DaphneBlack was not alone in a dark alley; she was surrounded by friends and associates. Not to upset DB further,
conceivably, she put herself in more danger by moving to a place where she was alone.
And, look at the Dude’s comment that he didn’t know what her problem was, and Dude’s Friend’s reaction, surprised because she “was the first person who ever objected”. They immediately started painting DB as an hysterical female type person in her presence after she was assaulted. By the end of the night, she was probably screaming in terror because Dude gave her a hug.
I appreciate your concern, but I wasn’t alone. I was still in the house, just not out on the balcony.
Fuck this shit. Judging women who leave the scene as a ting hysterical is one hell of a misogynistic view and is an unnecessary worry among civilized adults.
Likewise, encouraging violence is so junior high.
While you husband sounds like he matured in the past decade, or was more mature to begin with, but Friend has not.
With clueless people, you don’t need to follow normal social conventions, just have your husband tell him flat out that any visits will need to be sans Dude.
If you can reach someone’s face and you do not want to risk permanent, visible damage that can possibly be charged or sued over…
Feel on your face under your cheek bones. Right underneath the ball of the cheek. Press inward.
Hurts, doesn’t it.
Just jam your thumbs in there hard. He’ll feel it for a couple of days.
Did you read what the OP said ???
“Did I mention this a few feet from the edge of a balcony, with a twenty-foot drop? He’s a 6-foot-plus guy, I’m a 5’3’” woman."
Thanks goodness she didn’t poke the jackass in his eye , he could of every had drop her off the balcony for being pissed off !
To the OP I am Jewish and if that had been me I was had told that Anti Semitic
bitch to get the HELL away from me , and I would not had stayed over night I would had demanded my husband to take you home or to hotel for the night . And I would had asked him why he didn’t do anything about that Anti Semitic bitch . You didn’t nothing wrong, and could of had the jackass arrested for assaulting you. I wonder if you see your husband is a different way after all this happen . He really seem to be blaming you for the whole thing , I know I sure would hate to depend on a guy like your husband if I had something like that happen to me .
This really sucks that this happen to me. I know I sure would let your husband
best friend bring any of this friends to your house and if does tell your husband the guy goes or you’ll stay at a friend’s house.
Fuck that. This is exactly why women feel pressure to grin and bear this kind of treatment–the idea that if they have a reaction, they will be the one to pay a social price, not the guy. If the people that know you are going to accept the spin of a friend of a friend of the host, then they are misogynistic assholes so fuck them. If people that don’t know either of you get the wrong impression, who cares? You don’t know them. Fuck what they think–you shouldn’t stay where you are miserable to make sure some strangers don’t get the wrong impression.
Re: Dude’s girlfriend, the oddest thing about that is that Friend is Jewish as well. I wonder if he ever noticed her strange obsession with Jews before – seriously, she said four times “my family doesn’t like Jews,” I mean, c’mon. She’s from Poland, but she lives in Germany, so, er…
I would just like to re-iterate that I have no problem with how my husband handled the situation. He had my back. I don’t expect him to ‘drop’ his long-time friend because said friend brought an asshole to a party or anything.* I was just curious if other women who’ve had a similar experience felt this weird urge to apologize to ‘their man’.
And I would also like to re-iterate that I have no problem, intellectually, with my reaction. I just felt very unsettled about the whole thing, and it made me think (probably too much) about a lot of the tropes about this type of situation. I’m not worried about my ‘reputation’ with my husband’s friends.
- For one thing, all of us (Dude, Friend, Husb and me) were in a different country than we normally reside in. I left this out because I didn’t think it relevant to the overall point.
This is complete horseshit.
I would had saw no reason to had apologize to my man but I do know for some weird reason this does happen . I can remember my ex brother and when I say
'ex brother ’ I mean I have disowned him as my whole family. Anyway my ex brother insulted me once and I return the favor and insulted him back and he
got all hurt ! Then my mother and older sister went over him to comfort him !
I was like WTF ! He insult me first and my family feel bad for him . How did society get women to feel that we have to put our feelings in second place when it come to men in our life???
Friend is a guy engaging in bad behavior, namely bringing assault guy to parties and covering for him. Don’t make excuses for him, he made the decision that being on good terms with the attacker was more important to him than doing the right thing or helping you. What he did is very clearly ‘bad guy’ behavior., even if he’s not a bad guy - it’s certainly possible that he just had no idea how to react to something that strange. If I were the husband, I would say something direct like “I don’t want to have to deal with the guy who assaulted my wife again. If he shows up, we’re leaving. If having him around is more important than seeing us, then we will catch up when we run into each other one day.”
I would also make a point to talk to Host about what happened. If he’s throwing big drunken parties and passing out during them then he’s probably not all that responsible, but he may still care. If someone is trying to manhandle people, especially when they’re right next to a balcony on his property and drinking alcohol he provided. If assault guy ends up injuring someone or getting injured, Host might well end up being liable for medical bills. And if his parties have people routinely assaulting each other, he’s probably going to lose the fun guests and end up with a lot of violence and broken stuff in the house.
Shit, I’ve been grabbed by the guy who was my bf at the time to do that “carry me over the threshold reproducing the rape of the Sabin women” thing and I was so upset I couldn’t speak English, he kept trying to hug me and I kept stepping back from him…
and that’s a guy I trusted, we were living in the US, and I’ve watched enough American movies to know you guys think that’s a romantic gesture.
If a guy I barely knew from Adam had tried to grab me up the incoherent screams might have brought the neighbors.
An enhanced version of this is possibly the best way to handle such a situation.
The instant you become convinced that “No, stop!” isn’t working, you let out the most bloodcurdling, long, drawn-out, over-the-top, wake-the-dead scream you can produce - then relax, showing a thin smile. The idiot recoils in horror. Everyone within 200 yards drops what they are doing and rushes to the scene.
You calmly explain that there’s no need for concern, all is well, you are sorry that it was necessary to alarm people, you are sure the problem will not recur - “Isn’t that right, Mr. Idiot?” IOW, you at all times had the situation under complete control.
Not a single word in here worth agreeing with.
OK, maybe the “You left the party” is technically accurate, but the rest? Not so much.
What he did was inappropriate but, it’s not that uncommon in rambunctious settings where everyone has a buzz and people start getting frisky. I’ve hoisted people up myself while wrestling around when I was younger, but (to be frank) you have to pretty seriously buzzed to think this is any kind of a good idea. The issue here is that this was sedate party and (per your description) he did it out of the blue with no horseplay going on. I’m also going to bet he was a lot drunker than you think he was. With enough people getting buzzed this obnoxious, irritating horseplay can happen a lot more easily than you might think even among presumed adults.
As far as “processing it”. You husband did exactly the right thing. Getting in a fight with a rambunctious drunk would have been the absolutely worst thing to do legally, physically, socially. Having said this I have seen some women get peeved after these kinds of incidents that hubby diffused a scenario vs punching out the clown. Some women do want the caveman reaction if they are being harassed especially if they felt helpless.
In the there’s not much you can do short of chalking it up to drunk theatre, avoiding that person in the future and moving on.
We all decry the attitude, but probably 50% of the people here have suffered from it.
No matter how justified a woman’s anger, there are people who will insist it is “her problem”, whether it’s about physical assault or getting passed over for a promotion. And they will effect others’ opinions. Abandoning the field leaves them in control of the truth. As history is written by the winners, gossip is controlled by those who are still there.
But to be clear, I did not mean to suggest DB should have smiled and laughed it off. Sorry.
It’s not that there might not be gossip that paints her in a bad light. That may happen with a bunch of people that don’t know her. It’s that sge shouldn’t put the opinions of a bunch of people that don’t know her ahead of her own comfort.
Oh bullshit. There is absolutely no reason to worry if people are going to worry about her reaction and for you to insist that she should remain in a highly discomfortable environment simply to worry about what others may think is misogynistic reasoning. If someone pissed off a man, you wouldn’t be calling for him to hang around. Oh wait, you would be calling for him to fight.
This. Completely and absolutely. But “abandon the field” versus still being there is complicated. It isn’t anybody’s job to leave themselves open to further assault. It’s everybody’s job to stay and control history properly.
As I said, ‘gossip’ was exactly not what I was thinking about at the time. I think it’s interesting that this element of the incident is what has caused the most disagreement. As it happens, I was not a stranger to most of the folks at the party, by any means. They were friends of my husband, but this wasn’t their first encounter with me, at all. But I just don’t think I had any reason to think about, much less prioritize, their potential opinions about me.
I left (the balcony) because I was shaken, and because I didn’t want to see Dude’s face any more. People saw what happened.
I do wonder, though: if any of the ‘many’ others who had apparently not objected to Dude’s behavior were worrying about ‘making a scene’ or ‘causing drama’ and that’s why they didn’t object?
Next time, grab his balls and SQUEEZE!