There Are No Safe Spaces

I was looking forward to my last full day in England before heading back to Romania. It was a Sunday and I was enjoying the fact that the day was completely mine. I had no interviews to do, and I had no clock I had to punch.

I slept in, grabbed a leisurely breakfast at my hotel, and then headed off to the Tube station, grabbing an iced coffee along the way. I brought a book with me, knowing my journey would be a bit longer, but not feeling in any sort of rush. The sun was shining and I was feeling confident and content.

It wasn’t overly crowded, being midmorning, so I chose a seat in a corner of the train and opened my book as I sipped my coffee. These were the kinds of days that made the hectic schedules and the exhaustive logistics of travel worth it.

I made it one stop before he got on the train.

He was unkempt, and smelled of soiled clothes. And he chose the seat next to mine.

I offered him a polite smile, the first thought running through my head being that I didn’t want him to feel like he wasn’t welcome in this collective space, that he had just as much right to be there as any of us. I focused on my book.

Only a handful of seconds passed before he began talking to me. He said hello, and I returned the greeting. He told me that he decided to sit next to me because I looked nice. I gave a nod, acknowledging I’d heard him, in response.

He asked me if I was visiting London. I said I was.

He asked what stop I was getting off at. I told him that I wasn’t going to tell him that.

He pulled back with a smile of condescension and told me that I shouldn’t be worried, he wasn’t going to hurt me.

I didn’t respond.

He told me I looked good in my shorts.

He asked again about my stop. And my answer was the same.

He shook his head, I could see his frustration.

“I’m not going to rob you, you don’t have to worry,” he said.

I stayed silent, not seeing the words on the page in front of me, but desperately hoping that I was pulling off the look of someone that was engrossed in a book.

It didn’t do the trick.

Giving up on asking me where my stop was, he asked if I was meeting friends.

I lied and told him that I was.

He asked what we were going to do.

I shook my head, letting him know that I wasn’t comfortable giving him details.

The derision was back, and he told me that I didn’t have anything to worry about because he was getting off at {insert tube stop here}.

I gave him a small smile; this one not in kindness but in apprehension.

Don’t escalate the situation.

Fight, Flight, Freeze

I know what my fear response is.

Do you know how I know?

Because this isn’t the first situation like this that I’ve been in. And I’d bet my last dollar that every other woman on this planet has also been given the opportunity to test theirs out as well.

Mine, unfortunately for me, is freeze.

It was freeze the first time a guy called me a f*cking bitch when I was still in middle school because I wouldn’t do what he asked.

It was freeze when a drunk guy at a concert got too close.

It was freeze when my ex husband hit the wall next to my head while he was yelling.

It was freeze when a guy thought it would be funny to follow me to my car and pretend to get in my passenger seat. And then open the door again and tell me to learn how to take a f*cking joke when I didn’t laugh.

So I was frozen. Wanting, honestly, to tell him to stop, that I didn’t want to talk to him and I didn’t owe him my time or attention, but physically unable to convince my brain and my body to be on the same page.

He asked me what I did for work.

I tried to ignore him, just focus on my book and hope that he would take the hint.

He asked again. And then he told about his job.

I was 100% sure he was lying so I lied too.

He didn’t hear me and he asked me to repeat myself. Once, twice, three times, each time inching closer towards my face.

“I like to talk to people, you looked like a nice person,” the insinuation being that if I didn’t talk back, I wasn’t nice.

And god forbid a woman not be nice.

“I’m not going to hurt you, you don’t have to worry.”

---

I wasn’t alone on this train. We were drawing the stares of quite a few people, but there was total silence in the car outside of this man’s voice assuring me that he didn’t mean to do me harm.

I made eye contact with several people. All of whom sat just as frozen as I felt.

My brain and my body finally decided to cooperate with one another long enough for me to move seats. I walked 10 feet away and sat myself between two other people.

He made a sound as though he was disappointed in me, disappointed that I decided to prove him wrong, I wasn’t nice.

I sat in my seat and stared down at my book, determined to pretend like I couldn’t hear him and praying that he wouldn’t follow me. Based on what he told me, he was getting off the Tube before I was and I sat there counting down the stops.

A man across from me who had watched the whole thing happen was the only one to say anything. He caught my eye, asked if I was okay, and asked me what stop I was getting off at.

I nearly told him, sure that he was just checking that I wasn’t getting off at the same stop my admirer was. But I stopped myself, nodding that I was okay and that I was getting off after “him”, my eyes flicked over to the man as I said it and I found him watching me, even more grateful that I hadn’t said the name of the stop out loud.

His stop was nearing, the train was slowing, and he stood up from his seat in preparation to get off. But while the train took its sweet time coming to a stop, he meandered over to where I was sitting.

He had been yelling over to me for the last couple of stops not to worry, that he was getting off soon. And so he said it again, “don’t worry I’m getting off here.”

I said nothing, continuing to focus on the nonsensical words in my book.

We came to a complete stop, but before the doors could open he stood over me and said, “lose some weight, love, your legs look like tree trunks”. The same legs he complimented in my shorts 10 minutes earlier. The legs that happen to be one of the only parts of my body that I’m rarely insecure about.

And he left.

Feeling exposed and raw, tears started in the corner of my eyes.

The reigning emotion in that moment was embarrassment.

I was embarrassed that the whole thing had happened. I was embarrassed that I had a crowd of spectators. I was embarrassed that I froze. I was embarrassed that for all of the words I have in my head, none of them were available to me in the moment. I was embarrassed that it had upset me, that I let him affect me.

I got off at my stop, the coffee sitting uncomfortably in my stomach. It didn’t taste good anymore, and suddenly the day seemed less exciting.

I tried to let it roll off my back, but I found myself wiping away the tears leaking down my face that were so out of my control, fresh ones immediately taking their place.

From there, every step toward my destination was a building of my anger. I had moved from fear and embarrassment to rage.

Because there are still people out there that believe that what happened was an anomaly. That it was simply the wrong place at the wrong time, or the whims of a villainous caricature of a man who exists in many people’s minds but rarely in reality, and not a centuries long battle for women to exist in peace in the world.

That for people to care it has to be the worst case scenario. And even then, there are no promises you’ll be believed.

That objectification of and disrespect towards women is so commonplace that it rarely even warrants a conversation.

That my first thought when it was over was, don’t make a big deal about it.

That I felt embarrassed for the space I was taking in that car when he had no such qualms about his behavior.

That women in general are seen as emotional (as if that’s some inherent defect) and not taken seriously.

That our stories are questioned and picked apart until we decide it’s not worth telling them anymore.

That even as I write this I’m preparing myself for someone to write it off as hysterical nonsense.

As a woman that travels by myself quite often I’m frequently asked about my safety. And, of course, it’s something that I exhaustively consider. There is not a woman in the world today that hasn’t had to consider their own safety.

What’s funny to me is that people assume that traveling is the dangerous part when the truth is that simply existing as a woman is to keep constant vigilance. It’s intensive and never-ending and, unfortunately, second nature.

Don’t take your eyes of your drink.

Don’t stop for gas after dark.

Don’t park in a parking garage if you can help it.

Carry your keys between your knuckles.

Don’t pull over for a cop if it’s after dark, wait until you can pull into a well lit area.

Cross the street so you don’t pass in front of that group of men.

Don’t have both of your headphones in while you’re in public.

Don’t keep your hair in a ponytail when you’re out on a run, it’s easier to grab.

In fact, probably best not to go on a run outside at all.

Check to make sure the handle inside the car works before you shut yourself in your Uber or cab.

And have your phone ready to call for help if things go wrong.

Don’t tell anyone you’re alone.

Pretend you have a boyfriend.

Act like you’ve been here before…

And a million other scenarios that run through our heads on auto-pilot, putting us constantly on alert, many of them explicitly taught to us as if the problem isn’t that men hurt women, rather that women get themselves hurt by men.

And still, even with a diligence that doesn’t waiver, it’s not enough.

Because yes, it’s the stranger on the Tube, but too often, it’s also the ones you trust the most.

I’m tired of feeling like I’m screaming into the void, that forward movement is rare and fleeting. I’m tired of being looked at as angry and difficult for simply wanting women to be treated like people. I’m tired of being met with defensiveness and indifference at best, anger and retribution at worst when women are literally dying. And I’m tired of trying to convince men that, like their own, the humanity and dignity of women is sacred and divine and worth fighting for.

We can do better.

We must.