I was 17 years old when I was in concert choir for my senior year of high school. It started out pretty well. I made some new friends. And one of my friends had decided that it wad okay to give me hugs and to touch my shoulders all the time. Whatever. I thought that I was just being crazy at first because I wasn’t used to people touching me. If never dated anyone before, still that way now, and so I want used to being touched by a lot of people. The only people that usually touched me, not innapropriately, were my parents, sister, my best friend, and anyone else I was comfortable with. But there was a guy in my choir class who made me uncomfortable who kept trying to touch me every time he saw me.
He used to walk through my science class and I usually ended up crossing paths with him and he would try to hug me. It made me uncomfortable but I rolled with it even though I was embarrassed. The guys I satbwith in the back of the class were teasing me about it, but they didn’t mean anything by it because I knew them well enough to not really care about what they were saying. We were good friends and they never really made me uncomfortable.
As time went on, the guy I mentioned before (who’s name will not be stated) had gotten worse. He made me uncomfortable and whenever I was trying to leave my choice class, he would pretty much slam his hands on my shoulders. I had really long hair then too, so it pulled on my hair and it hurt and I would tell him to stop touching me every day but he never listened. Eventually, I went to the assistant principle and told him what was going on. I told him how I thought the kid from my choir class liked me and wouldn’t stop hugging me or touching me no matter how many times I told him to stop and I didn’t want for the kid to think that I liked him more than a fried. So, the assistant principle told me that he was going to talk with him. So, a week or two goes by and the kid stopped talking to me and touching me. No big deal. I started feeling better about being in class. Well, when we went to solo ensemble (where we sang by ourselves or with a partner in front of judges), he decided that it would be a good idea to try and talk to me. He was seating three seats behind me, well diagonally if that makes sense…and he reached all the way over to place his hand on my knee to get my attention. That day, I dressed up because I was supposed to and I actually wore a dress. I never wear dresses. And wheb I do, the skirt I’m the dress is long. But this dress wasn’t as long as I normally wear so I was uncomfortable to begin with. When he touched my knee, it honestly scared me because I’m not used to that. I hate being touched unless if I’m comfortable with the person who’s touching me. He didn t seem to have a problem with it, but I shrunk away from him but he didn’t care, he kept trying to talk to me.
Throughoutbthe rest of the day after that, we didn’t really talk much. I’d seen both of his performances, which were about me, because he asked our mutual friend in common to convince me to go. So, I relented just so then our mutual friend would stop hugging me about it. He sang a song called “Red Irish Rose”…i have red hair and I’m Irish… It kinds scared me a little. I forgot the other song title but it had to do with beauty and stuff and the song actually kind of described my personality a little bit. Either way, I was freaked out.
After we got back onto the bus to go home, he put his letterman jacket next to me on my seat. I was sitting in the way back and our mutual friend was sitting next to me, but decided to move to talk to one of our other friends, so the kid who harassed me sat in the single seat across from me. Well, I told him to move his jacket and he said, “I just wanted to see if I could piss you off and make you throw the jacket back at me.”
I listened to music the rest of the way back but wheb we were lining up to get off, I got in front of the kid who harassed me so then I could get off the bus quicker. He started trying to talk to me and was touching my shoulder. He told me that he loved me and I told him to stop before I got off the bus and didn t stop walking until I got to the bus that took me home. I was walking in heels and it was a bit hard for me to walk in two inch heels and walk fast at the same time because I didn’t wear heels often.
I told my mom about what happened and then she talked to my dad who went into the school to talk to the cop who patrolled the schools. So, I wrote a report like I was told to and explained everything to the cop and to the assistant principle and they said that they’d have another talk with him. It worked for a couple of weeks before it all started up again. So, I told the assistant principle and he told me that I shouldn’t be worrying about it because it was almost the end of the fucking year. That pissed me off because that pretty much said that he didn t care. And I was honestly scared to go to school. But the kid who harassed me had lied to the cop and assistant principle so it was my word against his and it seemed that the assistant principle didn’t care. And I’m sure that the assistant principle took the kid’s word over mine which is absolute bullshit because not only I wouldn’t lie about that, but also I’ve never gotten into trouble in school so he should know that I wasn’t doing it for shits and giggles.