i went for a coffee and all i got was this lousy man following me home

DISCLAIMER: this is mean and nasty because i'm Angry✨

i hate that this is what i'm writing right now. 

i hate that this is something that i have to worry about just because i'm a femme person. 

i hate that it's normalized and shrugged off like it's nothing. 

i went for a coffee today—i stay up late because i'm on a weird sleep schedule and early in the morning is usually a calm time. there's no one outside, i'm never bothered i can just exist... usually. but that wasn't the case today. 

so i go out (i'm a pedestrian because i like walking and cars are expensive and scary) and i'm wearing shorts—because we're in the middle of a heat wave where i am and even at 5am it's 30C (86F) and that's not even including the humidity which makes it even worse (WHY do i have to defend me wearing shorts? why because it's baked into my fucking dna)—and a tee shirt and slides (for the jury). i step up to the coffee shop, and there's 3 guys sitting outside the door, all leering at my legs like they've never seen a fucking woman up close in their lives. 

despite my better judgement, i'm generally nice to the men at the coffee shop, i'm familiar with most of their faces and they usually nod at me, hold the door open and keep to themselves. in the last week, i've not had an issue going out at 5am, but of course that peace could not last. i wasn't nice today, i didn't smile and say hello, because they were making me uncomfortable and i was irritable to begin with. so i ignore them to the best of my ability, go inside and order. 

one of them comes in after me and instead of crossing him to go out the door i came in from, i go out the opposite and walk around the building so i can stay as far away from these guys as possible. to get home, there's i walk through a few parking lots, then a small trail to this dead-end street (which has people who live there, but there's no traffic). on the other side of the street there's another trail, and everything was fine until a man popped out of it—one of the men from outside the coffee shop. 

he slowed down to walk behind me and i was already over it at this point. so i stopped by this house that i knew to pull my keys out (because i needed to have something to swipe or stab with) and hopefully he would have thought i lived there and was going into the house. 

he keeps walking and i wait a few minutes there until it's been enough time to walk up the hill (and to the safety of my house that i never want to leave again). so i continue on my merry way, music off, coffee and donuts tucked under my arm (because i only have so many hands), keys firmly in my hand. 

just in case. 

to my surprise (which, i shouldn't have been), there he was✨

sitting on the curb, waiting. so i turned down and detour to the main streets, looking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following me (i saw him stand and walk but i wasn't sticking around to see where), looking around to see who i could run for help to if things got worse—dump truck men and another man sitting idly in a truck, you know the epitome of safety. 

by this point, i bet some people would hear this and be like "well.. he didn't do anything wrong." it's weird fucking behaviour. never in my life have i loitered around a stranger like that. and maybe he DIDN'T have negative intentions, but what the fuck are you doing?? 

i hate that there are people who would counter this with that or 'well you were wearing shorts.. maybe you shouldn't go out so early in the morning.. maybe you shouldn't go the short way.. maybe you should have SMILED' 

because why am i responsible for how other people react to my legs? to me being alone? i shouldn't have to stick my keys between my fucking fingers ready to have a brawl on a stranger's lawn because i'd rather be prepared to catch an assault charge than get dragged to a second location.

i'm not looked at as a human first, woman second and i have to be okay with that, but they get mad when they're seen as a threat first and human second?? 

i am so. so. viscerally angry. for me, for every other woman/femme folk who understand what it feels like to be hunted. 

all i wanted a coffee and a donut.