Three times I sexually harassed a woman.

Three times I sexually harassed a woman.

I am using the word ‘harassed’ in the widest possible terms, and including actions which I have seen women describe as harassment.

Once I was working as a security guard in Toronto at the Eaton Centre. It was fall, it was starting to get dark early, and I got off the bus after work with a woman at the same stop. We started walking the same direction, with me just behind her by maybe 20 feet. I figured I would speed up and get in front of her, in order to make her feel safer. Well, she speeds up too. So I increased my pace, aiming to get in front of her. And she responded by speeding up, until we were almost running, and I realized I had caused her fear when my intent was the opposite. I did not want to just stop cause then she would be thinking I had been trying to chase her, and every walk home in the future would be tainted with this experience.

So I yelled out to her “Excuse me!” and as I did I took a wide berth and was walking in the middle of the road. She stopped and looked back, and I said something like “I’m Rob, I live just down there, I am a security guard at the Eaton Centre, and I was trying to walk faster to get in front of you cause I figured that would make you feel safer, and then you sped up… so if you just stay still while I get in front of you, we can both walk home at a reasonable pace.” As I was saying this I was walking around her giving her a very wide berth. I got in front of her and walked home.

The next day I saw her on the bus, and she waited for me to get in front of her, and that went on for a couple of days, until she said hi to me on the bus, and from then on I would walk her home, as she lived a couple of blocks down from me.

Another time I was in Victoria, and I used to practise comedy on the street, and had a sign saying JOKES, INSULTS, COMPLIMENTS and ADVICE. This well dressed woman a few years younger than me, just oozing wealth, mailed something at the mail box just a few feet away, and then walked away leaving her wallet on the mail box. So I grabbed it, and called after her. She looked back and yelled “Leave me alone!”. Bear in mind, I was reasonably well dressed, not homeless looking, and was showered and shaved and clean. So I followed her yelling out a couple of times ‘Excuse me!” while holding up her wallet. She just kept going and I followed her like 2 blocks. There was at least $4000 in US $100 bills and I figured she was from one of the mega yachts that were moored in the harbour. Finally she screams at me ‘LEAVE ME ALONE!!” really loud, and as she does this, a couple of cops round the corner, and a couple of polo shirt wearing guys come out of a store. They turn out to be her brother and his friend, and she tells them that she is being chased by a street person, the cops over hear this, talk to them, and come talk to me. I am just standing about 20 feet away. They know me and ask “Rob what’s going on?” So I tell them how she left her wallet, and I was trying to return it to her and she was just running away from me and I did not know what else to do except follow her and get her to see I had her wallet. So they take the wallet, and ask her “Is this your wallet? You left it on the mail box, and he was trying to return it to you.” So as I left I said to her “Sorry I scared you. And I am not a street person, I am a comedian!” I went back to my place with my sign and I saw them a little later, and her brother thanked me, apologized for her, and gave me $100.

The last time I harassed a woman, I was sitting alone at a table on a crowded patio, on a beautiful sunny day. I saw a woman approaching, wearing yoga pants and a tank top, and I tried to make eye contact and give her a smile, with the intent of asking her to join me for tapas and a beverage. I admit she was cute and I found her attractive. She saw me looking at her, we make eye contact, I give her a friendly inoffensive smile, and as she approaches I am about to ask her if she has the time and inclination to join me, and she stops and SCREAMS at me: STOP EYE RAPING ME YOU ARE HARASSING ME! And then she kept screaming at me about male entitlement. I din’t know what to say, I was dumbfounded. I muttered “I take it that is a no to tapas…” I can only assume she was on her way to yoga, as opposed to returning therefrom. The people on the patio with whom I had been previously interacting, told me not to take it personally, and that I had done nothing wrong. But to be honest it shook me.

My point is acts which might be honestly viewed as harassment by one party are not intended as such at all by another, and past experiences, of which we can’t know, are often what determines how the acts are seen.