When I was in high school, there was a girl I liked in my class. She was smart and pretty, and she came from a wealthy family. I came from the “other side” of Queens, so our relationship had all of the potential of a Lifetime movie.
One spring day, after math club, I walked her home. I bought her an ice cream cone at Baskin-Robbins. We sat in the sun and talked about how our SAT scores were going to determine the rest of our lives. The fact that we were sitting there together was a sign that she liked me. I was hoping this would be my first serious girlfriend.
That weekend, a group of our friends went to “the city” to see some movie at the Ziegfeld Theater on the big screen. Her friend drove us to the theater. It was six crammed into one car. I was in the front and she was in the back. She was all dressed up, wearing a dress, and looked fabulous. As we drove, I became upset when I saw her flirting and talking with one of my other friends. I could feel my stomach tighten. Until that moment, I had never felt such intense emotions, harsh and powerful feelings of jealousy and lust.
To this day, I do not remember what the movie was that we saw at the Ziegfeld or what we did afterward. I think we went out to eat after the movie, but I don’t remember for sure. Someone smoked pot, but it wasn’t me.
As we drove home, we took the same seats in the car. When I looked at her in the back seat, I wanted her badly, even though I’m not sure what “wanting her” meant as a virgin in high school. I just knew that I hated myself for wanting her so badly, and that these wild, animal feelings were turning me into some sort of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde monster.
I turned to her in the back seat. She was wearing boots with her dress, and a silk blouse with no bra. I was so angry that I did not possess this girl for myself, or that she might give “herself” to someone other than me.
The next five seconds have haunted me for decades. As we drove over the 59th Street Bridge, I put my hand on her thigh, saying, “Is this what you want?! Is this what you want?!” She quickly blocked my hand and started tearing up. I grabbed my hand back and turned to the front, ashamed. The others in the car didn’t really know what had happened, because it occurred so quickly. When they asked her why she was upset, she didn’t want to talk about it.
I didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the trip home. I later apologized, but she didn’t talk to me again.
This was one of the meanest thing I ever did, and the only time I ever did anything like this, and it affected my relationships with women for years.
This incident truly scared me, not only because of what I did to her, an innocent victim, but because I lost control. For many years, excessive emotions and sexuality frightened me, as if they were dangerous, never knowing where they might carry me, like a leaky raft on wild rapids.
I think Sweetsalty Kate got it right. You put this out there in a place where you feel relatively safe so that you could take a little beating (but not too bad since everyone loves you here) and repent. Rather than brave, I think it was a little bit chickenshit. You need to find that girl and apologize to her.
I am also not going to fawn over you for being introspective. I expect it of you and of everyone. I think you need to dig a little deeper, actually.
That said, we’re still cool.
I agree with the earlier comment about needing to verbalize the sin before being able to forgive yourself or seek the forgiveness of the person against whom you transgressed.
Great people do some shitty things, Neil. What makes them great is that they own up to the shitty stuff and seek to right the wrongs. You may not be able to fix it, but I’d enourage you to try.
Obviously this event has haunted you and has likely haunted your victim even more. I hope you can make 2010 a year of peace – peace of mind for both of you.
You can be defined by your errors, or you can be defined by your solutions. The choice is up to you.
I don’t know you. This is the only post of yours that I have read. Only saying that to point out that I have nothing to go on to tell me what kind of person you may or may not be.
Thank you for posting this. As someone who has been attacked for finally telling the story of being a victim, it gives me hope that one day he will see himself. Or maybe that even through his denials, knowing that he hurt me protects someone else.
Are you brave for posting? I don’t know. I appreciate that you are willing to open the dialogue. If we could all be more open and frank about it maybe we could prevent the next generation from being so damaged.
I came over to read before reading Maggie’s response and am not sure that I have anything to add to my comment there.
I think that you have a wonderful group of women friends here that will provide the sounding-board that I assume you are looking for–the comments so far are a great example of the thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive women (and men) that make up your audience. I hope that everyone’s comments give you some peace and the courage to keep moving on your path of redemption, or whatever it is that has brought you to this point in time.
I think that if you are looking for forgiveness then it can only be found in yourself and/or from the woman that you hurt. It sounds like you are truly sorry for what happened and, perhaps, are as scarred by the experience as the girl may’ve been.
I also feel compelled to add, speaking as a woman who grew up riding a schoolbus where titty-twisters, grabbing, rude comments and the like were a regular occurrence…. you may be surprised to find out that she barely remembers the incident. Or at least wasn’t affected for life by it. Everyone’s sensitivity levels are different and I can’t speak for them, but in the rural community I grew up in? It would’ve taken a whole lot more than your seethingly jealous bitter remarks and grabs to change my outlook on men and sex.
And, no, before anyone jumps on my back, I did not just say it was “okay” to do it! I’m just throwing it out there as an example of how I would’ve reacted to it…. After the tears, I would’ve gotten pissed and then punished him by never talking to him again.
OMG. I only read about half way through the comments.
I only have to say that in the future, your need to purge and forgive yourself should be put into a private journal. I have no condemnation for your actions.
You are responsible for apologizing and making clean your messes. Thanks for being REAL. So very few are these days. Every single person on this planet has regrets about something.
hope you find your way to figuring out your path soon… sounds like you are turning over some rocks and that always helps.
Happy New Year!
I can’t quite…fathom…the thought process behind this. I never felt the need or desire to possess someone that didn’t feel the same way. I feel for that woman, that young thing with tears sprouting. Perhaps worse than the act were the words. They sting me…”Is this what you want?”…to take the responsibility of your actions and thrust it upon the vicitim, fling it back at her. If it were me, in that situation, that is what I would remember most, the words. I would have believed you, and turned it into being all my fault. I would have believed you.
This post makes me so very sad Neil. I am sorry for you, but most especially, I am sorry for her.
I want to know what prompted you to write this. That’s all.
The only thing that ever got me in trouble was boys. Boys, boys, boys. Oy.
You were being a classic, teenage “hairy-legged boy” (as my mother puts it, still). Get over it. You screwed up in that moment. All you can do is the best that you can do at any given moment…and for teenagers, that ain’t so good.
Forgive yourself. If you think you need to, look her up and apologize. But don’t beat yourself up over it. Guilt and regret get you nowhere. Learn from your mistakes – as should we all – and move on.
Side note: I liked the story. Very real and honest. I could see it in my mind like a little movie…some details vague (decade, etc.), but that just made it more “magical” (for lack of better word)…you know, like those crazy movies where you can’t tell if it takes place in the past or the future or somewhere in between. I saw it in technicolor, though. Thanks for writing. Keep it up.
Note to self: quit using smileys. i think i’m addicted and it’s getting out of hand.
I hate being asked “Why?” when I’ve posted something bitter to swallow.
It’s not really so much about “Why?”
It’s about sharing a piece of myself in such a raw way.
While I don’t find what you did appropriate, I also know that much of my own childhood was filled with regret for my own inappropriate actions.
I truly believe that this life is an opportunity to discover ourselves and what it is we do and believe about ourselves. I would hope you would be able to find it within you to forgive yourself. Short of a direct apology to this girl, it’s the only thing you CAN do.
I don’t even know what to say, Neil.
neil, I came here from maggie’s blog. I’m glad to hear a guy say that he did such a stupid thing, and he felt bad about it, and it affected things, and he’s sorry. because I was that girl for some other guy.
(much edited story of my situation deleted. the particulars don’t matter, really. Just that I got into a situation with a boy I liked, and he behaved about as horribly as you.)
I guess how awful it was at the time for her depends on where she was maturity wise, and how she actually felt about you anyway. Her tears may have been less from fright than disappointment, anger, & embarrassment. You seem to think no one heard/saw, but she may have felt everyone in the car must have.
In my case, I actually like the guy a lot, so it was bitterly disappointing to know whoever we might have been to each other, we never would be now. Unlike your situation, I know the situation had not been seen or heard, but I was as embarrassed as if we’d been on stage.
how much it affected her later depends somewhat on what happened later. I was date raped later that year. We didn’t have that name for it then, but,as it was happening, I could already see the previous as being clearly, forgivable teen boy stupidity, because the second case was clearly not. I hope she never had reason to define your incident by such a means.
for what it’s worth; if he contacted me to talk about it, I could talk with him. Though we never really spoke again at school, i could talk to him now.
Sure, what you did was totally inappropriate and shitty. You SAID that, that was the point of the post.
Maybe I’m missing something…but putting your hand on someone’s inner thigh for five seconds (from your description, I’m assuming somewhere between knee and mid-thigh, not like you actually grabbed her crotch ala Madonna) and saying, “Is this what you want?!” doesn’t seem like a life-changing changing event akin to rape or molestation, nor does it fall under the legal definition of “sexual assault.”
Humiliating? Yes. A violation? Of course. A betrayal of your friendship? Absolutely.
But I’m finding it difficult to understand why it’s being equated with rape or sexual assault (and yes, I have personal experience with being sexually assaulted when I was a 15 year-old never-been-kissed girl by an adult male so…there’s that, for what it’s worth).
And for all of those chastising you for writing about this here and not apologizing to the girl in person…they must not have read your entire post. You DID apologize to her, way back when it happened. I don’t think it would be necessary (nor likely welcome) for you to seek her out now and apologize again, decades later.
In fact, Neil, as I read your post I felt it was one writer’s way of acknowledging and universally apologizing for the shitty behavior most of us experienced, and many of us displayed, as teens.
I’ve spent way too much time on this comment. Gah.
Here’s the thing. You forgive yourself a thousand times over in this post, with everything that leads up to the assault. The innocent beginning, the Jekyll/Hyde reference, the careful details that make her sexually appealing – this is not introspection. This is rationalization. What if you had simply written “I sexually assaulted a woman” and left it at that? Then it becomes something radically different from a tale of loneliness, thwarted desire, teen hormones and loss of control.
Anyway, there’s far more to say about this, but I suggest you write the whole thing down from her perspective. I’m not saying that you need to post it here, but look through her eyes.
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to teach my daughter to carry a brick in her purse so that she can use it on exactly this type of person.
I hope that girl finds you again one day and does exactly that. No one deserves to have their innocence taken away in that manner and you should be ashamed.
I have never been quite sure if your crushes, your proclamations about women’s physical attributes, and your impulsivity/agressiveness on Twitter was humor or truth. People convinced me it was humor. Now I’m confused again, because it’s the same type of sexualize/rejection-fueled impulsivity that you describe here. We’re all works in progress, and I understand writers documenting those truths. I’d like to understand more.
Why did you edit your story Neil? Why did you change the part where you put your hand between her thighs to just on her thigh. Why did you take out the part about her not wearing a bra? Interesting that you edit it after the fact.
By saying “you were young” it’s not dismissing your behavior but you WERE young and you did learn from it. Is it wrong to say thankfully it did not go further? I think I can have sympathy for that boy who had a rage of feeling because I know the man you are today. Was it wrong what you did? Yes. But you get to own your shit without everyone jumping down your goddamned neck. Jeez.
What Sweet/Salty Kate said, pretty much word-for-word.
(I will say though, thanks for writing this. This started some important dialogue in our community that will no doubt spill over and into discussion between readers and their spouses, IRL friends, partners… That’s true for me. So yes, thank you.)
Well.
This is what being real is all about, isn’t it? Bringing the pieces together of the dark and the light. Exposing the perverse to the puritanical in us? Figuring out the devil that makes us tick? The angel that keeps us from indulging all of our most dangerous whims?
That you were 18 doesn’t excuse the compulsion. I don’t believe that you intimated that it does. In that it has haunted you is a two pronged barb as I am certain that it has also haunted her.
What you did sucks, but I am not going to flog you. You cannot be made more aware of the hurt you caused, you know what hurt you caused. Not only to her, but to yourself because you know that there is a lurking thing in you.
Our reactions to tales like this are never about the person and always about ourselves. How do YOU react to this, Neil? How does it serve you? How does is settle in your bones? How do you want to be with this?
Neil, you are a good man. What you did was bad, but you owned your actions. You have stepped up, not only here but also with her, and have said ‘I did this, it was wrong, and I am sorry.’ And that is SO MUCH MORE than SO MANY are willing to do. God bless you, Neil.
I’ve never seen an incident get this blown out of proportion in the comments. Taking away her innocence? How? What you did was rude, but didn’t we all do stupid, rude things as a teen? The fact that you remembered it for all these years shows that you are a kind person. I really doubt the girl even remembers it, much less allowed it to change her life.
Oh, Neil.
I had such high hopes for this. I had thought that maybe this would provide you with an opportunity for introspection that you probably really needed.
Then I read today on Twitter that you changed some of the details of what happened that day, and I had to check for myself. Sure enough, you did: you took out the part about her not wearing a bra, you changed the wording so that you now “put (your} hand on her inner thigh”, and you took out one of the “Is this what you want?”s. There might be other changes, but, frankly, I haven’t had the heart to look for them.
Neil, you’re a writer. You KNOW the power of words, the power of storytelling, the power of language. If you felt the need to explain yourself further, you could have done that in a follow-up post. But to go back and change the original story, as if that changes what actually happened? Even if you had nothing but the most innocent of intentions, surely you must see how that looks to people.
I don’t really have anything else to offer, only that I’m so disappointed.
If this truly was, as Neil implies, the “meanest thing he ever did”, then he’s an unusually kind person. It was a bad thing to do, but from his description it seems far from sexual assault to me — more an awkward teenage boy with no idea how to negotiate the barriers between the sexes and angry at himself and others about it. But from the description he pulled himself back from that anger within seconds. (Although the deep impression it made on him suggests that the anger may have remained but become mixed with intense guilt about it, which is a tough situation).
Of course, I’m a man, so take it as you wish.
I’m coming to this very late, but I read the original version in the RSS feed and uggh, Neil, Neil, Neil! I had something like this happen to me when I was eleven and I still remember it so clearly, it was so painful and shaming at the time, and it still is, in fact, that it makes me angry to think about it.
It never occurred to me to look at it from the guy’s perspective. Because why does he get a fucking perspective? I didn’t grab his crotch!
On the other hand, I know you and have met you and spent time with you in real life, had great conversations with you and lots of laughs. And now I’m having to reconcile that reality through the lens of my own past . . . it’s so damn complicated, Neil! You are making my brain hurt.
I have to say that I agree with what sweetsalty Kate AND palinode wrote here. I think there’s definitely some rationalization, but there’s also a desire for atonement. And everybody deserves forgiveness, we have to endeavor to be big enough to offer it.
Thank you for making me think.
I was “that girl” once and had something like that happen to me once, when I was on the track team. Except I didnt even know the guy. It was horrible and I will always remember it. I saw the guy on Facebook recently and blocked him. I appreciate that when you wrote this, you wrote about how you felt about it, and it makes it make more sense, it doesn;t make it right, but it makes more sense. xo
Eesh.
That’s all I’ve got.
Like many other women commenting here, this happened to me, too. Like many others (and you as well, Neil), it has haunted me for years. I believe, that because of who it was who did it to me, that the incidents (yeah, more than one) was the root of my struggles with my weight. I felt I was being admonished for looking too attractive, being too sexually available and the message I internalized was that the best way to avoid being the target of that sort of sexual rage was to make myself unattractive, to take myself out of the equation. It was the only way I knew at that age to take control back for myself.
I am the tiniest bit gratified to hear that someone who’d do this to a woman has also suffered for years. I’m not cruel nor looking for vengeance, but there is a measure of consolation hearing that someone who would do what he did to me would have the proper remorse.
I also understand that you’d be confused at that young age about why you did it. I’m hearing some rationalization, some asking for forgiveness, but I really think you’re still confused — about why you did it, about why it has affected your relationships since then and about why you’re choosing to write about it now.
Since your introspection isn’t any deeper now than it was when the incident happened, I don’t think you’ve moved beyond it much. I don’t think your understanding of yourself or women has grown as a result, and I think it accounts for your Twitter persona. I think you still don’t know how much you can expect from women, so you cross boundaries in that boyish, cheeky way.
I acknowledge that I’m seeing this through my own lens. But I think I could be partly right, since — bizarrely and prophetically — you’ve always reminded me of the person who verbally assaulted me.
Thanks for writing this, even if you didn’t understand why you did it.
Hmmm. You got quite a few bruises from this one huh? Honesty is key here. I think most people remember the intensity with which we felt things in high school and sometimes even through college. The emotions and lack of impulse control ran rampant through my life, so I understand where that kid in the front seat of the car is coming from. I also see it from “the girl” point of view. She was probably scared, confused and angry all at once.
Great post, and great comments.
as a rape survivor, i echo palinode… and sweet/salty kate… and moosh.
You made me cry. Both because I’ve been that scared girl in the car and because you made me pissed off to think that the boy who assaulted me was a real person who maybe never realized what he did to me. I wasn’t able to confront the guy because he died when I was 16 so I carry the story alone. It’s easier to be alone with it because I don’t have to think of him as a real person who may have regretted what he took from me. But after reading this I have to admit, he was a real person, and human. And maybe it will bring a sense of forgiveness and peace to me after this stops hurting so much. I’m glad you shared this even though I hate to think of you as being the same sort of person who broke me.
You are still my friend. I trust you. You made a mistake. I hope other people read this post and learn from it. The scars we carry never heal. I mean yours as well as ours.
I began to write a comment and then it became ridiculously long. I have a different perspective on this as a parent of a teenage boy entering high school next year. So I wrote it all up as a post. Instead of a 1000 word comment. http://www.parentopia.net/blog/2010/01/blind-side-football-and-parenting.html
I came over from Maggie’s blog. On her post, I commented that she had released a flood of memories for me. I’ve been on the receiving end of the kind of thing you did more than once in the course of my life, and every one of those incidents left a scar on my psyche. I think I’ve outgrown those scars, which is good, because I’m 40, and now I’ve got wrinkles instead. But what I’m left with is fear. Fear for my daughter, and now, after reading your post, fear for my son.
Somehow, I thought it would be easier raising a son. I’ve never glimpsed the human on the other side of those awful “little” incidents. You just showed me that. And now, like I said, I fear for my son, too.
I don’t know if brave is the word I’d use for your confession. But you educated me, and the willingness to sacrifice a bit of your own soul to educate someone else is always a worthy effort. So thank you, Neil.
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