Nice Men Prey on Women, Too.

…It’s okay to treat them like the predators they are.

Earlier this week, I was jovially chatting on a park bench with Dinah, a female acquaintance, when a man we both knew entered the vicinity. 

I casually turned my head to the left, clocked his unmistakeable presence, and turned back to her. 

“There’s Marcelin,” I said, ominously. 

Although he was standing at a safe distance, unable to hear us, I was aware that he clocked us too. He was hanging around, waiting for us to smile and greet him like we used to—but little did he know that those days were long gone, dead, and buried.  

With his presence looming like a dark cloud, Our effortlessly flowing conversation suddenly grew choppy as we slowly rolled to an uncomfortable quiet. It was as if static had entered the chat. 

Growing nervous that our closed mouths would render us sitting ducks, I tried to perform a conversation to keep our lips moving so that we could at least look busy. 

In that moment, we were no longer speaking to share our juicy stories and ideas with each other—we were reconstructing the appearance of being deeply engaged in conversation so that Marcelin would not approach us. 

Soon, we convinced ourselves of our own act, and began to sink back into a sense of normalcy. 

But our illusion only lasted a few minutes before it was completely shattered. 

Marcelin instantly found a way to take the attention he felt entitled to from me, and the little trick he pulled made me want to pack up and leave town.