Last night I felt violated.

Last night I was out with a couple of friends. As we were walking around the city we came across a group (4 or 5) of drunk, late 20s to early 30s men. As we approached they were saying things about “emos” and “lesbians”. This isn’t unusual; I don’t care about what people say to me, I can ignore them.

But as we walked past them, I was the closest to the group of men, one of them pinched my bum. This has never happened to me before. I didn’t react. After about 5 steps I wished I’d elbowed him. After about 10 steps I almost burst into tears.

I didn’t feel like I could tell my friends what had happened. I knew that as soon as I said anything I would burst into tears, and I didn’t want to do that. I was in public and I felt like my friends might see me as weak for a) not saying anything to the man and b) being so affected by it. So I kept quiet and tried to hold myself together, excused myself shortly afterwards and walked towards my bus stop.

On the way, fighting back tears, I messaged my boyfriend asking him to pick me up. He came, and as soon as I was in the car I burst into tears. We got back to his place and I had a cup of tea and a long, hot shower. I felt better, but still cried a couple of times before falling asleep.

I feel ok today. But I’m confused as to why I was so affected by what happened. I think it was the intent with which it was done, and how easily my defences were broken through. I have always thought myself to be fairly strong and resistant to this sort of harassment, but apparently I’m not. I felt vulnerable, violated, and unable to tell anyone in case I was overreacting. Up until this incident I've always felt very safe in my city at night, and I'm kind of annoyed at myself for allowing this person to have such an effect on how I feel.