Smiling, Judiciously
Memory association is an odd thing. I read a book review in yesterday's paper about a young woman living in New York who, although only 21, felt she was missing the boat when it came to a solid personal relationship. At 21 she thought something was really wrong with the connections she had made up until then in the famous search for a mate. Obviously, a young woman in a hurry. Or is she? Guess not. I'd venture to say from my own experience (a long time ago, that was) and what I observe from young women everywhere (and with notable exceptions, and more power to them) women experience an unbearably intense need to share life with a loving, tender, humorous, capable, adventurous and intelligent man. Sure, there are lots of men with all those attributes, we just have to find them. And there are many women with gender-matching attributes as well. Surely all the men out there who are unattached are busy looking to fulfill their expectations of suitable marriage material too?Ah, this young woman, Maria Headley decided to try out for what she termed "extreme dating" in that she determined she would go out with whomever it appeared was interested in her, regardless of her own discriminating opinions. She wanted to be emotionally challenged, she said. So, no matter the age of the suitor, his occupation, level of education, physical appearance, financial situation, status of health she would take the plunge and agree to a date. During this year of experimentation she experienced many situations, she claimed which helped her to form a more rounded opinion of life and its many opportunities. The fact that ultimately the individual she fell in love with and selected as her life partner was none of the above, but someone who had coincidentally already appeared in her life prior to her experiment, then re-appeared at a time when she was emotionally vulnerable and ready to make a choice, is incidental to the story, it would seem.
In twelve months of discovery, disappointment and fascinating incidents of many descriptions, this young woman dated a total of 150 men, and lived to write about it. Her book, titled "The Year of Yes" was the review I'd read. One statement stood out sufficiently for me to mull over its implications and had the subliminal effect of dredging up a memory of my own. She was quoted as saying: "People always ask how I got this many people to ask me out. It was because I started making eye contact with everyone, smiling at them."
Yes, well, I'm just such a person myself, given to smiling, innocuously, but in a friendly manner, I always like to think. No agenda, just being friendly. Her smile agenda was obviously to attract, to entice potential male companions to ask whether she would make herself available for an evening out. The smiles, therefore, have a different intention. Yet I remember vividly now, how an innocent-enough smile of mine brought me into a miserable situation about 27 years ago when I was in my early 40s. That was back when, despite being in my 40s I looked young enough so that bus drivers addressed me as "Miss" rather than the "Ma'm" which replaced it eventually.
At that time, some 27 years ago, I was the mother of a 19-year old young man who had decided to attend the University of Toronto's music programme. I still had a 18-year old daughter at home, and a 17-year old son in his last year of high school. To help pay for our older boy's education and lodging, I was ready to apply for a job after my long years of being a stay-at-time mom. We were living in a lovely treed suburban area outside of Ottawa, and I was on a bus which would take me downtown to my job interview. The bus was driving up one of the main bus routes in my suburb, just passing two newly-built, very beautiful houses. An elderly, white-haired man of rather large proportions waited outside one of these houses and the bus driver stopped and picked him up. I was sitting mid-bus and smiled at the man as he made his way down the aisle. To my surprise, he sat beside me, despite that the bus was almost empty of passengers.
I was, at that juncture turned away from him, looking out the window and remained that way while the bus sped on toward its downtown destination, stopping only a few more times for passengers. I am a small woman, this man, elderly though he was, was large enough to make me shift uncomfortably closer to the window to preserve my physical space. As I shifted away from him, he shifted further toward me. I moved again, hard up against the side of the bus, and he moved also, until his bulk was palpably against me. He held a magazine, and shifted it toward my lap, then I felt a large strong hand settle on my upper thigh and went into a kind of shock. I pushed the hand away with a definite thrust and turned away again.
But this kindly looking elderly man with his shock of white hair determinedly returned his hand to my upper thigh, and again I thrust him away. Why, for heaven's sake did I do this. I was forgiving him his trespass, that's what I was doing, trying to "ignore" his unwanted attentions, feeling pity for him, an old man. Trying not to bring attention to his feeble attempts. Feeble? He was anything but. He was determined, and he continued to bring his hand back, and now I was having problems pushing him away; his strength appeared to have increased, and he was intent on placing his hand further, between my legs. A silent warfare ensued, with me exerting every ounce of my strength to repel his advances, and nothing seemed to dissuade him.
Why the hell did I play this little charade? Pity for an old man? A disgusting, miserable-minded excuse for a human being who insisted on molesting me? Whatever was I thinking? Ah well, I was embarrassed, I was mortified, I felt ashamed. Why do women feel ashamed when they become victims of unwanted sexual advances. Why, for heaven's sake! Why, I asked myself later, did I not scream, slap him soundly, shout for the bus driver to intervene? What on earth would have made me feel I had to be silent and suffer the insult, the invasion of my privacy, my physical presence? What idiocy! Yet I sat there, suffering his insults, battling his advances.
Until my stop. Then I pushed, I shoved, I somehow got myself beyond his presence, and made my escape, panting, flushed, feeling ugly as sin. It was a woman who interviewed me later for the job, a woman roughly my own age, and I blurted out to her that I'd had a really dreadful thing happen to me on the bus. Why, she asked, didn't I alert the driver? I drew a blank, wasn't able to intelligently, intelligibly say. Somehow, she understood. She commiserated with me, and she understood. I've never been able to understand myself why I acted as I did. Did I feel that I wouldn't be believed, that people would look at me askance, and feel I was victimizing an old man? Damned if I know.
Not a pleasant memory. Not one I'm thrilled to re-visit. But guess what? I'm still smiling. Judiciously.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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