train harassment: tales from high school
So this post has come my way again as part of a Facebook conversation about Schrodinger’s Rapist, and as someone who used to get chatted up a LOT by dudes on trains, I thought I’d share one of my more formative encounters:
For my last three years of high school - ages 15 to 17 - my daily commute was a 30-45 minute train journey each way; factor in the 15-30 minute wait in the afternoons, and I spent a LOT of time either on trains or at stations. Mostly, I’d use that time to read, sleep or do homework, but as a teenage girl, I wasn’t always left alone to do so.
One day after school, when I was fifteen or sixteen, a big guy in his forties or fifties came and sat down next to me at the station. By big, I mean tall, broad and heavy-featured - very imposing, complete with a massive beard. He said hello, I said hello, and then went back to picking through the food I had left in my lunchbox, which was grapes. Out of nowhere, the guy began asking me about the grapes - were they homegrown, where had I bought them, didn’t they look lovely - and otherwise extolling the virtues of grapes. Somewhat mystified and not really wanting them myself, I said he could have them if he liked: I’d only been going to throw them out, and as the train was pulling into the station, I figured it was a good way to end the conversation.
Instead, the guy took this as a sign that we were now Train Buddies, and even though there were heaps of free seats, when we got on board, he sat right next to me. At this point, I started to feel a bit irritated, because I had homework I wanted to do, but I thought, OK, I’ll be charitable; maybe he feels obliged to sit here because I gave him the grapes, but once we’re moving, he’ll leave me alone.
That isn’t what happened. He kept talking to me - or at me, rather, as my participation in the conversation beyond nodding didn’t seem to matter. He also had quite a loud voice, and few other people in the carriage kept turning around to look at him. After about ten minutes, I finally managed to mention that I had homework to do; I’d been subtly pulling the textbook out of my bag while he spoke, and was able to tap it for emphasis. But this didn’t end the conversation, either: instead, he started asking me what subject it was for (PDHPE), what was the homework, did I like the class - on, and on, and on. And then he finished the grapes (he’d been popping them in his mouth and eating intermittently, but chewing and swallowing so quickly that it hadn’t slowed him down) and went into another rhapsody about how nice they were.
Now, the particular type of train carriage we were in had several sections: the small space where you entered from the platform, which had no seats, but which was separated from the rest of the carriage by a door; the bit immediately after that, which is where we were sitting; an upstairs over a downstairs, which was the main bit of the carriage; and then a repeat of the bit like ours and the entrance at the other end, so the whole thing was symmetrical. And on this day, a group of three or four teenage schoolboys was standing in the small space, laughing and talking; we could see and hear them through the door, which wouldn’t shut all the way.
Then, suddenly - BANG! One of the boys comes crashing through the door and falls in the aisle: he’d been horsing around with his friends, and had either been shoved or lost his balance. He sits up, grinning.
And then the guy sitting next to me rears up out of his seat, stalks over to the boy, PHYSICALLY PICKS HIM UP BY THE SCRUFF OF THE NECK, and all but throws him back where he came from, pointing at me with his free hand and roaring, “SHE IS TRYING TO STUDY!”
Deathly silence from the whole carriage. Everyone is staring at him. The boys are gaping, and I’m so shocked I really want to laugh, but don’t, because it doesn’t feel like that would be a good move on my part. He turns around, and only then seems to realise that maybe, just MAYBE, he’s crossed a line - and then he decides not to care.
He walks back, sits down beside me again, and says, “Sorry for them. You can study now.”
Never mind that, for the past twenty minutes, HE’S been the only one stopping me from working; never mind that he’s basically assaulted a minor with zero provocation; never mind that he’s officially gone from “nuisance” to “potential threat”, and now I’m actively frightened of him. I mean, Jesus, the homework is only going to take about five minutes, and I only mentioned it because I wanted him to leave me alone, but now he’s just attacked a guy for “interrupting” me, and I don’t want him to start talking again if he sees I’ve finished.
So I spend the next twenty minutes reading my PDHPE textbook and trying to look studious; he periodically looks at it over my shoulder, grunts in a satisfied way, and then goes back to looming ominously. He doesn’t get off until a stop before me, and by then I’m tense, bored, and even more exhausted than I was when I got on the train.
What I learned from the experience: do not say hello, or be polite to, strange dudes who try and talk to you on the train, because given the SLIGHTEST provocation, they will make your journey miserable.
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From the age of 11 to 14 I used to get a long bus to school so I have many similar experiences to the train story here....
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Both this personal account and the article it’s in reference to could not speak more truth about what it’s like the be a...
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