets your boundaries for yourself. Doesn’t matter whether you, or someone else, or the whole bloody world thinks your boundaries are a reflection of abuse. The first response here is, so bloody what! Most women who’ve experienced no abuse at all would set exactly the same boundaries. And so would those who’ve experienced less than/more than you have. It’s perfectly ordinary for people not to want touching at work (or in most places).
I do think using the “ward off the evil eye” crossed fingers as an easy way to insist on that boundary could be useful if you’re up for it. Usually I use it when I’m crook with a cold and I ward off others getting close enough to catch it – but I’ve seen lots of people use it at various times.
I also want to say something that I meant to say the first time but I see that I didn’t: even if you were being oversensitive due to past abuse, your overly-sensitive boundaries would be okay! “Don’t touch my boob, near-perfect stranger” is a reasonable boundary regardless of the source of your discomfort! What if it is making you uncomfortable only because of past abuse? Why would that make it no okay for you to set reasonable boundaries?
What I’m trying to say is that your history of abuse does not delegitimize your boundaries. Having boundaries because: past abuse is a legit reason to have boundaries.
@ ryeash – Take what I’m about to say with a BIG grain of salt! What you’ve just described put the hairs at the back of my neck up. Seriously.
Warning! This is another gon TMI moment! I have a patient at work that was doing similar minor boundary pushing with me for months (I work in an outpatient setting where people come in for treatment repeatedly). I brushed it off, because ‘oversensitive abuse survivor’ is a thing I totally understand. Then, one day, dude assaults me, and I find out I’m not the only one. My manager was super awesome about it, and has instituted measures to protect the other nurses, but I’m still kind of messed up from it. I wish I had listened to my little warning voice and kept my distance from creepy d00d!
TL;DR – your safety is paramount. Please listen to your instincts. You have developed them to insure your own safety.
Well wishes for any Aussie Mammotheers who might be effected by the scary hostage situation in Sydney.
Predictably, the American gun fellator crowd are going on about how this might have been prevented if Australia didn’t have such gun control, leaving the victims unable to defend themselves. Never mind that they have one of the lower rates of gun homicide. Far lower than the US.
Seconding WWTH’s well wishes!
I hope our Sydney Mammotheers are doing alright. And a big tip of the hat to Sydney and everyone else for the #illridewithyou campaign – it says a lot about Australia as a country that you’re being so proactive against what’s sure to be a big wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.
@contrapangloss:
Yep. La la la, they all lived happily ever after.
http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7blp6zWoS1r5rlago1_500.png
Weird cat-parenting question:
one of our cats has started scratching at the door to our condo every night. We’ve ended up building a series of increasingly elaborate fortifications to prevent this, but after a night or two he figures out how to dismantle them and goes back to scratching at the door. Any ideas on how to stop this behavior?
I supposed it’s better than his old habit of opening the kitchen cabinets and throwing the contents on the floor, or his slightly more recent habit of repeatedly opening the cabinet doors and banging them shut but he’s still making it impossible to sleep and it’s starting to damage the door.
Is your cat related to mine? Darrow does this stuff all the time and I have yet to figure out how to deter him.
I just read that the Sydney siege ended in a shootout – the scumbag criminal (yes, he was known to police) and two hostages are dead.
Darrow disapproves of me using the computer instead of feeding him
:large
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! The Laser Eyes of Doom!