I am feeling pretty good about my reaction to freaky toll booth man.
During the course of the past 5 years, I have posted about work sexual harassment issues, neighborhood H's, running away from GAL social activities where I was faced with behavior that made me feel uncomfortable.
And work was the toughest b/c the choice really is to suck it up and try to diplomatically dodge crap or change jobs. Filing a sexual harassment suit gets you blacklisted in my line of work.
And in the past, I circled and cirled. Was it me? What did I do to encourage this? What could I do differently? Maybe this is all in my head. Maybe I misinterpreted what I heard/saw, etc. I stopped wearing skirts at work. My hair went up and rarely wore it down. I created my own "burqua."
The only question today is "Does this behavior make me feel uncomfortable?"
And slowly I started to say NO. I said NO to weird male co-workers that hit on me in no uncertain terms - like the email I posted several months ago. I said NO to the H that "played with himself" on the day my friend was shot and I was so distraught I went to my GF's house to talk. She wasn't home and I was floored when I realized where his hands were and what he was doing. I bolted at that time - and the next time I say him - I set boundaries in a manner that left no doubt about what action I would take if I so much as caught him looking at me.
I set a boundary with the waiter at the Chinese restaurant. It has taken so much work to get to the point where I value my own boundaries and my right to not just hint but demand that they be respected.
FLTC's post about creepy lollipop man and how he took action in response to the way he treated women was also very validating.
What patent male girlfriend said several months ago was such an epiphany. "Normal" men look for feedback or reactions from the women the talk to. They respect boundaries. It is the clueless ones that do not care about feedback - they simply care about their own needs and are oblivious to any discomfort that their behavior causes on another person. The loser men have nothing to lose - they are use to being shot down and care even less about boundaries. He said - establish "normal" boundaries and say NO. That will be a filter that makes a woman approachable to "normal men" - but require exercising boundary setting.
My C had also said something several years ago. He said do not go after the walking wounded. As an example, he gave two male animals fighting over a female in the animal kingdom. How often does the female walk away with the losing male - saying oh poor thing, I will go with you b/c I feel sorry for you. He said go after the strong ones - the strong men being the centered and balanced men.
In any case, I am finally going to get an IPASS b/c well the freaky toll booth man did make me realize that had this happened late at night when the roads were not as busy - it would have been much more uncomfortable. Nowadays, your are directed off the main highway when you pay cash. I don't like that you sacrifice privacy with IPASS - but safety trumps big brother watching me issues.
After working and working on myself for years post D, I feel like I am starting to see the fruits of my labor. I don't have a list of what I am looking for - but my gut has a good handle on the type of person that will be right for me. And yes, I will learn more through trial and error. No way to learn those lessons w/o actually getting out into the real world and taking some risks.
