Me Too

I remember texting my friend, asking her if she thought it was weird that I was going to grab a drink with a male coworker one evening. I thought it was a little strange he asked me out, me knowing he was married, but it seemed friendly and innocent enough. We walked to a nearby bar, each had a beer, shared an order of onion rings, and that was it.A couple months later, at the office holiday party, I remember dancing with some coworkers, only to look up to the balcony and see him watching me. I smiled. He smiled back. We had become friends since our first beer and onion ring outing. It was nice. I enjoyed hanging out with him.A bunch of us continued the holiday party to an Irish pub nearby. I remember it was raining. I don’t remember much else. It’s all kind of a blur of images between me leaving the bar, this male coworker following me down the street, pulling me aside and kissing me under an awning. The only reason I distinctly remember the rain is because of how miserable I was standing in a puddle of water trying to hail a cab, trying to get away from this man as fast as possible after pushing him away. I remember sobbing to my friend on the phone as the cab drove me away. I remember asking, “is it my fault?” I remember the gut wrenching pain I felt that night. I remember feeling so incredibly low and ashamed. I didn’t want to go into work. I didn’t want to go anywhere. And I blamed myself over and over again for his actions. I counted it as my mistake. Maybe I had flirted too much. Maybe I liked the attention. Maybe I was looking for the attention from a man because the guy I was seeing at the time was treating me like utter crap.

I write for victims, but I also write for those who don’t know what it’s like, I have written with the hope that those of you who have never felt themselves shredded and stripped of their autonomy will hear us and fight alongside us because we need more people to stand up against rape culture.

We march, we carry signs, we hold hands, we cry, we scream — but who’s listening? Sometimes it feels as if no matter how many times we write our stories, no matter how many statistics we show you, you don’t really care. For a moment you ingest our pain; you read details and see flashes of images pushed into the sentences we stitch together. Perhaps you almost feel a sense of revulsion, or even guilt.

You think we were raped by monsters, but the people in our nightmares are people like your fathers, your brothers, your friends… How many stories will we have to write for you to care? Or have you read too many of our horrors? Are you desensitized now? Your friend made a rape joke, but hey, he’s a good guy. Right?

I won’t tell you about the person who destroyed me. I won’t tell you about the scars. I won’t tell you about the night terrors or the depression or the anxiety or loneliness — because, to you, I’m just another bitch who was probably asking for it. I’m a statistic you will forget, these words of mine, you will forget but I will go back to bed and not have the luxury of forgetting.

I am tired of proving to you just how difficult it is to recover. I cannot do that labor anymore. The numbers are out there for you to research: the essays, the songs, the art and the speeches are there for you to absorb and carry within your heart so that perhaps one day you can find the time to actually help us dismantle rape culture.”

So yeah, #MeToo. And yeah, I hated being reminded of that male coworker who followed me after the office party years ago, because it brings me back to that moment of sobbing in the cab. I don’t want to relive that, but I also don’t want young men and women to have to live through situations like that themselves as well. That’s the thing though, isn’t it? It shouldn’t have to fall on the survivors to prevent it from happening again. We’ve done enough and have lived through it. What about you? Those who are remaining silent. Those of you who are standing by watching all this happen. Those of you reading the statuses and the comments, saying how you get in almost fights defending harassment. Those of you who say you’re heartbroken seeing so many of your friends share #MeToo. Those of you who have witnessed sexual assault and said nothing. Done nothing. Those of you who enabled people like Weinstein for years, knowing full well what was going on. Where’s your action with all of this? And what are you going to do now that you know the monsters aren’t just going to go away because we’ve turned the lights on?

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