Street attention

I’ve just had a very busy week and since I refuse to do anything relating to this blog at work I haven’t been on recently. I’m now playing catch up.

In this time I’ve had some weird run ins with men. My father is buying me pepper spray. I think he is being a little over protective but that’s what fathers do.

Part of my job is to get to know the area I’m working/living in. This means walking around a part of town 12 years ago was known as Crack Ally. It has gotten much better but I still get strange looks when I tell people where I am. The other day I was going on one of these walks and had far more than the regular series of cat calls. I had a few men stop me on the street to see if I wanted to grab a bite to eat, and then got belligerent when I declined. I had a man stop me and ask if he could tell me something, and which I proceeded to be told I’m the “finest white girl he’s seen in a long time.” When he saw me again at the other side of the street he started yelling at me again about how “fine I was.” The weirdest one was the man who stopped his car in the middle of a busy road to ask me out. At first I thought he was asking for directions. When he asked if I wanted to grab dinner I said no, not being particularly interested. I ended up almost arguing with him about it. I ended up telling him I had a boyfriend as previous experience has told me that arguing about why I’m not interested doesn’t work. He said that that didn’t mean I could even have a bite with another man. I said yes, and then he suggested I just not tell my boyfriend. I walked away. That was all in 45 minutes

Now this isn’t bragging. I don’t want this kind of attention. There is a line between a flattery and feeling uncomfortable in my neighborhood. I was wearing jeans, a button down shirt and sunglasses. If I was in a short skirt and tube top, I could see that I might have been inviting it. That was by far the worst day.

Probably the most frustrating thing about it however was when I tried to talk to my room mates about what was happening. It ended up with almost all of them worrying of why they weren’t getting hit on in the the streets. There were a few days where different theories where being thrown around.

In theory it sounds good. To walk down the street and get honked at and what not. But in practice it isn’t. I was contemplating if it would be different if I was in a place I haven’t had extensive lectures of the safety of. Probably not. I at lest like to pretend a guy is interested in more than just the way I look. If I get approached at a art museum, I can think we have a mutual interest in art, we can at lest discuss the painting in front of us before decision about coffee are made. A street however there is nothing. I’m walking to an unknown destination from an unknown destination. He would be doing the same. It is obvious that the only interest there is physical. There is nothing else to go off of.

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