One night, I was going home on the bus, when a man about forty started talking to me, completely out of the blue. At first he told me about his life and I tried to act polite, I clearly didn’t want him to talk to me but I couldn’t really walk away. Then he began to ask me what my name was, where I lived, where I studied and so on. It completely took me by surprise, so I had to come up with a plausible lie for every question he asked me; I was really panicking on the inside, but I knew I couldn’t absolutely let it surface. At the same time, I looked around, looking for some support from the other passengers: they all looked away when our eyes met.
They saw I was young -I was 19 at the time- and rather frightened, but no one intervened, not even to try and distract him. When he began asking me whether we could go out for a coffee some time or other, there I knew I couldn’t really stay on the bus any longer: I got off three stops earlier, just to make sure that man wouldn’t follow me home or find out where I lived in any way. The fact that I now have to be very careful when I use public transportation after 10 p.m. and check who is already at the bus stop trying to figure out whether that person could be dangerous is not tragic enough; the worst part has been seeing that nobody, neither the passenger nor the driver, cared to help me in any way, even though they clearly perceived the danger; they simply acted like they didn’t notice.
I feel like women are forced to learn to be paranoid and self-conscious everywhere they go, lest they have to deal with any kind of danger or harassment.
– G.C.
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