Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2003 - 4:08 a.m.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Yesterday, I go down to the Big Oil Company store on the corner on my way out, to get a soda. All I friggin' wanted was a Diet Coke. I walk in, and the "new" guy who's been there the last 4 to 6 months or so, ever since the cool guy I loved went to Canada and can't get back in thanks to the friggin' Patriot Act, because even though he's been living in this country for like 18 years, he's not an actual American, plus he has dark skin and a funny name and is from one of them there backass countries that don't follow the Good Word of the One and Only True Sovereign Lord, the Lord God (PLEASE read that with all the sarcasm with which it was proffered). He's actually a Hindu from India and a way legal alien - not to mention he wouldn't hurt a fly - but paranoia being what it is thanks to Idiotboy and his buddies, he can't get back in and has been waiting for clearance since the second week of September. Anyway, Sandy wasn't there, and the "new" guy was. The same new guy that 3 weeks ago asked me if I was married to my boyfriend, and when I said no, proceeded to pump me with questions about when I was going to get married, and was I going to have kids, and then to lecture me on how one should really be married when one lived with a member of the opposite sex, and ended it all with God Is Great when I left. Like I friggin' need someone to tell me God is great or get a lecture from someone I really don't know other than he rings up my soda and chocolate cupcake fix every day or so. I just said "Yes, He is," and left, but it really pretty much irritated me that the whole tone of the damn thing had been to call me a whore, and I really don't appreciate having my morals OR religion/spirituality called into question. That's nobody's damn business but my own, by God. And I do mean by God. That's between me and him and nobody frigging else.

But I digress. I relate that to you merely to frame what happened yesterday, when I went in for my soda.

So, I walk in, and the same lecturing guy sticks his hand out over the counter and says hello. I shake the offered hand and then proceed to the soda case, but I see out of the corner of my eye that he has headed around the far side of the counter. He says I am coming to greet you, why do you go the other way? and I say well, because I didn't realize you were coming to greet me, and in my head I'm thinking, Huh? We just did the greet. So I get my coke and head back to the counter, where the guy is ringing up another man. So I wait for that whole thing to go down, and then I step up and set my coke down, and the guy again tells me he was coming to greet me, why did I walk away. So again I tell him I didn't realize he had been coming to greet me, and again I'm thinking what's the big fucking deal? So he comes around the counter with his hand all held out, and I go to shake it (again) and he pulls me to him in this gigantic, full-frontal hug and snugs me up all close so it's actually a little hard to breathe and then makes some comment about what a great hug it is, sets me back a tiny, marginal little bit so I can suck a little air into my lungs, and he airkisses my cheek.

At this point, I am rather at a loss for how to react, because while I don't mind hugging my friends, I do NOT like hugging strangers, I do not hug strangers, and any way you slice it, this whole thing is a weird little chain of events. I had kind of patted his shoulders like okay, now, that's a nice little hug, let go now, and when the airkiss went down, I laughed a little, which is how I tend to try to fend off unwanted advances or attention, to play it off as a joke and not at all serious, so that I can extricate myself from the situation with a modicum of dignity for all parties concerned. I feel it's just better that way, especially since unwanted or unexpected sexual advances really Freak. Me. Out. And not just a little, either. So when threatened in this manner, I try to make a joke out of it and escape, rapidly putting as much distance and as many objects between myself and the offender as possible. However, in this instance, I was unable to extricate myself before the big bad went down. Which was that after he airkissed my cheek, homeboy went in for the big one: full-on liplock right on my friggin' mouth, his lips all wrapped around my bottom lip, his upper lip fully in my mouth, so that I got the full wet effect all over the place, inside AND out. I had enough time to realize what was happening to grit my teeth as a precaution (ladies, you KNOW what I mean), but thankfully, the little sleaze did not go for tongue, which is a good friggin' thing, because frankly, I would have had a meltdown. God only knows what would have happened. As it is, it was a full 10 minutes after I escaped to my car (and went to town on my mouth with a wetwipe I had in there) before I was capable of speech beyond "Oh. My. God. Ohmigod. Oh, my God. Ohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigod. Oh, my, GOD." And various combinations of same. But before that, before I could escape for my car, I still had to pay for what I had, and I went over to get cupcakes, because NOW I friggin' needed 'em, and I wanted so BADLY to wipe my mouth, but there's this gigantic mirror in the corner there, and I realized he could see me in it, and - how fucked up is this - I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

Can you fucking believe that??? I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Seriously, how fucked up is that? How fucked up am I, that the conditioning I learned in the fucking Doyle household is not to ever, no matter what, EVER make other people uncomfortable? I was fucking freaking out on a scale that goes way beyond mere fucking Tharn, and the foremost consideration in my brain was not to hurt his feelings.

Fuck, people. That is some seriously fucked up shit.

It jacked me the rest of the day. I couldn't figure out how I felt. I could tell that somewhere inside of me there was some anger rolling around in there, and I could recognize it dusting the cobwebs off itself in the recesses of my brain, but aside from brief flashes of it here and there, as well as some quick tears, I couldn't actually feel it. So I didn't know how to react, either. How, exactly, does one react to that sort of thing? I mean, it's not like he was a complete stranger, whom I would have struck and struck rapidly. I know this, because I have done so in the past, and without even a second's hesitation. And I've had friends make passes at me, which I wriggled out of with the "ha-ha-you're so funny" defense - avoiding kissing except in one instance - and then never, ever called or hung out with again. And I've had girls I didn't know (aka female strangers) make passes at me, and those I just kind of peacefully extricate myself from, because women aren't threatening to me and I'm not gay, so their passes have (at least to now) been fairly non-sexual to me. Not to mention women are way less physically aggressive in their passes than men are. But I have NEVER had a guy who worked in a frigging convenience store, a man I see every day, who seems very nice and polite except for the one lecture, come around the corner and grab my ass in a lung-crushing bearhug and then slap his lips on me. Never.

And, e-ew.

It had never even crossed my mind as a possibility in this or any other lifetime. So after much freaking out and not a lot of sleep, I saw my therapist about it today and had a good old-fashioned screamfest in her office, oh yes I did. Turns out, I am plenty mad. Boy, am I mad. And not just at that guy, either. I am mad at quite a few men. My dad, for starts, for teaching me to swallow all of my anger and all the rights I am entitled to as a fucking human being in order to subjugate them to the will and consideration of others so that I wouldn't get the shit kicked out of me any more than was absofuckinglutely necessary. Ie, whenever he fucking felt like it. For teaching me it was NEVER fucking okay for me to say no, to ANYONE. For fucking paying my brother twice as much for doing the exact same fucking chores every fucking month and then telling me as he handed me the fucking check, "Now, I paid your brother twice as much, because he's a boy and works twice as hard as you do." For having the unmitigated fucking GALL to sit in my aunt's house this fucking summer with a gigantically shocked face and say to me "What did you have to be unhappy about?" And then telling me he's proud of me because I've finally learned to think rationally and say smart things. Thanks, Dad. Maybe if you'd given me a little fucking respect once in a while and not slugged me when I had the nerve to say no, I'd be able to stand up for myself when assholes violate my personal fucking space and kiss me without first seeking my fucking permission. Maybe I'd put a knee into their fucking balls rather than think that whatever I do, I musn't hurt their fucking feelings. Maybe I could get angry without feeling guilty. Maybe I wouldn't be so fucking pissed off inside all the time and could give reasonable voice to my anger, rather than holding it all in because I'm so fucking pissed that any reaction I give way to is going to be so far over the top people will think I'm whacked. Maybe I wouldn't want to take a knife to my fucking arm just to relieve the fucking pressure every time someone takes advantage of me and treats me like shit and I have to hold my fucking anger in yet again, because to give voice to it would just be fucking unreasonable and bitchy. Which I DON'T do; I don't take a fucking knife to myself, but it's a goddamned fucking battle every single time not to. Thanks, Dad. You're fucking ACES.

Love you. Mean it.

Katie

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