I’ll Make a Scene

Do you ever meet someone and find yourself quoting Justin Bieber? ‘Immediately no.’ The second you see them, the moment their existence enters your consciousness, your entire body shouts ‘run for your life!’ Usually this activity is limited to your gut, but sometimes all the alarms go off at once. You’ve never met this person before, and yet you know in the depths of your spirit that they’re bad news.

I’ve had this happen four times in my life, three times with men and once with a woman. With the men, I did everything in my power to avoid them because I felt my physical safety was threatened. With the woman, I guarded my emotions and mental health. Two of the people were in my circle of acquaintance, and one was a neighbor. It can be so draining to be stuck in the same vicinity as someone you know is dangerous, because even if you report their behavior to the powers that be, you can’t take serious action until they actually do something.

I made sure to inform the police and other authority figures of the dangerous people, but one weapon I have at the ready is noise. Dangerous people thrive on silence and doubt, on our wanting to believe that people are generally good and you can’t go around making false accusations. While it’s true that you can’t accuse people of things they haven’t done (yet), you can create an environment where they can’t do anything without humiliating themselves.

Many years ago I lived in New York. I was on the subway and three young men were standing around me. The car was crowded, so these young men thought it would be okay to hem in on my personal space. One of them started saying disgusting things and getting closer. At first I froze—no way I could fight off three men. But then I remembered an old article about self-defense and the power of a woman’s voice. I shouted ‘get away from me right now!’ and the men stopped. The closest one muttered ‘all right all right’ and backed away. Everyone nearby turned to look at them, and now they were pervy weirdos instead of three guys on a train. Unfortunately I had several more opportunities to prove that threatening men with public ridicule is the best way to keep safe.

There was a survey that asked men and women what their worst fear is. I’m sure you know the answer, but if you don’t it was ‘being laughed at’ for men and ‘being raped and murdered’ for women. People wonder why women are drawn to true crime, and it’s because of the ‘true’ part. When a man bothers a woman, he’s not just irritating, not something she rolls her eyes about. We live in a time where men murder women for not giving them their phone number. But we also live with a long history of being told not to make a scene. We fear being ignored, dismissed and thought crazy, so we choose silence. We drop hints without naming names, we beg off from social doings because we know that person will be there. But at some point we want our lives back, we want our living and work spaces to be free of fear, free of predatory energy.

So we venture outside, determined not to be hemmed in. What we have to remember is that making a scene is our friend. I’m not going to doubt my intuition because I can always apologize if I’m wrong. Sadly I haven’t been wrong yet—I turned out to be right about all four of the people I warned me about. So if your Spidey Senses are tingling, consider them the director in the movie that is your life. Aaaaaannd action!