An Open Letter to the Kind Man with Good Intentions
To the man whom I blatantly ignored on the street this afternoon,
Good afternoon. I hope this letter finds you well. In the unlikely event that you intended genuine kindness when you said hello to me earlier today, and were perhaps taken aback by my cold response, I have prepared the following letter to share my experience, and to explain myself. I apologize for offending you if I did, and I hope that this brings you some peace of mind — yet also makes you sufficiently angry… not at me, but for me.
I blew you off not because I am a rude or nasty person. I’d like to believe that I am, in fact, one of the kindest people I know. (I sure make an effort to be.) However, I have reason to believe that it was not, in fact, kindness that you extended toward me on the street. Based on everything I’ve learned about the world in recent years, your effort to communicate with me was one of misogyny, sexualization, and objectification, and in that case, your “hello” would not warrant acknowledgement, nor even eye-contact. That man should know who he is. Unless he’s receptive to learning how to actually respect women, this letter is not for him.
For years, I had a male friend who tried to convince me that all (straight) men are the same — sexualizing and sharing “locker room talk” about every woman they find attractive—until they eventually stumble into actual love. Apparently, then, and only then, will a man show respect to a woman.
It wasn’t until recently, after this friend was no longer in my life, that I finally began to believe him.
Because the man who gave me my first tattoo turned our second consultation—which took place in his apartment, above his studio — into a super weird, very unprofessional conversation, where he didn’t hesitate to tell me about how “horny” he’d felt while inking my skin the day before.
The tattoo is on my left hip — where he had persuaded me to “try out” one of the stencils. This man was in his 40s or 50s. I was 22.
Because another close friend of mine watched the man with whom we’d just couch-surfed in Buenos Aires snap a photo of me on his phone when I was turned away. I was leaning over my suitcase to finish packing.
Because another man I’d met through Couchsurfing, a platform that is meant to be all about cultural exchange, included an unnecessary winky-face emoji when asking me if I wanted to “do something later.” He blew me off when I expressed disinterest.
Let’s not forget about the Canadian guy I met on an international train, or the other Canadian guy I met in a hostel two years later. In getting to know each of these men, we had extensive conversations about all kinds of topics, including my frustration over the fact that I can’t merely be polite to a man without him interpreting my kindness as “flirting.” In both cases, I intentionally brought up this issue to provide a very CLEAR hint: not only was I NOT interested, but the man was NOT in any position to “shoot his shot.”
In the end, Canadian Guy #1 tried to kiss me, while also attempting to persuade me that our “connection” was worthy of pursuing as a long-distance relationship. We had barely known each other three days.
As for Canadian Guy #2, he “admitted” to having developed a “little crush” on me, simply because I had asked about his family, which people “rarely show interest in.”
Give me a break.
Don’t worry, Kind Man with Good Intentions! I’ve learned my lesson: when it comes to (straight) men, it’s clear that there is no power in “dropping hints.” And apparently, I shouldn’t be friendly to a guy at all—especially if the two of us are alone—without expecting him to hit on me.
After typing up all of these examples, I suddenly feel confident that you won’t take my ignoring you personally, because how could you, when this type of person permeates the male population? Surely, you’re aware of it, and perhaps you think I’m naive for even trusting these men to begin with.
On the other hand, maybe you cross lines like this all the time without realizing how harmful it is.
So, let me ask you this: are you able to recognize how utterly inappropriate each of these comments/behaviors was? If not, I beg you to go back and imagine how I, a young, female, solo backpacker, might have felt in each of these situations.
A few weeks ago, a man approached me and a friend of mine at the beach. We were literally in the middle of a conversation when he butted in to criticize us for not acknowledging his calls to say hello. “You were probably ignoring me because you think all guys who talk to you are hitting on you, but it’s rude to ignore people,” he said.
This man is one of the worst of all. Let’s unpack why.
First of all, his assumption was exactly right. He was clearly familiar with the likelihood that we might possibly feel fed up with — and even threatened by — random men showing us unwarranted attention. We were two young women, standing in our bikinis, in a country to which we clearly weren’t local. He knew that if we were ignoring him, this was likely why. And yet, instead of acknowledging our experience of frustration and fear and showing some compassion, this man had the audacity to gaslight us.
I can’t remember exactly how I reacted to this comment, or if I said anything at all. It was something along the lines of a wordless, humorless huff, in a clear effort to communicate, “we’re not in the mood.”
Of course, this man kept pushing. Eventually, my friend turned to acknowledge him, with a greeting that was far more friendly than he deserved. His response was to congratulate her for being nice, and then shift his attention to me, only to grace me with the oh-so-clever wisdom that her politeness was, in fact, how I was supposed to behave, and again that I was being rude. As if my friend and I were 5 years old, I had just slapped an ice cream cone out of the man’s hand, and my friend had generously extended her own to cheer him up.
“I think I can live with you thinking I’m rude,” I snapped, not holding back any snark in my tone. I wish I could say that I’m this bold all the time, but this was the second man who’d come to bother us in the span of minutes, and I was absolutely over it. “Oh, I know you can,” he said, matching my sarcasm, before continuing to patronize me. By this time, I wasn’t even registering much of what he was saying, because what was the point? This troll was preying on our fears as women, and treating our experience as a joke. (Was this his pathetic attempt at flirting?)
Eventually, he left us alone.
He never did deny that he had been hitting on us, or offer any alternative reason as to why he’d bothered speaking to us in the first place.
So, to the men I blatantly ignore on the street when you call out to me,
To the man who owns that independent hostel that I snuck out of in the middle of the night—only to reserve a bed in a much louder, much more chaotic party hostel—because I felt unsettled being literally your only guest,
and to the rare men who read this letter and don’t have the same intentions as those I discuss above,
Don’t take it personal. And better yet, don’t be surprised. Instead, I ask you to acknowledge the horrific normalcy of this experience, and act as our ally. We, women, deserve it.
Sincerely,
A girl who’s just trying to live her life
