I want to talk about a pattern I’ve noticed.

When I hear an accusation of harassment, I take it seriously. I think about what I’ve heard. And then I wait a few days.

Almost without fail, like plants sprouting after rain, there are a few “Oh, that person, they did that to me too!” And then, as time goes by, more. Because harassers? Don’t just hurt one person. It’s a pattern.

And I’m not talking about “Oh, that person! I’ve never liked them!” I’m talking about “Oh, that person, they also harassed me.”

It’s very, very rare that I don’t see it. It can take a while to come around. Or sometimes it’s already there by the time I see anything about the matter. But it’s there. The very, very few times it’s not?

In my personal observation, those have turned out to be the EXCEEDINGLY rare times an accusation has been made either with bad faith or out of what I suspect is—let me call it a place of deep emotional turmoil.

It doesn’t happen often. Because honestly there’s no percentage in making false accusations. 999 times out of a thousand, I see the pattern. But every now and then I don’t.

It’s a pattern I can’t help noticing, and I thought I’d share.

IMPORTANT ADDITION I absolutely do NOT mean to say that if you've been harassed and you look around and don't see anyone else, that you're making it up or crazy or whatever. Harassers go to great lengths to make it seem like their acts are one-offs, and choose people

they think are helpless and/or isolated, and when they're accused, will often say "oh I made this one mistake this one time" or some variant of that.

When someone speaks up publicly, that illusion of isolation shatters--you can see that you're not actually the only one.

It can take a long time for people to speak up. It's hard. But if you're being harassed and you've been silent, you feel like there's something wrong with *you* because you think you're the only one--I can pretty much guarantee you're not the only one.

Whether or when to speak is up to you. I have nothing to say about that. It's a hard situation to be in, and you have to take care of yourself the best you can.