It was the homecoming dance my sophomore year of college, and I was going with my boyfriend of a few months. He was also my first boyfriend, ever. I had never been to a dance with a guy, but I had vague daydreams informed by magazine articles and BBC movies; romantic ideas about the way men treated women on these kinds of social occaisions. I prepared for hours - bathing and shaving and plucking and moisturizing. I put on eyeliner and mascara and high heels. I borrowed a strapless black dress from a girl in the dorm; it was short and tight and the kind of thing I never had a reason to wear. I looked good - and I was excited to have someone in particular to look good for.
I showed up at his campus apartment, and found him in the bedroom. He was playing a video game as I walked in behind him. "I'm here" I said as I struck a seductive pose, waiting for him to turn around and smother me with compliments and kisses. And I continued to wait, standing there for several minutes as he continued to play his video game. By the time he acknowledged me, with far less enthusiasm than I had expected, I began to wonder why I had spent hours to look stunning for a guy who couldn't spare five seconds to notice.
The rest of his friends had arrived and it was time to go; we left in a big group for the campus student center. And though there was a mixed dozen of us, I assumed that the boyfriend would put his arm around my waist, or take my hand as we walked. Instead, he chatted animatedly with one of the guys up ahead, leaving me to fall to the back of the group as I struggled to keep up in my towering heels. Telling some jokes he considered particularly clever as the group moved through a set of outer doors, he held the door open for his audience but was eager not to let them get too far ahead. He didn't notice me as he let the door swing closed to follow them; the door swung back on its spring and slammed into me with a force that knocked me to the ground.
And I thought, he saw this happen, he will come back with profuse apologies and scoop me up. I sat there for a minute as stunned by what had happened as stunned by the fact that he was not there trying to make it right, had in fact not even noticed.
He didn't notice that I was gone, either. I pulled myself up and chased after the group, furious and heartbroken. When I caught up to them, the boyfriend was still joking with his boys. I grabbed his arm, and he turned with surprise and confusion at the tears streaming down my face. I told him what happened; he told me my reaction was overblown.
I was miserable for the rest of the night. Finally, he pulled me aside and told me he believed I needed to get professional help for my issues. It took me several years to realize that many of my "issues" were letting men like that into my life.
A few months after I graduated college, I found myself "involved" with a thirty-something unemployed alcoholic. "Involved" is where you find yourself when a guy has a sort-of ex-girlfriend and he won't date you, but he'll let you give him blowjobs and buy him beer. He had mommy issues; I worked as a nanny. He gazed into my eyes and told me we shared a "meaningful connection;" I had not yet learned that charm is just a shiny wrapper on a pile of shit.
One night we were leaving a cash-only beer store in a part of the city that is only slightly seedy. As with most cash-only establishments, opportunist bums sometimes lingered outside hoping to siphon off the change from six-pack purchses, or maybe even a can of beer if people were feeling generous. This particular night there was an aggressive bum harrassing people verbally; we took off down the street as he lumbered a few steps after us. He started shouting to the thirty-something unemployed alcoholic that it was a good thing that I ("hot piece of ass") was there, or he would have...
We were well away from the guy by then, but the thirty-something unemployed alcoholic decided he needed to defend my honor from the cat-caller, or perhaps prove his manhood to the guy insinuating correctly that he didn't have ten cents to spare. He turned around and started shouting back "or what?" Or you'll what, huh?"
I stood where I was, thinking that it was really unnecesary of him to provoke a broke, desperate, inebriated man. I was blind to the fact that I was with a broke, desperate, inebriated man myself and the two of them were a pride-fight waiting to happen. The thirty-something unemployed alcoholic got up in the bum's face, and I watched with horror and amazement as the bum - without a word, and without the slightest movement in his body or his face, raised his left fist and drove it into the side of the other guy's head. The thirty-something unemployed alcoholic went to the ground, and the bum (who I later learned was a former professional boxer) ambled slowly off in the opposite direction. I was already poised to bolt - with my urban escort down for the count, I had no one there to help me should the bum have decided to continue following me. The thirty-something unemployed alcoholic staggered to his feet, spewing incoherant sentences. He finally did what every man who can't take a punch or take down a heavyweight boxer should do if he is going to do anything except get a woman out of there as fast as possible - he called the police. By then I was shaking and he was deranged and the bum was long gone and I was slowly realizing I was with the worst kind of hot-headed fool -- the kind who can't back up a tough-guy act when it counts.
Suddenly I wasn't feeling so safe for having a tall man on my arm, feeling less like a protected female than bait for bad situations. It took me several months to realize that he was the bad situation I had baited.