When I was in middle school, my best friend was a girl I’ll call Ally. I’d just moved and she was the first person at school to talk to me. There weren’t a lot of Asian kids in the neighborhood, and whenever someone tried to start shit in the lunch room she told them to fuck off

Ally loved horses and asked me a million questions all the time about how I grew up spending a lot of time in at a horse barn. She was tall and blonde and beautiful and laughed easily, and was a good dancer. I spent a lot of time at her house after school.

These are two other things I remember about Ally: at school, the other kids called her a slut, and when I asked her why once she said it was because she talked to men; and not at school, men in their 20s, 30s, or older talked to her in a predatory way, consistently and frequently

That last RT I shared is of a girl about Ally’s age getting approached by a grown man who is also talking to her in a predatory way, and I thought of Ally immediately. I don’t know if cis men realize how common this is, for grown men to act inappropriately with girls

I think it’s easy to dismiss these things as anomalies, and to assume that very few adult men would approach a child this way. And maybe it’s not more common than not; but this happened constantly when I was a kid, to Ally, to me, to other friends

A lot of what I’m seeing from cis men on that video is to the effect of “What a creep, I can’t believe this dude”

I can believe it. I bet most of the women you know can believe it, too.

One thing that kills me even now is how easily Ally internalized the slut shaming that was thrown her way. She said it was because she talked to men; but men talked to HER. Just like the kid in that video she was polite, and smiled, and did everything she could not to escalate

Another thing I’m seeing from cis men in response to that video is “he was being friendly, maybe he’s just got bad social skills, it doesn’t mean he’s a predator, she’s overreacting”

It’s disconcerting to know that after all this time, things are so similar to when I was a kid