In March, I was repeatedly groped by a colleague at a Friday night work party. He made me feel awful and insignificant and I cried my eyes out the whole 30-minute bike ride home. I tried talking with him, letting him know that what he was doing was not okay; I even attempted to understand why he was behaving like this, because maybe if we figured that out, he would stop. But of course he didn't. He was drunk and stupid and made no efforts to be better.
And yet, after all of that, my first instinct was "Ugh. How annoying. I need to rant about this to someone," and that was it. My actual initial reaction was that it's a shitty part of life that couldn't be helped, so the best I can do is vent my frustrations out about how uncomfortable he made me feel. He was a colleague, you know. We were a part of a team, I didn't want to cause drama.
I took the weekend to reevaluate my feelings: Technically, nothing really bad happened... I mean, it could have been much worse. So why did I feel so horrible? Were my feelings valid? Was I overreacting? Did I have the right to feel this way when he was really drunk and seemed to have no self-awareness or control? All silly questions reflecting the misplaced shame and guilt that I had no business feeling.
By Monday morning, I was confident that yes, his disgusting behaviour genuinely upset me and that in itself warrants talking about it. All my not wanting to create problems was dumb because he created this problem, not me.
I told a person at work who told another person at work who gave an official warning to that colleague who apologised to me and said he didn't remember a thing or know that he was capable of being such a dick (i.e., he did a Kevin Spacey). He was suspended, and two days later they said he and the management had "mutually agreed" that it would be best if he didn't come back.
Apparently, it wasn't the first time he'd been massively inappropriate towards women after drinking, just no one ever talked about it or did anything about it. So now he's gone. And it came with all sorts of weird feelings. Imagine losing your job because of something you don't even recall doing? Is this an alcohol problem or a shitty person problem or one that becomes worse when combined with the other? If he really didn't know he got like that, then maybe he shouldn't be drinking... Right?
I was also asked if I would file a police report and, to be honest, talking to work was already a huge thing that had me in tears everytime I recounted what happened. And getting the police involved is an even bigger step, with even bigger repercussions... Could I do that to him? I didn't, but sometimes I do wonder, should I have? When is the moment to call law enforcement? Did that ex-colleague learn from this ordeal, or is he doing it all over again at his new workplace...?
And then in May, something happened with my sister and big steps were being made. But that's a story for another time.
