The Ways I am Supposed to Feel

So here’s Friday night’s going-out story. (Do I need to preface this with all my situational going-out anxiety and confused/conflicting feelings about being out in the public sphere? I didn’t think so.)

Went out to dinner for Jessica’s b-day at Michael’s. Had a minor melt-down in the early evening due to something really stupid I did on accident, and my inability to accept that I sometimes make mistakes. Yes, even me. Yes, mistakes. Things done wrong for which I am responsible. Unacceptable. Will assess and address this issue later. Maybe. Anyway.

Went out to dinner and it ended up being the four of us. We all left at the same time, ostensibly to go to the bar, but Friend 1 had to take leftovers to her house and Friend 2 had to go home to put her jewelry on. So MyTodd™ and I (in separate cars) made our way to the bar. Midway there he calls to tell me that he sees a bunch of his colleagues’ cars in another bar’s parking lot, so he’s stopping there for a drink. No problem, I go on to the original destination bar without him. (See? See how brave I am become?) I get there and (male) Friend 3 is there, along with Friendly Barkeep. So I am comfortable and feel safe with these people I know, and sit down and start chatting. Unfortunately I am really, really tired. Two days of physically intense photo shoots at work plus the stress of a no-show photographic subject on Friday, plus aforementioned meltdown = me being almost totally (albeit pleasantly) brain-dead and non-talky. I was leaning my head in my hand on the bar, actually. Which caused the Friendly Barkeep to wave his hand in front of my face to see if I was awake at one point.

OK, here it’s going to get all complicated and over-explained and stuff, so if you don’t like that kind of thing… stop reading.

So this guy comes in, wearing a stupid hat. And he walks up behind me and Friend 3. Friend 3 tries to catch his eye/say hi to him as he orders his drink. Friendly Barkeep also recognizes the guy and greets him by name. Friend 3 tells me that last time he saw stupid hat guy he accidentally ignored him, and wanted to make up for it. I couldn’t care less about any of it, and dozed fitfully on the bar. Then stupid hat guy goes to the opposite end of the bar and starts a really, really stupid conversation with the Friendly Barkeep, explaining that Down Syndrome is caused by smoking pot when pregnant, so obviously SPalin is a big stoner. We’re all struck mute by his idiocy and Friendly Barkeep just walks off, shaking his head. So at this point I know two things. 1) This guy is a somewhat friend of some friends of mine and 2) This guy is a fucking moron.

I return to not paying attention to anything, and waiting for MyTodd™ to get there while I chat with Friend 3. Suddenly I feel someone grab me from behind and start talking into my ear. “Are you having a good time?” It’s stupid hat guy. He’s got one hand on my left shoulder, and the other hand on the right side of my waist. He starts some babbling nonsense about how his friend at the end of the bar thinks I am hot but is too shy to come talk to me. Blah blah nonsense, he also thinks I am hot, blah blah. I can’t even remember what all he was saying because I am SO WEIRDED OUT BY HOW MANY HANDS THIS GUY SEEMS TO HAVE. This guy has a hand on every part of me at once, it seems like.

Now, the week before some guy had come up to me when I was at the bar and rubbed my arm and said “Hey how YOU doing?” to me and I retorted “DO I KNOW YOU?” really loudly. That guy was all “I was just trying to say hello!” and I replied that in my world there was no touching with hello. I felt very comfortable doing that to random stranger arm-rubber. But Handsy McGrabbersons here, he was seemingly a somewhat friend of some friends of mine, and I wanted to… I don’t know, give him the benefit of the doubt? Not come off like a rabid bitch? Not have him fucking freak out and go off on me? (believe me, that happens way too often if you don’t graciously accept strangers feeling you up. I know it’s nonsensical. It’s also scary. I was trying to avoid it.) So I did that nervous grin thing that girls do, when they want you to go away and you won’t but they’re a little scared. Friend 3 was sitting right there, but he didn’t say anything. Just then MyTodd™ walked in. Thank Jeebus. So as he passed behind me I grabbed his hand, really hard. I tugged on it with all the “Oh holy shit, please help me and get this guy off me.” strength I could muster. He… shook my hand off of his and walked away to order a drink.

McGrabbersons is now rubbing his cock on my ass, babbling about his shy friend. He grabs my shoulders way too hard and tries to forcefully turn me toward the other end of the bar. He’s still babbling. I am so freaked out I have no idea what he’s saying. I have no idea what I am saying. I AM STILL TRYING TO BE NICE. I make another grab for Todd, but he eludes me. I kick Friend 3 in the leg. He ignores me. Finally (I’ve no idea how/why) McGrabbersons gets the message and walks off back to the other end of the bar. I turn around to Todd and make him give me a hug because I am freaking out. I was kind of upset so I can’t remember the precise order in which the following events took place:

I mention to the Friendly Barkeep that the guy had an unseemly amount of hands, and that he was also rubbing his cock on me. I said that I don’t know how to handle things like that when they happen. He says that the way I handled it last week was perfect, which is when I realized that I hadn’t yelled at this guy because I assumed he was a friend of theirs.

Friend 3 & Friendly Barkeep say that the guy is basically a retarded douchebag, and not a friend of theirs. When asked why he didn’t help get that guy away from me, Friend 3 says because I was smiling and “looked like I was into it.” Friend 3 has apparently forgotten the fact that I barely talk to people I KNOW, and rarely if ever touch them. Thus the idea of a stranger feeling me up shouldn’t really fit his concept of things I would be into.

When I asked Todd why he didn’t help me, he said that I was fine, and should consider this guy’s actions flattering. Friend 3 wants to know why I didn’t holler at McGrabbersons, if I wanted him off of me. I explain that sometimes that really only makes things worse. He tells me that old fucking thing about how he’d love it if someone came up and started feeling on him. I tell him that he doesn’t have to live every minute of his life under the implied threat of sexual violence, which may color his reaction to people stronger than him putting their hands on his body. He actually considers this and seems to have some kind of revelation about it.

Todd asserts again that it’s flattering. I order another drink. Sometime later the Friendly Barkeep comes over to tell me that he’s thrown the guy out of the bar. Barkeep says “Yeah, I kicked him out when he told me that he wanted to fuck you on the bar.” Again, I halfway think the barkeep thought I would find that flattering. I don’t think he wanted to upset me, but hearing that did upset me, of course. Who says a thing like that? Out loud? In public?

I felt better when he was gone, but I don’t feel any closer to understanding my guy friends. I think Friend 3 was joking about the stuff he was saying, but I know that Todd really didn’t think it was a big deal, and even asserted two days later that it was… you guessed it… flattering. I don’t know how insulted I should be by that really. I should be flattered that some random asshole I never met thinks it’s OK to rub his junk on me? I should feel good that some douchetard wants to fuck me, and assumes I am into that? I should feel comforted that my friends, who ostensibly know me pretty well, somehow don’t REMEMBER that I will barely interact with strangers, much less invite their touching me? Do they think that the stranger being a guy makes it different? That I am so desperate that I will respond positively to any drunken disrespect that a penis-bearing member of society cares to dish up?

What the fuck ever.

I don’t know that I care to have the thought processes of my guy friends so clearly laid out for me. I don’t know if that’s what they think of ME, or if that’s what they think of the world. I wonder if it was one of their hotter friends that was getting felt up by some douchetard, if they’d think she was into it? Is it that every woman should like that shit, or just me, because I am lucky to get attention at all – even from drunken assholes? I don’t know about any of it, really.

I am tired of being told that I shouldn’t feel the way I feel though.

   Filed under: anti-socialism, introversion, out and about, women's issues | Comments (3)