Sigh
by: Stoya, November 2014

When I spoke at Barnard last week someone asked me how I approach being recognized in public. I said that I don’t approach it, it approaches me.

Usually people who strike up a conversation in public because they know my work are incredibly nice and very respectful. More likely than a friendly hello is a tweet or email from someone saying they think they saw me but didn’t want to interrupt my book, phone conversation, or coffee.

A couple of months ago I was sitting in the window of a coffee shop near Washington Square Park, reading Houellebecq’s ‘Platform’. I’d taken a dislike to it on page 16 but was determined to read through to the end before making a final judgment. From close behind my right shoulder I heard a sharp, tense “Hi!”

I turned to see a man standing over me. He was talking fast, saying “It’s me, you know me, I say hi to you all the time, you know me.” His right hand extended, waiting to be shaken.

I didn’t think I knew him, but I do meet an extraordinary amount of people every year and am sometimes slow to recognize them. 

I stared blankly as his recitation of “you know me, I say hi to you all the time” continued. When he added “It’s me, the writer” I did know him and also knew I wanted him to go away. 

See, in early 2011 he’d approached me at a train station. He’d excitedly informed me that he’d just seen a video of me the night before and had written this script he’d like me to read. He had at least one copy printed out in his bag, which he pressed into my hands. 

I can’t remember if I gave him my email address to make him go away or if he must’ve dug it up on the internet. Either way, I received an email later saying he’d meant to ask me for my real name. I replied that I didn’t appreciate questions from strangers about my legal name.

Undeterred by lack of further response from me, his emails continued: asking what city I was in, expressing sadness we hadn’t become pen pals, saying Happy Memorial Day. Easily archived like other unwanted communications and harmless compared to many other things people say on the internet.

Back at the coffee shop, his hand still hung expectantly in midair.

I was full of no. No, I don’t want to talk to you, I want you to leave me alone. No, I will not shake your hand, I want you to leave me alone. No, I will not look at anything other than my book because you aren’t taking a verbal no for an answer and so I will not engage in any more discussion.

Eventually he retracted his hand and left.

I relaxed and actually read the page I’d been staring at. I refused to be pushed out of the comfortable chair I’d chosen in that coffee shop until I was ready to leave. If we’re going to have an entitlement-off, some presumably male person’s perceived right to my attention vs. my right to exist outside of my apartment unharassed in a city I think of as my home, my entitlement will win.

Twenty minutes later he came back, threw himself down in the seat next to mine, and exclaimed that he needed me to understand because he needed me to be his friend, needed me to like him. The stakes felt higher now and I felt scared. I gathered my belongings, abandoned my coffee, and backed towards the counter where employees were preparing to close up for the night. 

When I reached the back of the shop I asked if I could just hang out with them for a few moments. They looked towards the entrance and said they’d seen that guy before, that they thought he was kind of creepy. I filled them in briefly on the backstory.

He was gone, but one employee told me to stay back there for a moment and poked their head out the front door. They came back and reported that he was lurking a few doors down, asked if they should call the police.

I was shaking by then, fight or flight response in high gear. I did some fear-based weighing of options: The police as a general category are not my friends. Between my time spent in Philadelphia and New York City I’ve personally witnessed enough abuse of power by those in uniform to be wary by default. I’ve seen plenty of documentation of far worse abuse in the forms of institutionalized racism and excessive force.

But how was I going to get from this now closed coffee shop to my next destination without risking being followed by this man? And more concerning in the long term, what if I eventually ran into him a third time? What if that interaction wasn’t harmless? What if I then needed to file a report and was asked why I hadn’t done so this time?

So we called the cops. As soon as the vehicle pulled up with its red and blue flashing lights the man ran off. I recounted the whole thing to the two officers, they filled out their paperwork, and then they walked outside with me to wait while I hailed a cab. 

As I opened the car door, one of the officers said he was having drinks with friends the next night and was wondering if I’d want to come along. I told him I didn’t think that would be appropriate, climbed in, and shut the door.

A friend expressed sympathy via text, reminded me of the ways in which we can protect ourselves, and tweeted frustration about the incident while maintaining my privacy. My tangled ball of feelings sat inside me for a couple of weeks, until I called the precinct to get the report number.

Once I was on the phone I felt like I had to say something about that officer. When they asked which officer it had been and I gave their name, they responded with a resigned sigh. A sigh that sounded like this wasn’t surprising.

I thought my god, these cops… they really do all seem like bastards.