TO ENGAGE or not to engage

 

Over the weekend I had an ‘interesting’ thing happen on my page. A guy called Richard decided to comment on my post (this is not ‘interesting’… but what happened thereafter was)…

 

Nothing could have surprised me more with the aggression that ensued when he was called out on what he said.

 

Back story: I put up a post on Saturday that was outlining something I was extending and at the end of that post, I put up my blog. We know each other well enough now, right, to know that most days I have many many words and some days not so much! This was a day of many words!

 

So the post was a number of scrolls long and the image that I put up was a photo from an event I ran where we held an 80’s dress up party night. It was all of the fun! We were all enacting out our daggy and amazing 80’s-ness and this shot was captured.

 

It was a long one and I make zero apologies for that and I have somewhere in the -27486028345 f’s to give about people’s opinions on if it should be shorter or longer or if it was the perfect length.

 

My stuff is as long or as short as it needs to be in order to get the message out!

 

Where the drama came in, as this guy decided to say something along the lines of “There’s no way in hell I’m reading all of that, it’s too long”… followed by “But you’re still hot though ahahahha”…

 

Now, I did not respond to him directly. I did put up a comment and shared the post with a face palm emoji at the hilarity of the comment because, whatever… I don’t think it’s really called for, for people to say essentially “I don’t have the inclination to read your writing but hey, you’re still hot, so don’t worry about what you’ve written”… that’s how I read it, anyway! He came back with a bunch of stuff about how doesn’t compliment random women he doesn’t know about their hotness, but that he did compliment me to ‘take out any trauma created by the initial comment’. WTAF.

 

It’s a bit like saying to someone “I don’t really care what you’re saying to me, I’m just looking at your boobs”. Or “Who cares if she has brains, so long a she’s hot”…

 

I kept it all light and then he made mention of my clothes and stated that I was ‘asking for it’ because of what I was wearing. Short skirt. Posed on the ground. Fully clothed, mind you! Not a hint of ‘inappropriateness’ by anyone’s measure. I called him out on it! Pointed out the contradictions in what he was saying and that NO, nobody ‘deserves’ to be spoken to in one way or another based on what they’re wearing and I suggested he unlike, unfollow, block and move on.

 

Which is when the vile venom then ensued. I blocked him. He popped up under another profile. I blocked again. He came in under another name.

 

 

By this point I continued to ignore him which inflamed his side! Of course, because that’s what people like this do, right? When they make a ‘joke’ – take it as a joke. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’d never do this normally… But hey, you were wearing a skirt with your undercrackers nearly showing, so hey, you asked for it.

 

This comes down to:

 

Gaslighting and

 

Manipulation.

 

And I will not stand for it. I will not tolerate being disrespected and I will not respond to people who do this kind of thing! Nope. Never. Hell no.

 

 

In today’s day and age, particularly for women (I love men, by the way. Not a feminist for the most part, however, it’s the reality of today), that there are many men who will jump on the ‘She was asking for it because of what she was wearing’ or ‘she led me on’ or ‘She was just too tempting to walk away from’ or ‘it was meant as a joke’ or ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. It was done in fun’ or ‘I just saw her ass there and I had to smack it. It’s not my fault. It was just right there’…

 

 

Standing up for ourselves against keyboard warriors or people ‘in real life’ these days is fraught with danger and push back.

 

 

We may face a whole host of things when we call people out on their behaviour….

 

But here’s the thing when you’re doing this on YOUR PAGE, on your profile, on your accounts, you can maintain the boundaries that YOU set up for yourself.

 

You don’t have to engage with the dills.

 

You don’t have to engage with the douche bags.

 

You don’t have to respond.

 

And, you can change your mind at any point of the way, because #It’sYourRight and It’s Your Page!!!!!

 

 

Additionally, take screenshots of it. All of it.

 

Because the ‘natural’ thing that seems to happen is that we second guess ourselves.

 

We wonder if perhaps it was blown out of proportion.

 

We wonder if it ‘was really that bad’…

 

We might even think that maybe it WAS our fault and perhaps it was instigated by us…

 

Or that what we said or what we did, or god forbid what we WORE made it all happen.

 

 

No.

 

The douchery is their choice and their’s alone.

 

Stand up for yourself.

 

We need you to.

 

 

 

Nicola

PS. I’m not interested in getting into a ‘not all men’ conversation about this. I agree. It’s not all men. There is a BIG problem in our culture today, however, where this behaviour is condoned, not called out and they think that it’s ok… until it’s not. And usually it’s when someone – usually a woman – gets hurt because of it.