All the talk

There has been so much talk lately about unwanted attention. Particularly us ladies getting copious amounts of unwanted attention from complete aggressive strangers. I'm no stranger to this lovely life situation here are some of my fun experiences.

When i was in high school i worked at a laundromat there was this way older gentalman (should he be considered that...) he frequented the laundromat and at first seemed nice enough. We talked... he sometimes brought me mcflurrys.  He then started bringing me more gifts, a small jewelry box, a DVD, and i was like... ok... THEN on my birthday he gave me a birthday card in it, it said usually happy birthday greetings but then ended with "On your 18th birthday maybe we could hug. ;)."  Um... thankfully he didn't know that it was my 18th birthday... and that's about when things got strange and i truly felt unsafe. The whole time i felt really strange about the situation because why was this random person giving me things. I tried to not accept them but that never worked. Thankfully i was graduating and leaving that job behind... but perhaps i should have said something to some to spare the next girl?

Then I started working for a certain grocery chain after graduating. I worked in 3 different areas, the first one there was a manager that sexually harassed me daily. I was young and didn't really think i had any rights so i just bared it. For example i wore skirts sometimes to work because i worked in the front office. one time he asked me while i was walking around to stop and spread my legs.... i did not and THANKFULLY that time another manager was around and yelled at him being as equally horrified as myself.  That manager than asked me if this type of situation happened often and i told him with that guy it did. Shortly after the manager with questionable behavior was fired for a multitude of reasons the top one being his cocaine addiction.

Then the office i worked in was closed so they transferred me to a store. It was my 1st week at this new store and i didn't know anyone so i ate lunch alone... which apparently was an open invitation for this other employee to start talking and flirting with me. I talked to him nice enough but made other lunch plans... any other plans.  He then started following me to my car at the end of my shift sometimes my shift ended at night... in the dark... But again i didn't think i had a right to complain to anyone so i eventually just asked the guy i was dating at the time to show up at the store a few times. But that didn't even take care of the problem me leaving the store and transferring to another job is what "solved" it.

These are just a few examples of the worst situations i have been in that have stuck with me.  I know so many people (mostly ladies) that have had much worse. And now looking back i'm mad at myself for not telling someone because who knows how many other people those men (term used loosely) went on to harass or worse.

I know this topic is hotly debated with some people saying "cat callers" are just trying to be friendly and even more people saying if women weren't getting attention they'd be complaining (i puked typing that)... i mean seriously. It's frustrating. All i want is to walk a few blocks and feel safe, i want that feeling for anyone female or male. what a mess.

Maybe the answer really is gasoline and a book of matches which someone once told me was the answer to all the problems. LOL