Men need to understand they don't understand

Last weekend I was at a conference’s

closing banquet. A friend approached the table and said, “I’m feeling generous; buy you a drink?” Cherry Coke with coconut rum, please. I’m 1-for-1 tonight.

I notice the prettiest girl in the room is sitting at a table with just her phone to keep her company. I met her last year at this conference, and we’d only chatted briefly then. She still had the prettiest face, and she looked amazing in her dress.

One good deed deserves another. “I’m feeling generous; buy you a drink?” She nods and says she’ll join me at the bar. Whoa, 2-for-2.

I make a mental note of her order should I have this opportunity again. We have a great, albeit short, conversation and when we get back to the banquet room I offer an empty seat at my group’s table. She’s sitting next to me, and I’m 3-for-3.

She has to cut out early, and wishes me a good night. I tell her, “You too ... I’ll look you up,” and she nods in approval. A few days later, we’re Facebook friends ... 4-for-4. I tell her I enjoyed getting to know her, and that I’d be down to talk more than once a year.

A few days later, after liking her most recent picture, I found the story I didn’t know I was looking for. A woman named Nathalie Gordon detailed a strange bus ride and why men can’t understand being female.

Gordon was listening to music, minding her own business, when a man asks where she’s going, and offers to take her out for a drink instead. She politely declines and starts to put her headphones back in before he pulls them out and says, “Don’t be rude.” Later on in the ride, she catches him fondling himself and reports it to the bus driver. The driver says, “Sit somewhere else. What do you expect me to do?” When she answers he could kick the guy off or call law enforcement, the driver says, “You’re a pretty girl, what do you expect?”

She had many answers I don’t have room to reprint, but she did expect, “good men to be on our side, to support us, to listen, to care, to stand up for us when we can’t and to educate others.”

I reconsidered that 4-for-4, primarily when she joined me at the bar. I read it as her wanting conversation, and maybe she did. But she joined me primarily because she bears the burden of making sure strangers don’t roofie her.

The ABC hidden camera show “What Would You Do?” portrayed a first date where the guy did just that. Bystanders intervened less to help women who dressed provocatively. You’re a pretty girl, what do you expect?

The girl at the banquet, or the bar, or the house party, has to consider that every time a man offers a drink, and guard it when she does get it. My drink sat alone for at least 10 minutes in a different room, and I never gave it a second thought. Something about that isn’t right.

Maybe we’ll talk tomorrow, maybe we won’t talk until the next conference — that’s up to her. Regardless, I can listen, and care, and stand up for her and others and educate. That’s up to me, even if the only person I educate is myself.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis office of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]