Things I Wish I Had Known #12: A Woman's Best Friend is a Good Defense

When I was 21, I started my July 4th like I stared most other days. I went to a friend’s house to play badminton in the pool. Until my dad passed away, my parents always had big 4th of July picnics for family and friends. Before leaving my friend’s house, I tossed on a t-shirt over my bikini top which was not wet, and I switched into my favorite pair of running shorts. I like the shorts more than I like the actual sport of running. My hair was in a messy bun falling off the side of my head, and I didn’t have any makeup on whatsoever. If I had a picture of me in that outfit, I wouldn’t be embarrassed, but it certainly wasn’t one of my best looks by any means. When I left my friend’s house that day, I checked to see if my mom needed me to grab anything from the supermarket on my way back; she gave me a short list. Given that I will do anything to stay out of the kitchen, I happily went to the grocery store. I could have walked to all of these places and had done so in the past. They were that close to my parents’ home in a good neighborhood with a good school district.

Grabbing a basket, I dutifully checked off the items on my mom’s list. While walking through the store, I noticed a guy in his 30s kind of staring at me. Here is the thing. Pittsburghers are very friendly. We tend to say hello or wave even if we don’t know who we’re saying hello to or waving at in the moment. I didn’t smile or say hello. Something felt very wrong to me. To this day, I don’t know what the feeling was or why I had it. If I think about who I was at 21, I should have loved the attention. I can admit to being a flirt at that age, but that day, something felt deeply wrong to me. For the rest of my trip through the grocery store, I carefully avoided being in the same aisle as that guy and stayed closer to places with workers because I knew them from running in and out of there so much. When I went to check out, the lines were long, but I was happy to see the guy was several spots closer to checking out in a different line. I watched him leave the store and felt relieved.

Walking out to my car, I had a bit of a hike because the grocery store and liquor store had filled the parking lot. When I reached my car and turned to open the door, I noticed the guy from the store walking toward me. By my estimate of when he checked out, there was a ten minute difference between our departures. He should have been long gone. My first thought was that maybe I dropped my phone or wallet, but if I was trying to return a phone or wallet to a person, I would call out and hold it up so that they could see what had happened. I tossed the groceries across the seat and pulled the door behind me just as he approached my car. I locked the doors as he walked to my driver’s side door. I looked around to see if anyone else was watching this unfold. I saw a man two cars over talking on a phone but watching what was happening to me. I want to believe the man in the car was watching to make sure that I made it out of there safely, but the truth is I don’t know if that was the case at all. I thought about crawling around to ask for help, but I suddenly didn’t know if I could trust the man in the car. Around this time in Pittsburgh, females around my age were going missing from malls and shopping centers. They were abducted, raped, and killed. I wish I had thought to call the police in that moment, but flight or fight had kicked in, and for the first time in my life, I chose flight.

The man who who followed me literally stood at my driver’s side door while I put the key in the ignition, took the parking brake off, and tossed the car into drive. He was standing close enough to my car that I thought I might actually run over one of his feet when I pulled out of the spot, but I was terrified and willing to take that chance. My parents’ neighborhood had several entrances and exits. In the past, I used them to see if I was being followed home. Anyone unfamiliar with the neighborhood wouldn’t realize I was making an unnecessary loop. It had happened more than once in the past, and I had to call my dad to ask him to wait in the driveway for me because I didn’t want to open the garage door and take my chances on making a run for it. Every previous time someone had followed me, my dad’s presence in the driveway had sent the car behind me speeding past the moment they saw him. That day, nobody followed me home, but I still haven’t forgotten the fear I felt in those moments. Even now, I think my story could have had a very different ending because there was just something not right about that man and the situation he placed me in that day.

I’d love to pretend that day was an anomaly, but it was not. From the time I started driving, I started having men follow me home at night. In college, there were times I had to duck into a coffee shop in hopes of getting my follower to back off or finding a male friend to walk me back to my apartment. I’ve had males offer to walk me somewhere only to try to force themselves on me in the middle of the walk, and I am lucky that a shove from me and a well placed Clueless reference of “as if” got them to back off of me. I have not so politely told men that if they didn’t remove their hand from my knee or higher, I would begin clawing their hand off of me. And those are only the times that I felt like I was physically in danger. I’m not counting the unwanted comments on my appearance. I’m also not counting the amount of males who only cared about me so far as I could entertain them or laugh at their jokes. Maybe one day, I will write a longer post about that group because they are emotionally draining, but for today, I will just say, “get a subscription to Netflix or one of the thirty other streaming channels if you are looking to be entertained. It’s not my job to entertain you or pretend you’re funnier than you actually are.”

Recently, a woman named Sarah Everard was abducted and murdered in London. In a quick survey of people my age, every woman knew her name and the story while none of the men did. The unfortunate reality is that women know that sometimes nothing but luck separates us from becoming a statistic. Every time I leave my house, I have to pay attention to who is looking at me a little too long and if anyone is following me while driving. Initially, men in England wanted to know how to help, and women answered that we need space to feel safe. Cross the street or walk a little farther away from us. The answer didn’t go over well because men argued that not all men are like that, and I entirely agree that not all men are harmful to me or remotely dangerous. The problem is that I have to act as if every man I don’t know could potentially be a threat. Beyond luck, it’s the best defense I have to protect myself. If there are men reading this, please know I’m not bashing you. I have a lot of men in my family and as friends who are extraordinarily good people, but I would still ask that you give space to women or act as an ally if you see a woman being followed in reporting it or just having a fake phone call where you loudly announce your presence to the female and her follower. If I see a woman being followed in a parking lot, I will wait until she gets into her car to pull out of my spot or to park. Likewise, since my friends started driving, we have been waiting to make sure that we see the friend get into her home or apartment before driving away. Be proactive when it comes to not only your safety but the safety of other women. Likewise, know that it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or what you had to drink. A short skirt isn’t consent. A drink too many isn’t consent.

I’m so sorry to the females who haven’t gotten as lucky as I have. I’m sorry for every person in the system who failed you. I’m sorry if you were made to feel like it was your fault. It wasn’t. I'm sorry that I felt the need to point out I was both sober and dressed like a bum in my first paragraph. More than anything, I’m sorry that it’s 2021, and we’re still stuck in the same place as we were 20 years ago or more.

I wish I had known that the phrase "stranger danger" would never entirely go away for me.

K.A. Coleman