Prior to my “debut night” (see ‘Big Deal’ post), my SL friend Bau suggested I get mace. I took hir seriously, but didn’t get around to it. I’ve since been out femme-dressed a few times with no incidents… until last night.
I went dancing with my friends Tammy & Toast, but at a different club than I had before. Because the club was a) more mainstream and b) in my own neighborhood, I didn’t want to go QUITE as femme as I have. I wore a leopard spot headband and leopard spot skin-tight Capris, a black sleeveless shirt and a short sleeved black hoodie, plus eye-liner and lip-gloss. Toast (a cisgendered male) has long hair and wore a skirt and make-up. Tammy was in black with a short skirt and spikey hair.
I first suspected trouble when I saw the baseball cap guy pushing shots on his friends (who were sitting alongside the dance floor). He was drinking liquor and beer and obviously drunk off his ass. He came onto the dance floor and was deliberately dancing backwards into Toast. He had that drunken trying to get away with it but telegraphing what he was doing thing (for example he kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure he was heading for Toast). Finally Toast exchanged some words with baseball cap guy. Toast then stormed off the dance floor. I positioned myself in such a way that ‘b-c’ guy couldn’t pull the same shit on me, but I didn’t want to let the guy stop me from dancing. Eventually Toast and Tammy came back to the dance floor and ‘b-c’ guy started talking to Tammy and she told him off as well. He continued to look and point at us as he talked to his friends. I noted (just in case) that he was wearing sandals and I was wearing combat boots.
Eventually he and his friends left and I thought that was over and enjoyed the rest of my evening. Until closing time came and as we were getting ready to leave, baseball-cap guy showed back up without his friends. Now I was spooked. I started to discuss with Tammy and Toast arrangements for walking home together. I didn’t think it was safe for any of us to walk home alone. The DJ (a friend of Toast) overheard and said “which guy?” Toast pointed him out and the DJ started yelling at the guy to get out of the bar. Baseball-cap guy started yelling back at the DJ that he was going to call the cops. Eventually the owner of the bar and the bouncers took over and got ‘b-c’ guy out of the club. Potentially, however, he was outside and angry. When Toast, Tammy & I left the club, we didn’t see him. We put Tammy in a cab; Toast walked me home and had his bike to ride home. So we all were unscathed, but I’m thinking I better get that mace now.
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3 comments:
Aww, Jubi, sorry you had to deal with a jerk. The best thing you did, though, was to keep on dancing. Yes, you need to think about keeping safe in life, but the thing I suggest defending against most is an overly defensive mindset. I say this as a recovering survivalist :) . Nine times out of ten, jerks like this just want to seek you get rattled in verbal confrontation. For those who actually move to physically confronting you, nine times out of ten it's playground stuff, shoving and puffing. So 99% of the time, you're not in real physical danger. However, you are in real spiritual and emotional danger of letting go of your happiness over that 1% chance of physical injury. Simple and rational cost-benefit analysis says you should focus your energy on staying joyful. Our society focuses us on the confrontation; resist. Buy some pepper spray if you feel it will give you peace of mind, but think of it mostly as as defense against having your happiness hijacked. . .
I am reading your story and joyfully watching you experiment, evaluate, decide on courses of action. I like, too, hearing about your internal responses to the responses you get. Thank you for sharing your work, cause even though I'm not working on the same issues, the process is one I can use. Annnnd...I like how you write.
Gosh thanks Corvi :) That means a lot to me <3
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