I’m in the middle of a situation, can I call it sexism? I think so, if sexism can be defined as showing no respect to women.
I may even call it sexual abuse, despite the consent. I feel abused.
Like many women who find themselves in their 40s and single, I indulge in online dating as it’s the only way I ever meet anyone and I’m not single because I want to be. Christ, I’m already apologising for my behaviour!
Anyway, not an unusual story, met a guy who is professional, a doctor, works in International Development, which I’ve just done an MA in, we connected on political fronts too. Lots to be happy about, given that so many men I’ve met through this forum are just looking for a convenient ‘parking space’, or an outlet for their fantasies. So we date for a couple of months, with most sexual encounters occurring when he was en route home from one of his many trips abroad. Only one happened in the afternoon, and he went home after claiming to have work to do before another flight, another when he visited me after landing. That was the last time. It felt very close, we even had unprotected sex. I felt trust had been built, and he wouldn’t put me at risk, he is a doctor after all.
I accepted not seeing him at weekends, he has kids, he swore on the first date that he wasn’t married anymore, hadn’t been for two years. I did ask. I believed he had told me the truth, as the first time he spent the night with me was a spontaneous event… he was on his way home from running a marathon in Riga, and changed course when I invited him over.
But he is married. I began to suspect as much when the visits stopped when the spate of international flights was over. No meeting of any kind (and he knows I won’t accept another lunchtime session), just lots of Whatsapp messages. Then they began to drop off too; I worried there might be a problem, so asked, and got a big apology and told he was worried about ‘falling too hard’ for me. Nice move.
But the long absence, the texts that only come in working hours or after 10.30pm, the platitudes, all told me I couldn’t deny it anymore no matter how much I would like to. So I smoked him out, suggested I go to him, let him decide the day; of course, he concocted a lie to avoid it when the time came. That week I found his facebook profile too, with the happy family banner picture above it.
I had to act like a stalker and trick him to find the truth. He doesn’t know I know yet, he still thinks I believe him.
Our next meeting will definitely be in a public place. I need to look him in the face and tell him how disgusted I am at how he has put both me and his wife at risk. That he has just used me for sex and fooled me into thinking I’d actually met someone worthwhile, that elusive needle in the online haystack. That he’s just one more in a lifetime of men who have thought it is acceptable to have access to my body by force or deception, whether it’s been sex acts I didn’t want in a way I didn’t want them, or groping from strangers on trains, or following me in the street and masturbating in their pockets, or bosses leering at me and making inappropriate suggestions. None of this is acceptable.
Will he even care?