I have always been a woman who is confident and comfortable in the presence of men. Hell, the majority of my friends growing up were men and most of my friends now are too. For some reason, I have always felt more freedom to be myself in the company of a man and never understood females who give men a bad name because they experienced one bad apple. Honestly, I always thought it a little silly to react to anything or anyone based off of one experience. I thought that you should open your mind and recognize that it is unfair to judge something or someone as a whole based off of one part. I assumed that I would never fall into such a narrow-minded way of thinking. Well, you know what they say about making assumptions, right?

Two separate incidents changed the way I thought about men. The first incident was catcalling. I never had been catcalled before. So, when it happened, I was unprepared for how uncomfortable it would make me. I was wearing a tank-top that showed zero cleavage (not that showing cleavage should be an issue) and shorts that were about mid-thigh length. In other words, it was an appropriate outfit for most schools and churches. I was walking to meet my friend a few blocks away when I heard male voices yelling at me. From the passenger's side window I heard, "Nice tits!" From the backseat I heard, "Yeah, I'd fuck that!" and "Does your daddy know you're wearing that in public?"

I won't go into all of the reasons that catcalling can be disgusting (and I mean actual catcalling, not "hey beautiful" or something obviously meant to be a compliment), because there are more than enough articles about those on the Internet. To be honest, I brushed off all of the women who said catcalling made them feel uncomfortable, vulnerable and scared. I had neither seen nor experienced catcalling in my life, so I assumed that blowing it up into a big deal was another feminazi ploy into getting the world to hate men and gain sympathy. However, those ladies were right. I felt like all those men saw was a pair of breasts and an ass walking down the street begging to fuck the next guy who showed an interest. One of the men actually referred to me as "that." I wasn't even granted the decency of a person-specific pronoun: I was an object for their pleasure and nothing more. Honestly, I wasn't too concerned about being objectified since that is something I'm pretty used to as a woman. What bothered was that I was in a place where I had always felt safe and yet someone was able to destroy that.

The next incident is a little more serious. I was at work when a customer pulled up to the window, I took his order, made his drinks and cashed him out like any other customer. Then he decided to say this:

Customer: Hey baby, thanks for the drinks! Mind if I grab your number?

Me: No thank you, I have a boyfriend. Have a good day!

Customer: Fucking skank, I bet your boyfriend loves that you don't even look men in the eye, huh? The perfect little submissive bitch.

Me: Okay, have a nice day!

Customer: What? Am I not attractive enough to be acknowledged?

Me: (Closes the service window and proceeds to clean up.)

Customer: (Yelling) I'm calling your manager!

He sat there for a few minutes and stared at me which made very uncomfortable. When I picked up the company phone in order to call my manager, he drove off. Later I found out that the manager of the store next to mine called the police after the same guy was overheard talking about all of the things he would do to me for denying him. Unfortunately, the police said it wasn't a big deal so nothing happened.

After these incidents I find myself extremely uncomfortable and often a little timid and afraid around men with whom I am unacquainted. I struggle to make eye contact when talking to them and I feel anxious whenever I see a group of men I don't know pull up to my job—or even when a man is behind me in the grocery store. I find myself coming up with excuses to stay at home rather than going out with my friends in fear that I will encounter unknown men and a similar situation will happen. I constantly look over my shoulder when I'm walking around town alone. When I'm out in public, I am constantly stressing out about being looked at like a piece of meat.

I am not only afraid of encountering these situations, I fear that my independent and often stubborn nature will escalate the situation further and lead to something even more horrible. I'm afraid that I either have to submit to my aggressors in order to appease them or stand up for myself and potentially face even worse and more physical violations to my person. I am completely terrified that one day something worse than words said out of arrogance, sexual frustration or low self esteem will happen to me and that I won't be able to do anything about it because those put in charge of protecting the people won't take a minute to reinforce preventative measures.

Most of all, I feel ashamed that a few sentences were able to break something so deeply rooted in me. I was proud of my confidence and lack of fear. I was determined that even if something was going to happen to me, I would not judge others for the actions of one person. However, I can't help myself. Now I am all too aware that I am a tiny, fragile woman who can very easily be overpowered by a man with little in the way of protection. Now I'm afraid because a few men said terrible, vulgar things to me and I am scared that another man might take it one step further.