This is not our fault. This is not our fault. This is not our fault. (I’m chanting)

As soon as you walked out, I began to shake. I felt hot, hotter than normal in a bar with an ailing air conditioner in the middle of a subtropical summer; my skin felt like it was blistering. It’s that kind of visceral heat that makes me pace like a caged animal and renders me unable to rest my gaze upon anything for long enough to steady myself. I sweat. I blush. I move irrationally around the space available to me, everything becomes quiet and my vision blurs. If I’m standing, which I was this time, I generally glue my right palm to my thigh and tap my fingers feverishly fast, which I did. If I’m sitting, it’s my right foot that bounces like a seesaw in a gail. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that I definitely should have taken percussion as a fidgety 7 year old, certainly (I think about this often), but mostly it’s one of the more visible reminders that I suffer from a panic disorder. However, unlike most of my scrawlings, this isn’t about my mental illness.

To the man who came to the bar that I am a duty manager at last night and threatened its title as a safe space, this is a message to you and people like you.

What you did was seemingly inconsequential to you, I’m sure. You gave it no thought, probably, you may not even remember it. You drank several beers, participated in conversation with the staff and left when we told you we were closing, right? You would have slept soundly that night, aided in part by the consumption of alcohol. Or maybe you didn’t, maybe you suffer from insomnia, or another detrimental sleep disorder. I don’t know, because I don’t know you, you are a stranger to me and, if you think about it, vis versa. Which is exactly my point.

You may not admit to incessantly staring at me the entire time you sat at the bar, to turning around to check where I was when I walked out from behind the bar to collect glasses, to look over every time I adjusted my posture or moved to complete a task, but you did. You may not remember signalling me to get my attention only to say nothing as I stood in front of you, or winking at me when I “magically” knew what you wanted to order (I’m not a Hogwarts alumni, you stipulated when you arrived you were only going to drink “that one beer”) but I remember these things.

You will almost certainly remember calling me over after I informed you we were closed, to ask if I wanted to get a drink with you sometime. You used my name twice in that particular sentence, to show that you knew me, perhaps. When I refused your request you raised your eyebrows, assumed an affronted expression, flourished your hand in a recognisable “backing off” motion and pushed yourself up and away from your half empty beer on the bar. I said goodnight to your retreating back, you said nothing in return.

When men ask for my name over the bar, I give it to them in good faith. Faith that it is for the purpose of softening the often angular edges of communication between bartender and patron. Building a rapport with those who come to our venue is essential in maintaining a calm environment that promotes a sense of community and inclusion, as well as a healthy relationship with alcohol.

Holding me verbally hostage with my commitment to the ethos of our business, using my name in attempt to rebrand the nature of our interactions — this is not uncommon behaviour and in hindsight (always in fucking hindsight) it makes me furious. Furious that you would take such a huge, Triceratops-esque shit on the trust I extend to every male who enters this venue. Furious that you are not the first to defecate in such a fashion, nor will you be the last. Furious that despite my experiences, the verbal, emotional and sexual harassment I’ve experienced in my life, I continue to do this and be disappointed.

So yes, what you did was seemingly inconsequential to you, I’m sure. Here’s my take, however.

Your near unfaltering gaze for the entirety of the evening made me feel deeply uncomfortable, and let me inform you as to why: the words required to tell you to stop, to change your behaviour or to leave, were inaccessible because of my dedication to my role as a bartender, my fear of confrontation, my social anxiety, my panic disorder and my PTSD surrounding the very real complex I have about calling men out on their actions and the risks such actions involve. Risks that have, in the past, evolved into dangerous, harmful situations that I would label crises. The same crises that often see victims later labelled as the instigator, which can (and does) instil a deep, damaging and sometimes irreversible sense of guilt upon that person.

The dangerous, imagined loophole that people assume exists when subverting the personal space of those working in the service industry is representative of a toxic misunderstanding of an environment created for and in the spirit of community and inclusion. Taking advantage of that trust I place in you by surrendering my anonymity to make YOU feel comfortable in MY venue damages my interactions with men who actually do respect such boundaries, and you should apologise to them.

Oh, and me, you should apologise to me. Because these “small comments”, these “tiny things”, these “silly jokes”, are not small, they are not tiny, they are not silly; they are red flags* that are mocked and trivialised by the same people who are the very reason such warnings exist.

To the countless others who have to deal with this humourless garbage, you are not alone, it is not okay, and it is not your fault.

*Red flags, in this scenario and many others, are bad.