kindness is not consent

being a woman in today’s world is something that is incredibly difficult. standards and expectations are automatically placed on you from the moment you’re born, ones you never asked for but are somehow expected to navigate and manage anyway.

if you don’t know me, a fun fact about me is that i am a people pleaser through and through. i never want someone to be mad, upset, or feel any kind of negative emotion toward me. i am friendly to a fault, even when i should probably be more cautious of people. it’s something i am working on, but that’s not really what this post is about.

so i’ll cut right to it instead of slowly building up to it: just because a woman is nice and polite to you does not mean we are:

• interested in you
• interested in any form of relationship with you (including friendship)
• interested in sleeping with you

i am a bartender on the weekends, and part of my job is to be kind and friendly. however, a recent situation has put things into a clearer perspective for me and has made me think more cautiously in situations where i really shouldn’t have to.

the nashville bar scene is incredibly small, even though the city is oversaturated with bars, i’m referring more to the hospitality community itself. there was a guest who came in fairly often (although “regular” honestly feels like too strong of a word) that i had a good bartender/guest relationship with. this guest also was/is known throughout the nashville scene and that added an extra layer of having to “keep the peace” when i should not have to worry about that. that being said, everything with this person felt completely normal until suddenly it didn’t.

a few summers ago he told me he had feelings for me, and that if an opportunity ever arose where i was single again, i should give him a chance. as i was processing what he was saying in the message i had received my immediate thought was, “what the hell? this person genuinely only knew me through surface-level interactions at the bar and the occasional random conversation on social media.” it was weird, and it was inappropriate, especially considering he knew i was in a loving and committed relationship at that time.

sadly, a few years later the relationship i was in ended, but i was nowhere near ready to start dating again and honestly dating wasn’t even on my mind. that same man reappeared, and this time i shut it down more explicitly. i made it clear there were no romantic feelings from my end and there never would be. i apologized in case my kindness was misconstrued, which i shouldn’t have had to do but, alas, welcome to the world of being a woman!

it turned into a back and forth conversation where i was being gaslit and being told that i actually had feelings for him when i absolutely did not. and quite frankly, it pissed me the fuck off. to have a man tell me how i was feeling after i had been explicitly clear was astounding. and this is the part that pisses me off the most: women are constantly expected to be kind, warm, and accommodating. it’s almost ingrained in us from the time we are little girls. be polite. be nice. don’t be rude. don’t make someone uncomfortable. but the moment that kindness is misinterpreted, somehow we are the ones who end up apologizing for it. we apologize if someone thinks we were flirting when we were just being friendly. we apologize if someone reads too far into a normal conversation. we apologize for “leading someone on” when all we were doing was existing as a decent and kind human being.

unfortunately, this isn’t the first time i have experienced this, and sadly it won’t be the last. i have had moments in various workplaces where jokes were made that completely crossed a line. comments that are meant to be brushed off as “just joking,” but still leave you standing there uncomfortable and vulnerable of how you’re being perceived. moments where you laugh it off awkwardly because that’s what women are conditioned to do- keep the peace, don’t make it weird, and don’t cause a scene.

i can wholeheartedly say that i will no longer feel bad for calling a man out on their behavior that makes me feel uncomfortable. i will not be apologizing for standing my ground either when it is warranted.

if you are a woman that is/has experienced this, i am so sorry. i hope that you stand up for yourself and do not apologize for doing so.

if you are a man reading this: do better and get over your ego.

“you have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.”
— america ferrara, barbie

and that’s exactly why women are done apologizing for other people’s assumptions.