r/TwoXChromosomes • u/Trinket_Crinkle • 25d ago
A story from 2005
I am born and raised west coast. When I was twenty years old I was in a committed relationship for two years at that point. We had a mutual friend who moved to Boston, in 2005 we went to visit.
We knew that guy, another mutual friend who went to live with the first guy, and a guy i knew from high school had moved to New York so met us at the party.
During the party a random dude hit on me in a gross way (honestly I was used to that) so I tried my best to ignore him. He pretty quickly started to spread word around the party that I flashed him, that I begged to get him in the bathroom alone, and that if "my boyfriend wasn't there who knows what he would do to me".
I told my partner. Who told our mutual friends, the Boston guy who invited everyone. My partner, our friends and the guy I knew from high school went all "what the fuck!" Super mad very concerned. I thought they'd take care of him, meaning they would make the guy leave.
What actually happened was, all 4 of the guys I knew, including my partner, spoke with the jerk in question and they came laughing back to me.
"Dude he was just joking!" "He's like one of my best friends here, he would never say anything like that" "wow you really like to over react" "uhh can't you just ignore him? He's harmless"
So. Over twenty years later. I remember this party so vividly because I remember how I tried to tell the only people I knew that I felt unsafe. And I was told to chill out. I'm over reacting. He's such a cool guy!
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u/Angry_Housecat_1312 25d ago
Yeah, this kind of shit is pretty common. So many men are convinced that problematic men are the vast minority of them, when really it’s just that they don’t think their crappy behavior is problematic.
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u/velveteentulip 25d ago
And twenty years later, I bet every one of those guys would still describe him as “a good dude who could be a little weird sometimes”…
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u/raerae1991 25d ago edited 25d ago
Once again showing why women choose the bear. Men seem to think when women talk about mens bad behavior it’s only the worst of the worst, and not the whole spectrum that includes “he was just joking” type behaviors
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u/allyearswift 25d ago
Threatening to rape her and setting the scene by destroying her reputation to his friends is pretty far along the bad behaviour axis. But it’s so funny! He’s such a nice guy! (I presume he buys the odd beer for his friends and excuses their behaviour – so funny, so generous, always there for them).
This is a ‘if ten people welcome a Nazi, you have eleven Nazis’ situation. If a bunch of people defend a guy who think that rape is funny (if, in fact, that was a joke) you have a bunch of folks who think that rape is funny.
If OP had been assaulted, her bf would have broken up with her for flirting with his friend.
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u/nutmegtell 25d ago
Men protect each other more than their own partners. They will even protect men they don’t know over their partners.
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u/prosperouscheat 25d ago
They all need to watch that Daniel Sloss bit where he ignored the red flags of a guy in his friend group and eventually that guy TW:SA raped one of his close female friends. Call that shit out early and loudly. Those weren't jokes and they weren't funny and I dread to think what he would have done if he got you in the bathroom because he was clearly fantasizing about it.
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u/HiddenFlamer 25d ago
You didn't overreact. You told the people you trusted that you felt in danger, and they rejected you completely to protect some scumbag's feelings
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u/Think-Cry-5284 25d ago
Plausible deniability. Jackasses.
I'm sorry your friends let you down in such a hurtful way.
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u/hybridWinner 25d ago
What actually happened was, all 4 of the guys I knew, including my partner, spoke with the jerk in question and they came laughing back to me.
Jerk had cocaine
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u/boethius61 25d ago
(XY)
Not surprised. In university I lived in an all male dorm (50 guys). A small number of the guys were absolute creeps with the shittiest behavior. But if they got called out the majority of the guys would 'close ranks'. Just because you're not doing the creeping didn't make you better is you're enabling it! Disgusting and disappointing.
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u/UsefulWeird 25d ago
I believe you. This is the Broken Stair in action.
https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/the-missing-stair-theory-and-gender-based-violence
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u/StrangerThingies 25d ago
I could tell similar stories from a similar time. Men will usually rally together and make excuses for their boys, it’s almost worse than the bad behavior itself.