This experience is always vivid to me and seems like yesterday although I have the memory of a goldfish. Be sure to stick to the end.
There was a period of time in my life when I was heartbroken by this guy — after he dumped me almost right after he somehow talked me into having sex with him (when in reality, I haven’t had time to think nor prepare myself). On my birthday. And we’ve been together for half a year, which was quite long I’d say. Imagine that.
Basically, I was heartbroken and decided to make my heart feel less vacant and missing by hopping on Goodnight: an anonymous chat and dating app. It was different from your usual swiping left and right apps, you only get to see a small icon of this person and other basic information, and you decide if you want to match after talking for 7 minutes.
It feels really quite refreshing to not swipe left or right to judge one person in mere seconds in this society that deems appearance more important than anything else. I have to admit it was quite nice having late-night deep talks with complete strangers.
I matched with this guy (let’s call him Tom). After a few hours of talking, I found out he was a couple of years older than me, pretty fun to talk to, we had some common interests, and he seemed like a decent guy. There weren’t really any red flags at this stage.
We talked for two weeks, and one day I was just texting him where I was heading, and he happened to be nearby. I was starving, so we just decided to spontaneously have dinner together. What a bad idea.
We met at an underground station, and I couldn’t find him at first (we never exchanged photos). I was scanning the station, finding no one that seemed to be looking for me, until someone tapped on my shoulder and I turned around.
What met my eye was this guy that was almost three and a half inches shorter than me (bear in mind that I am 5’4), but let’s not height-shame him for now. His hair was oily and not groomed. His taste in clothes was…questionable to say the least.
He was wearing a Spiderman sweater, Spiderman-blue trousers, carrying a Spiderman backpack. He waved at me, exposing his very eye-catching Spiderman phone case with a Spiderman wallpaper. Wow. You can imagine I was flabbergasted.
I actually didn’t mind it that much (besides the fact that I’m judging him HARD) because although he seemed decent at the end of the phone, I wasn’t really attracted to him or anything, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt for us to be friends.
The first thing he said after LITERALLY scanning me from top to bottom was, “You’re quite pretty, although you don’t have much going on on the front, you have a nice ass.” What the fuck, I thought.
Nevertheless, being made fun of for my flat chest for practically my entire secondary school life, I actually laughed it off. (Do not do this.)
His hand proceeded to find its way to my ass, and sort of pushed me forward with little pressure. Innocent me thought he was trying to get us moving forward quicker because there were people rushing out of the station behind us. I was THAT naive really.
I brushed it off — I was so used to people making fun of my body that this didn’t seem like a big deal to me at that moment.
Not sensing all the red flags, I went with it and we stopped by some street vendors for some light dinner. Things seemed fine when we were having our food, looking out at a harbour.
He grabbed my hand out of nowhere and my eyes widened again. Question marks filled my head as he proceeded to literally convince me to be his girlfriend — I was disgusted at this point, for he was not only holding my hand, but he was caressing it in a circular motion.
I kept on saying ‘No I don’t want to be your girlfriend’, but he continued on and on for 45 minutes. I was quite a people-pleaser, plus I didn’t want to upset him because I was scared, so I didn’t leave immediately.
After what seemed like an eternity, I finally told him I need to head home. You’re not going to believe this. He had the audacity to then ask if I could sleep with him if I can’t be his girlfriend, even just for once — I said no immediately and was properly MAD but didn’t want to go all out and anger him as there weren’t many people around.
He was insisting on bringing me home ‘safely’ — obviously, I said no again, and thankfully I was able to think of a scenario. I said my friend was waiting for me at another station.
We still had to walk back to the original station together and although it was a less than 10-minute walk, the only way to go back was through an alley. A dark alley. Great.
At this point, I was just terrified and on the verge of breaking down because it was past nine, we were alone on a road that was barely lit and there was practically no one else. I kept on walking behind him and never in front or parallel to him as I didn’t know what he would do and what he could be capable of.
There was a young couple who passed us and as I made eye contact with one of them, I was hoping they could see the fear in my eyes, but of course, they weren’t mind-readers, and I didn’t actually say anything to them.
We finally arrived at the station and parted ways. Somewhat fortunately, he stopped insisting on bringing me home.
When I laid down on my bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. I was only coming to my senses that he was SO wrong. I then texted him with a long ass message essentially pinpointing all the things that he did wrong. I remember rage was filling me and my chest was burning as my thumbs aggressively typed away.
Turns out that, guess what? He genuinely thought he could disrespect me because I didn’t see anything wrong with sex workers. Then I spent some time lecturing him about consent and boundaries and whatnot and eventually he apologised.
If you’re a guy, please don’t be a dick and do this. And to all my Floozies, I’m hoping to share this to remind all of you to speak up at times, and only leave your respect for someone that truly deserves it.
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Edited by Elena Baeza Ruso
