I just saw the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life. I was sitting at Starbucks with a friend. It was crowded. We actually had to stand around for a minute or two waiting for a table to open up for us. There was a girl spread out alone at the table beside us. She was studying, so the table was covered in books, papers, her laptop, etc. This guy walks up and asks if he can share her table since there aren’t any empty tables at the moment. Despite being obviously uncomfortable, she says yes. Completely oblivious–or just not caring–he stands there and watches while she moves her stuff to make room for him, and then he sits down and spreads out on the table. She has friends at other tables, and she is sending them distress signals with her eyes basically the entire time. He does not take the hint and move. At one point, some of her friends actually came over to talk to her on their way out, and they commented that their table had opened up, thinking he would take the hint and move. Not only did he not take the hint and move, he never so much as offered to make room for them to join her as they stood around the table and talked to her for nearly twenty minutes. Other tables open up, but he stays at hers. Eventually, she gets up to move so she can have her own space. He actually lets HER be the one who has to pack up and move even though HE is the one who capitalized on her politeness and invaded her space. As she stands to move, he thanks her for her table.
I know that kind of thing happens every single day on a much larger scale. I know that girl just felt mildly annoyed and taken advantage of, and that moving to another table was an easy solution, and no one was hurt by the incident. Like, I know that. But it still just makes me so angry. The entitlement and the disregard for another person’s space, privacy, and comfort is infuriating. And that’s before I even factor in that it was a man imposing on a woman. My friend and I remarked that we would have told him no from the start, but it was so clear that she wanted to say no, and any woman could give you a list of reasons she might have said yes despite not wanting to. But to this man, there was no problem. He was polite. He asked first. She never voiced any objections. And he didn’t ask her to get up and move; she did so of her own accord. So to him, this entire situation was totally fine. But I think it says something that he chose her when there were men sitting alone he could have imposed on without the obvious potential for discomfort and intimidation. But he didn’t. He imposed on her. And even when the situation no longer necessitated that he share a table with someone, he took for granted that it was now HIS space and that she should be the one to relocate.
I think about situations like this alongside the Aziz Ansari issue, and I think about all the people–women included–I heard placing blame on the woman for not explicitly saying no despite the fact that she obviously did not like what was happening. I know there is a huge difference between a woman feeling pressured into consenting to share half of her table with a man and a woman feeling pressured into consenting to a sexual encounter she doesn’t want with a man. But I definitely think that what I witnessed today is a symptom of that bigger problem. I don’t know what I would have done in either woman’s place. I’d like to think I would have voiced my objections explicitly, but I don’t know if I would have. I would have wanted to be polite. I would have been afraid of offending. And I know that those things compounded with fear are why both of these women went along with what these men asked of them.
I think it’s also worth noting that consent is something that can be taken back. It can be expressively given and then retracted. The woman who came forward about her experience with Ansari voluntarily went out with him and back to his apartment. She participated in sexual activity with him (however reluctant she might have been). And she received a ton of criticism based on that fact. People placed a lot of the blame on her for consenting to any degree initially and then changing her mind. How was he supposed to know what she wanted? Did she expect him to read her mind? Well, no, of course not. But he could try reading body language, reading for the subtext behind what she says when she asks to slow things down. Basically, he could not assume that he is entitled to her body in whatever way he wants because she consented to any other act at any other point. To me, that’s just basic regard for another human being’s comfort. I see that on a smaller scale with this girl in Starbucks. She did consent to let him share her table. She implicitly expressed reluctance, but she said yes and moved her stuff out of his way. Just like Ansari, he can’t read minds, but also like Ansari, he paid no attention to what her body language was telling him. And even after she went to physically move to another table, it didn’t occur to him that he’d done anything wrong. He thanked her. He was polite. And hey, so was Ansari.
Am I saying I think this random Starbucks guy is a monster or a predator? No, of course not. Possibly this is all very unfair to him. I don’t know.
Anyway, I know I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said here. I just needed to vent about it because as small and insignificant a thing as it was, it really bothered me, and I can’t shake it. So here, have it.
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