Stop Wasting Your Time, He’s Never Going to See You as Human

I wanted to tell her about all the other women he’d done this to…

There has always been a resident creep at my coffee shop. I’ve been going to this particular shop since it opened in 1997. I was a teenager, but I’d been a coffee drinker for years at that point. The Coffee Etc. I used to hang out in with my friends had closed and we were on the hunt for a new place when Safehouse opened. It had been designed to serve the sober rider community so they kept bar hours, and the layout was fairly similar as well: old scarred wooden tables and benches, a pool table in the back and old sit-down arcade games like the original Pac-Man (which was where you would find me), Atari, Galaga, and the like. In short, it was perfect.

For years, I never went alone. This wasn’t because I felt it was a dangerous place to be — I just didn’t have a car. Most of the friends I hung out with who had cars were male. This helped me not get harassed as much — most of the creepers would ‘honor’ another male’s claim and keep their distance. But there were times, like when we would arrive in a group, where that wouldn’t be the case and some tool would try to hijack my time and attention with their peacocking — sidling up to me and a couple of other teenager girls to tell our tits, “Let me teach you how to play pool.” *Gag, exchange eye rolls* Sit down, hon, let the ladies show you how it’s done.

Over the years, the layout has changed. The creepers, too, shuffle in and out, but they’ve always been around. They inevitably end up in my personal sphere, one way or another. This is in no way unique to my coffee shop. If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s that creepy guys abound — they are everywhere.

Usually, I’m pretty adept at getting them to leave me alone. This is actually a remnant of my abusive childhood. One of those strangely positive side effects of being raised the way I was. I was trained from an early age (5 years-old) to meet this sort of behavior with violence. Violent words, actions, or both. I’m not recommending this, and I now understand (somewhat) why this is ‘dangerous’. Those reactions did keep the creeps at bay for years though.

In my mid-twenties, I was spending a lot of time at Safehouse. I was in college and had started a non-profit group for local writers and poets that met there once a week. Arguably, I had mellowed out a bit as a person. I was a young wife and mother, trying to cultivate a healthy, balanced life and move away from the aggressive mindset of my childhood. I got softer and it showed in the form of acquiring a creeper who just wouldn’t go away.

Kyle was younger than me. He thought he was charming. He like to show off his intellect to try to prove to women they should go out with him. Cause there’s nothing sexier than a guy who’s going to beat you over the head with how right he is all the time. Ooh, là là. He also lacked respect for personal boundaries. What, a creeper who doesn’t listen to ‘no’? How avant-garde!

He would sit at my table uninvited. Not listen when I told him I was on a deadline and needed to get my work done. He didn’t respect that I was married. He laughed when I told him he was making me uncomfortable. What, him? How could he be doing that when I’m such a strong, intelligent woman? Yeah, he was the kind of guy to gaslight you using your own positive traits to negate any objections about his own behavior.

Being around him triggered me in a big way. But I’d been coming to this coffee shop for over a decade at this point and I wasn’t about to flee because of some creeper. I’d been subduing my knee-jerk reactions solely because I didn’t want to get banned due to violent behavior.

Until this one night…

I was meeting my sister-from-another-mister for one of our classic coffee, homework, and poetry evenings but got there early as I tended to have more homework than the other writers in the group (a consequence of having a double major).

Kyle ambushed me at the register — giving me a ‘hug’ from behind. I barely managed to restrain the force in my elbow before I did him actual damage in front of management. He laughed it off, “You’re always so jumpy.”

His body was too close to me. I tried physically maneuvering within the available space to lessen it, but he followed and would encroach closer. So, I told him he was crossing a boundary into my personal space and asked him politely to stop.

He laughed that off too, “It’s so busy in here, I don’t think I can.”

He could have. He didn’t want to. He followed me to my table, sat down on the bench next to me instead of the empty one across from me. I asked him to move as he had just cut off my avenue of escape and I was keenly aware of it. How was I supposed to concentrate when he’s making me feel under threat?

“But I like being close to you,” he said, as he scooted his body so that his side was flush against mine.

“I told you, I’m married. This isn’t appropriate.”

“What? We’re just sitting here. No one would call that cheating.” He leaned in close. “But if you wanted to, I promise I wouldn’t tell.”

He spread his arm out across the bench behind me, placing his hand so that it dangled over my left shoulder one adjustment away from being on my breast. I rolled my shoulders to push it off me and leaned forward so my back was no longer touching the bench.

He laughed. “Someone’s in a mood tonight.”

I glared at him. “Yes, I am. I have a lot of homework to get done and someone seems determined to get in the way of that.”

He held up his right hand. “I’ll let you do your homework, I swear.”

“You mean that? Then give me some space. Go sit over there,” I pointed to the bench across the table, knowing that if I suggested he leave the table entirely he wouldn’t comply. Distance, I thought I might have a chance at.

“Why? I’ll be good.” I tried to explain why I needed more space, how much, and why. He wasn’t listening. My needs got in the way of his agenda and therefore didn’t matter. I doubt highly he would think my needs actually mattered in any scenario. Boys like this don’t seem to grasp that women are human.

I ignored him as much as I could and tried to get some work done. It would only be a fraction of what I could accomplish if he would just leave. Me. Alone.

He really didn’t like this. He kept pressing himself into me. He would press until I felt the need to inch away. Again. And again. Until the windowsill was digging into me and there were no more inches I could retreat to. I let it be known that I had someone coming to study soon and when they arrived he would need to leave.

Once he had me effectively pinned, Kyle decided to up the ante. He put his hand down the back of my jeans as far as he could to squeeze the top of my bare ass cheek.

I slammed my body back against the bench hard, trapping his whole arm. I put my right hand high on his inner left thigh where, if he was like most of his kind, he was keeping his micro-penis. And if not, well, that’s still a very sensitive area. I dug my nails and fingers in deep, grabbing a chunk of his flesh and slowly twisting in a way I knew would both break skin and bruise.

Leaning in close, I looked him dead in the eyes and whispered, “The last guy to treat me like this ended up with a broken arm. I’ll tell you what, Kyle, I will finally meet you down that dark alley you’ve been trying to get me to walk down with you but, I think it’s only fair to warn you, I’m bringing my knife. So, let’s go.”

I smiled wide as I gave him one last hard twist, then released him and leaned forward so he could remove his hand, which he promptly did, cradling it with his right and giving me a look of betrayal.

“You’ve turned into a real bitch, you know that? You just let me know when you’re ready to be nice. Then maybe we can be friends again.”

Kyle never approached me again. Some of the other women who were regulars took notice and asked me how I got him to leave me alone as he was notoriously persistent. I told them. I don’t know exactly what they did with the information, but Kyle quit coming about six months later.

That was by no means an end to the phenomena of having a resident creeper at my coffee shop. As long as they proliferate in the world they’ll be in our corner grocery store, favorite coffee shop, local library, and every other space you find women.

The latest one has his regular table adjacent to mine so, while I’m not the target, I still get to enjoy his predatory behavior. I thought, at first, I was eavesdropping on a first date. I’d been hearing online about the newfound popularity of coffee dates and had seen that reflected in the people who were showing up to crowd my weekend mornings spot.

It had all the hallmarks of a date. They didn’t seem to know each other very well and were initially trading questions back and forth. Until she gave a wrong answer. She has no interest in learning to rock climb. She tried once. Didn’t find it enjoyable. Which meant, for her, it definitely wasn’t worth the risk of injury.

He found this absolutely unacceptable and spent the next forty-five minutes aggressively trying to change her position. It’s, like, his favorite pastime so she’s not allowed to have a negative opinion. It wasn’t just that he wanted an altered opinion — he wanted her to agree to let him teach her. Cause that’s why she didn’t like it, she didn’t have him there to walk her through everything, probably while taking every available excuse to touch her body, all while in a naturally secluded place.

The first woman he did this with held her ground and seemed less interested in him when she left than when they arrived.

Unfortunately for me, this became a regular thing. From what I can tell, he has yet to score a second ‘date’. After hearing him talk at a new woman again this weekend my disgust for him has deepened.

I had a late start, so he was there when I arrived and had manspread in the extreme. I don’t know if it’s just part of his natural inclination or if he was trying to signal to me that my regular space was unavailable.

He had taken the stool from the bar top I use and appropriated it for his own. Not to sit on, no. He was sitting on the chair at his usual table and had placed my stool at an angle to the side so that he could stretch out his long legs and place his feet on the top, making it difficult to even reach the bar top I work on. I think he did this intentionally, to keep me from cramping his style, and to keep his ‘date’ isolated from others.

Jokes on him. He would have to pick a different table in that case — I wasn’t going to rearrange my life or my routines because some creeper shows up or I would spend my whole life in constant retreat.

I glanced over at his latest companion as I walked to my usual place. She met my eyes with a look every woman knows — the one that communicates that they feel uncomfortable with the situation they’re in and simultaneously pinned in place. She was also much younger than any of the other women he’d met here. (He looked like he was approaching middle age — his hair was starting to be threaded with grey and he had the skin of someone who’d spent several decades outdoors. She looked like she might not be able to drink, legally.)

I don’t sit; I work standing at the bar top, so I didn’t have to ask him for the stool or acknowledge him in any way. I took my space (even if it meant weaving around his legs which he didn’t offer to move, though it was obvious they were in the way) and began to get situated, unpacking my laptop, notebook, textbooks, etc…

I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. The opposite, actually. I had work to get done and deadlines fast approaching. But my instincts don’t like when I put predators in my blind spot and he was just over my right shoulder. There was also no one else around so theirs were the only voices apart from the music but the speakers for the sound system are downstairs.

He started talking about rock climbing again and I realized he thinks this is impressive. That women will think he’s a rugged, manly man they should fall down and open their legs for. Oh, but he got more than he bargained for with the youngling — she’s a rock climber herself! They started speaking about it using jargon — I’m not even going to pretend I could follow the nuances, I couldn’t, but I could tell he had no idea what to do when this one disagreed with him because she was so knowledgeable.

For once, he didn’t just allow a change of subject, he initiated it. He had them bouncing from subject to subject. I couldn’t understand it. If he was looking for connection, common ground, he’d already found and promptly abandoned it. That’s when he finally found his subject and I learned none of these had been dates.

He started to interrogate her about her thesis for the doctorate program they were all in together. And violà, he’d found the subject she felt insecure about that he could assume the position of authority on. He couldn’t continue talking about rock climbing because he wasn’t capable of conversing with a woman from a place of equality. Even though they were both students in this program, he assumed the position of professor, giving her all manner of unsolicited advice and intentionally feeding her fears so that, when he later offered to soothe the fears he’d stoked she would feel grateful and indebted to him.

I wanted so much to interrupt and tell her about all the other women from the program he’d brought here under the guise of camaraderie. (But I’ve learned not to do this.)

Once he had her on a subject she admitted being unconfident about, he did his best to keep her there. Eventually, she started talking about other people in their program. I got the impression the cohort is female heavy, but she tried to talk to him about one of the guys in the group who made her feel uncomfortable. It seemed to me that she was trying to hint to her companion that he was making her feel uncomfortable, just by the way she spoke and the things she emphasized.

She told him she was dreading an upcoming trip they were all taking for their studies because, though they would all have their own hotel rooms, the other male being in the same hotel and having a room so close to hers was making her feel like it would be unsafe.

Her companion’s reaction to this confession:

“You want me to slip in. I’m happy to.”

I don’t know how I restrained the urge to vomit. I lost count many years ago of the number of times I’ve had a conversation like this with a guy whose role in our social interaction was supposed to be that of a friend.

I wanted to tell her what I’d finally accepted after decades of trying to deny this reality — he’s never going to see you as fully human. Stop wasting your time. He isn’t worth it. Any ‘friendship’ you have is conditional and will be exploited by him in a heartbeat if he thinks he has a shot at sex. And that shot is the only reason he’s even speaking to you. He’s one of the patriarchy’s broken men. There are legions of them. It’s not your job to fix or tolerate them. You can’t, so don’t try. Walk away. Better yet, run.

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