Monday, January 1, 2007

Thanks a Hell of alot for Destroying my Sense of Safety

It was around 9:30pm last night and I walked into the lobby of my apartment building talking on the phone with one of my friends. We hung up while I was waiting for the elevator and this drunk guy who was older than my father walks over to me and makes a comment about the elevator to which I just nodded. It wasn't unusual for someone to make a comment about the elevator since we usually had problems with it, but then out of the blue he asks me my name. I turn and stared at him in shock and asked him "Why?" to which he answered "Because you're pretty." I just ignored him and made a move to get in the elevator and he started to follow me, still asking my name. Still stunned and by that point - scared, I walked out of the elevator and asked him if he was getting in or out and he said he was getting out and moved out of the elevator so I walked back in. He starts to follow me and I turn to walk out again and he physically blocks my way. All the while, he's still asking my name. I try to push past him and at that moment, one of the men who was near the front door watching the whole entire thing finally decides to do something and takes the drunk old man by the shoulder and starts to move him out of the way. This gave me a chance to slip by and lucky for me, one of my mom's friend's husband walks in the front door at that moment and he took the elevator up to my apartment with me. Right before the elevator door closed, the drunk man yells "since you won't give me your name, I'll give you one - baby doll."

I had my cell phone clutched in my hand the whole time, unfortunately it didn't have a camera so I couldn't take a picture of the jerk's face. I'm 17 years old and even though I've been told I look 18 or 19, it's still no justification to hit on someone who is thirty years younger than you. It was just plain creepy and it left me completely shaken. I ended up in tears for the two hours that followed because I was totally unnerved and I lost all sense of safety. This incident was made worse by the fact that the night before I had a group of guys shouting "I want some of that pussy" at me while I was walking down the 42 street train station stairs. I'm use to comments of "hey beautiful" and such and I've learned to ignore those, but the vulgarity of what those guys were shouting surprised me and left me a bit nervous. But it certainly compared nothing to how violated I felt last night.

Submitted by C.C.

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