It was a smile. My night had been previously taken over by not-so-subtle cat-calls. Men who are old enough to be my father looked at me like my dog looks at a piece of beef jerky.

As a female growing up in the 21st century, I was beyond used to it. My roommate and I kept walking—just as we were taught. We simply looked down and ignored it—just as we were taught.

But you, unlike those other "dogs", gave me nothing more than a smile.

My head was deep in my chest while I scrambled to find my phone and call an Uber. It's unsafe for a girl like me to be out in a huge town like that—at least that was what had been drilled in my head all my life. In a discombobulated haze, frazzled and overwhelmed, I looked up from my phone to see your smile.

I don't know what's worse; assuming that you were going to pair your happy grin with a vile comment (that would make me want to shower twice) or the fact that I was too surprised to even smile back.

I have been assimilated into a misogynistic world where I am told that the garments with which I clothe my body give a dumb boy the right to say and do what he pleases. We have allowed the vastness of a person to be minimized into nothing.

The normalization of objectification of anyone, regardless of their sex or gender, makes me frown.

With that said, do you blame me for expecting so little of you? It is not in my genetic makeup as a young woman to assume you were slimy just as much as it is not in your genetic makeup to be a slime. By assuming that you were going to dehumanize me and see me as nothing more than a walking spectacle was wrong of me.

I assumed so little of you because you were male.

So to the boy who smiled at me, I'm sorry that your coconut-headed Neanderthal counterparts made me assume that you wouldn't treat me like the human I am.