I’m doing some grocery shopping, standing at the candy aisle next to a young woman who is also trying to decide which candy to get. Some twenty-something guy walks into the aisle and stands WAY too close to her.

Customer: “Hey, Chicky!”

Woman: *Turns to me* “They sell live chickens in here and one got out?”

Customer: “Hey, Chicky, I’m talking to you!”

Woman: “Ooooh. Oh, young man, you must need glasses. I am not, in fact, a baby chicken.”

Customer: “…what?”

Woman: “You just called me a baby chicken.”

Customer: “What you on about? I’m just tryna get with a fine girl like you.”

Woman: “I’m not a girl.”

Customer: *Shocked* “You a trans b****?”

Woman: “No, I’m thirty-six. Why are you trying to date children? You could be arrested for that.”

Customer: “…what?”

Woman: “I am a woman.” *Points at him* “Stop traumatizing children by trying to date them!”

Customer: “Wait… What?!”

The woman then gets a pad of sticky notes and a pen out of her purse, scribbles something on the top note, and slaps it on the guy’s forehead.

Woman: “And here’s your prescription for some of that. You can get that filled anywhere.”

She walked away. The guy stood there dumbstruck long enough for me to read the note. It said, “A life. A grip. A dose of reality.”

CONTENT WARNING: Eating Disorders, Body Shaming

I’m a woman who has a long history of anorexia. Even thirty-plus years on from the worst of it, I will still fall back into not eating for weeks if under a lot of stress.

My coworker has gotten into some mindset that, because I’m fat, I require his tips on dieting, and he has taken to criticising everything I eat. Even salads (which I love) have him lecturing me on how I must be hiding a load of junk food in my bag and am secretly bingeing on it. The constant critiques push me into not eating at all during the day.

Eventually, I lose it.

Me: “Please stop talking about my food and my weight. I don’t appreciate it, and you’re doing a lot of harm.”

Coworker: “I’m just saying, you’ll never find a husband or have kids at your weight.”

Me: “I’ve been married for over eighteen years, and I don’t want kids, but again, this is none of your business. Please, please stop.”

Coworker: “If me telling you how to stop being a lard-a** is damaging your mental health, then you’re just stupid.”

Me: “Seriously, you need to stop. Further criticisms of my body will mean an official complaint.”

He refused to stop and started harassing me about joining a gym. I went to our boss and Human Resources, but they did nothing.

Three weeks later, I passed out at work after not eating anything for several days. [Coworker] said it was “a step in the right direction” and that anorexia was actually a good thing for fat people.

After more therapy for my eating disorder, I took to telling him loudly in the office to leave me the f*** alone. So, now he has a reputation for being a creepy guy who won’t stop harassing a woman. As it turns out, that’s more damaging to his career than being fat is to mine. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it.

Related:
Not Your Body, Not Your Business

I’m a transwoman in her thirties, and I work at a casino. For whatever reason, most people assume I’m a guy, and since I’m probably never going to see these people again, I don’t usually bother correcting them unless they’re a regular.

One night, near the end of my shift, I assist a very drunk middle-aged man who has won a jackpot. I collect his information and return with the money after a few minutes.

I want to give him his money, but he’s paying too much attention to the people playing next to him to notice me. Eventually, he sees me, and I’m able to get him to sign the paperwork so I can give him his winnings.

Apparently, he sees that I’ve painted my nails, and he compliments them.

Man: “It’s great that we can be more open about ourselves. It was a lot harder when I was younger. I’m bi, and I feel like I wasted my youth not being able to be open about my sexuality. Do you have a boyfriend?”

Not thinking anything of it, I say no. Before I go return his paperwork — which is still in the clipboard in my hand — he asks for a hug. I’m not really comfortable with this, but I’m not comfortable with confrontation or telling people no, either, so I agree. Some guests (mostly the women) get excited and huggy, so it’s not too strange. I agree, and he hugs me… and starts rubbing my back a little.

Ewwwww… but I’m at work, so I have to be polite. He lets go, I congratulate him again, and I run off.

I basically stay away from that whole area, but he manages to see me anyway. He starts talking about how great it is to see someone like me (a “gay man”, I assume), and how it was harder when he was younger and it wasn’t safe to be openly gay. I start to lend a sympathetic ear, thinking maybe he just wants someone to talk to and thinking that the experiences of our elders are worth listening to.

He’s talking, kind of rambling, and he mentions his room number. At this point, I realize he’s hitting on me. I very politely try to turn him down, but I think he’s too wasted to understand me.

I start backing up a little, but he starts coming forward a little. Eventually, I’m next to a low wall next to a row of games, with him (thankfully not me!) toward the corner. And he’s still talking. I mention that I’m not really interested in hooking up with anyone right now, hoping he’ll get the hint (is that even a hint?) that I don’t want to hook up with him. He entreats me not to “be that way” and waste my youth not hooking up with… random strangers, I guess?

He’s telling me that I’m a good-looking guy, so I try to tell him that I’m not really a guy. Really, I don’t want to out myself as trans to some rando, but maybe he’ll stop hitting on me if he knows I’m not a guy? He doesn’t seem to get it, and whether he’s gay or bi, I doubt it’d matter.

He notices that I’m kind of backing away, with this low wall between us. He tells me that I shouldn’t be uncomfortable, because he’s a great guy, etc, etc. But I can’t get away; not only do I have to be polite because I’m working, but I don’t know how this drunk is going to react if I try to be sterner.

But none of that is the worst bit. No, the worst part is when he tells me, explicitly, what sorts of sex acts he enjoys and how he’s so good at them.

I’m screaming inside, praying for death — his or mine, I’m not picky right now. Just somebody, end this.

Finally, the time has come for me to put my stuff away and go home. Of course, I’ve mentioned multiple times before that I should get back to work, but he didn’t care. “Oh, yes, of course,” he’d say, before starting right up again.

But now I can’t wait. I already got in a little trouble for clocking out late a few days ago, so I’m not about to leave late again. I excuse myself one more time, telling him I HAVE to go now, and run off. Maybe I should have done that earlier, but I’m really not used to that kind of situation.

On my way out, though, I decide to warn one of my coworkers about him. My coworker’s a good-looking guy himself, who sometimes wears nail polish and earrings, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the guest tried to hit on him, too — though maybe the fact that my coworker has a wife might deter him… maybe.

My coworker has seen the guy, so he knows whom I’m talking about and offers to help me out if I need rescuing again.

I go home, hoping that’s the end of it.

But it isn’t. The very next day, I see the guy again. This time, however, he’s sober and much easier to deal with. He apologizes for his behavior, explaining that people kept buying him drinks and he kept drinking them until he’d had too much.

From now on, I’m not hugging anyone I don’t want to. My therapist approves.

That took a while to write, but trust me, the actual experience felt like it lasted forever.

My dad owns a small candy store in a small town. I work there part-time to make some money while I’m at school. There is no such thing as corporate, which means he is completely at liberty to refuse service to someone who’s acting entitled, exhibiting bigotry, or generally just being an a**.

My favourite demonstration from him happened when I was working the counter. A woman stepped in, saw me (a teenage boy) working the counter, and started asking for a discount while making very suggestive comments and motions that I’m not comfortable recounting in detail.

My dad overheard from the back room, emerged in a rage, and told this woman to f*** off.

Woman: “You can’t do this to me! I’m a paying customer!”

Dad: “No, you’re not. You’re an a**hole causing trouble with my employee, and he does not get paid to put up with your bulls***.”

Woman: “I’ve spent—”

Dad: “I don’t care how many times you’ve been here, or how much money you think you’ve spent here. If you’re in here right now, that’s because we have something you want. That means I’m the one in power.”

The woman stormed out, and my dad told me to grab a snack and take five.

I’m the author of this story, and I’ve shared the following story as a comment on this story. The way the guy was schmoozing the ladies in said story reminded me of my sister’s one and only attempt at having a sisters’ fancy night out.

It was 2013. I was nineteen, and my sister decided to celebrate my getting a job at an airline by going to this fancy hotel restaurant — think a posh setting with a snobby maître d’ where you had to make a reservation a week in advance.

We put on our nicest dresses and went to the restaurant. During the meal, these two guys in fancy suits, who looked to be in their twenties, started chatting us up. They offered to buy us drinks and pay for the meal, and they invited us to continue at the hotel’s bar. (You can probably guess the rest.)

I decided to nip this in the bud.

Me: *Showing them my wedding ring* “I have a one-year-old at home.”

That was the moment when one of them turned to my sister with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in his voice.

Guy: “Congratulations on your first grandchild, ma’am.”

His buddy gave him a discreet but shocked look, they walked away, and I started laughing at what had just happened, which my sister still hasn’t forgiven me for.

We look quite similar and my sister is twelve years older than me, so I guess it’s theoretically possible for her to be my mom, and the men were hitting on us both, but my sister still doesn’t find it funny that those two might have been going for a mother-daughter duo.