My friends and I walked into a party (TAP Screw Your Roommate), and I found myself in a pool of people. We walked into the room, making our way through the faceless globs of people to get our groove thang on.
Of course, as I would later be told by a male acquaintance, I had made a mistake by walking on the outside of the crowd to find a suitable place to dance. "Sketchy UMass guys," as they are popularly called, line themselves up on the outskirts of the dance floor and watch girls dance. One of these unidentified watchers hoped to discretely grab my goods. Yes, he was surprised when I turned around. Then, as if I didn't notice him there, he waved.
Now, I was wearing jeans, boots and a hooded t-shirt. Though I was looking fine, I wasn't "asking for trouble," as some men may wrongly say. I sent him a message of disapproval, the finger. His friend, another watcher in the darkness, pushed me and profanely told me to leave. My friends had by now been absorbed by the impersonal, dark blob and were probably "shaking their tail feathers" and cutting up all sorts of rugs, while I was either going to open a can of whoop-ass on these dark villains, Jackie Chan-style solo, or walk away.
Thus, I was forced to leave.
I quickly made my way through the crowd of people, looking around and wondering where the small girl in the dark black shirt that said, "SECURITY" might be. Perhaps, she too, had been swallowed by the blob. Finding her would be like playing a game of "Where's Waldo" in the dark.
While I was discussing the issue with some male acquaintances here at the College, one said, "Sometimes when you're flirting with a girl you have to get close to that line." First, of course, he asked me if I was all right and told me I should have called him. "I'm a black belt," he said.
A friend of mine went to a TAP earlier this year and also got her goods grabbed, this time by an Amherst guy. She turned around to see who it was and he gave her a look of condescension as if to say, "How dare your booty get in the way of these hands."
While "flirting," it's hard to discern where the line is. Perhaps there should be better security. An increased presence of authority at TAPs and parties advertised to other schools would help to clearly define the line that seems to get foggy when people are under the influence.
Some suggestions to help make the line clearer include but are not limited to:
• Uniforms that are not black and are visible in a dark room.
• More accessible security (if the guys that harassed me had seen a member of security nearby, it would have affected their behavior).
• Security that better ensures protection if anything physical does happen (if I had found the security girl, as cute as she was, she was definitely no more equipped than I to get the guys to back off).
None of this would really be necessary if that line weren't so blurry. One way to make it clearer-clarify.
Danielle loves music and is performing tonight in Davis basement.