I live in Upstate NY and we have have unusually pleasant weather for the past week. My husband, sister in law, and her boyfriend and I thought we would use the last bit of nice weather and so we went to walk Broadway of Saratoga,our closest local city. We did a little shoping at the mall (everyone bought nice shoes and clothes) and then I wanted to visit a local bakery so we went to walk Broadway. Now, Saratoga is a very liberal city and there are always lots of hippies hangning out and playing their guitars, open cafes playing music, and people hanging out with thier dogs. Normally it is a safe haven for a Lolita. Not yesterday.
As we were walking up to Broadway a car with 5 boys/men pulled up behind me and made the streotypical snide remark "Damn girl, why you dressin' like that?" and laughing at me. I turned, smiled, and made a thumbs up and kept walking. They continued to slowly follow me and continued to say rude things and thier launguage became more colorful as the seconds passed. My sister in law and her boyfriend heard the boys saying these things to me and started yelling at them. Soon, people were swearing at each other, telling each other to "suck my d***", and pretening to get out of thier car to fight. Soon, they pulled away and were gone. Within 30 seconds another car full of young people starting barking at me, laughing, and making
dog noises.Please understand, I am not an unattractive person. I am kind of cute and not overweight. They pulled away. 30 seconds after that the car full of boys comes back and pick right up where they began. All this took place withing 2 minutes. I have never had that many bad experiences and negative comments/reactions in such a short period of time. On top of the rudeness I have a killer cold.
I can handle an off colored remark with ease. I can deal with the staring. I know how to make a rude boy stop being an ass. But this string of events just got to me. It really hurt my feelings.
I prefer not to get into it with people. I am not a fighter. I try to difuse the situation and go on my merry way. I just don't undertand why people think they have the right to be so mean and rude to another person. Why do they feel that theyhave permission to break other people down? I would never dream of doing something like that. I don't think I could live with myself if I treated people like that.
Every Lolita deals with these types of interactions when they go out in public all done up. For all the crappy stuff that happened I did a very nice compliment from the girls that worked in the bakery. They said I had the cutest outfit and that I was very well put together.
Have you girly-girls had negative experiences that have gotten to you?
In a Word
5 hours ago
I've gotten used to the harassment by now.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I would have just gone into a building at that point or something if there was one nearby or wrote down their plate number.
i know how you feel, miss. i went to a loli meet up a few weeks back and was having a wonderful time. Until a group of older teenagers decided to pull my skirt up in the middle of the city. It knocked my confidence quite a lot and i ended up being upset.
ReplyDeletei dont get why people think they have the right to be so nasty.
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I don't think the idea that you live in a "liberal" city should deceive you into the level of tolerance. I moved from the south to NYC and have never received the concentration of harassment in my life that I've received here. Even if people in more conservative areas disapprove, they tend to keep it to themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt's really frustrating because there isn't an adequate way to respond that doesn't just encourage them. Or some get offended if your offended! It's the damnedest thing.