day 21

The myth of the nice guy

For too long, my body has felt like an island that I did not own. It floats in the middle of a sea that men carelessly arrive onto, cutting the best trees down thoughtlessly, trampling on the verdant moss, without noticing the colours, how the sea looks almost black in different light, or a kind of sparkling transparent aqua when the sun shines.

Consent is a complicated topic. True. And also only a relatively recent one to arrive into our vocabulary and in our day to day life. But after the events of the last few days, where it feels like every establishment and man with a keyboard has an opinion on women’s safety. I’m so sick of feeling like my body does not belong to me.

The voice note in this recording is mine and it was sent to a friend after a date. He was a friend’s brother and it had gone well. We’d started drinking in the afternoon, had gone to a couple different bars and I’d ended up going back to his, mainly because I didn’t want to travel home at night. I was a little tipsy, but nicely so, we’d had dinner, or rather I’d had dessert, a sticky toffee piece of heaven with ice cream. As we held hands on the walk home, stringing the Tesco bag between us I’d explicitly said, “FYI we’re not going to be having sex”. I wasn’t quite sure how much I liked him, and it was the first date, so where was the rush?

We spent a couple of hours hanging out with his housemates, sitting on the sofa watching QI. I’d earnt some serious brownie points getting a couple questions right, and it felt good. To sit there in the glow of their approval. I was pretty hungry after the days exploits and positively inhaling pitta and hummus. He was just drinking. It was only once we went to bed that it all started to go quite wrong, quite quickly. The grey area. That mystical, awful, sludgy situation. When the switch flicks, you close down the laptop and suddenly you’re in the bedroom of a stranger and wish you could go home. 

I could tell he’d learnt about consent, because he kept asking if I wanted to have sex. And I kept saying, no. But I could tell he’d slightly missed the point, because he asked 3 or 4 times and then said things like “why”. Or “but I don’t understand the reasoning, I’m basically inside you now”, and after the third time he’d taken off my clothes, when I’d already put them back on, I know I should have left. But it was late, I didn’t know the area and I couldn’t afford an uber. And I thought, maybe I should just have sex with him. It would be easier. He pushed so hard, called me a tease and made me feel like I was being strange by not just letting. it. happen. He eventually gave up and we went to sleep, or at least he did. 

The grey area. That mystical, awful, sludgy situation. When the switch flicks, you close down the laptop and suddenly you’re in the bedroom of a stranger and wish you could go home. 

In the morning, I did the polite, nice girl thing and had breakfast with him at a cafe. I wanted to get out of the house as quickly as possible so he didn’t have the chance to touch me. So, I did a big song and dance about how hungry I was and wasn’t it a BEAUTIFUL day…

I had wanted the date to go well. I wanted to feel, well, wanted. I was flattered that he’d asked me out. Someone older. Someone removed from my immediate circle of friends. It had felt like a thrill. So I didn’t really want anyone to know. Or maybe it’s not that so much. More like, it didn’t feel like a big deal at the time. It felt like it had happened to someone else. The thing that I find so strange about this voice note, is that I sound so chirpy. By the time I recorded it, I’d transmuted the events of the night before into something palatable, gracefully gliding over how many times I’d had to put my pants back on, as he’d insisted again and again with his pushy little hands. 

No one wants the details. The details are sad. They don’t make for a good story at the pub.

I never said anything to him. I had breakfast with him, sat across from him in the morning eating a bacon sandwich. After the date, I wrote an offensively polite message explaining that I didn’t want a relationship. He’d been planning our subsequent dates at breakfast.... Maybe I should have said something. I wish I’d been brave enough to. He was rough and pushy and incredibly entitled. He was someone I knew, but have now blocked on social media. And when my friends asked how the date went, I told them a kind of version, that he was “pushy”, but didn’t go into the details. No one wants the details. The details are sad. They don’t make for a good story at the pub. But I remember the details, and I will not be so quick next time to let just anyone onto the island. My body belongs to me. And I really want it to feel that way.