It has been a long time since I have posted on Medium, primarily because I maintain a blog now on my business website and while I am not one to shy away from sharing my personal life on that blog, it is usually because I can somehow connect the dots to what I do as a professional organizer and move management specialist.

But this particular story/rant?

There is no connection other than I am a woman and would really hope no male client would ever speak to me or do anything in an inappropriate or threatening manner.

I do have clients who are mentally unstable but that never deters me from helping them unless my gut feels it will be a dangerous situation and, therefore I will not take them on as a client. Instead, I try to gently recommend they find a licensed healthcare provider to help them with their mental and emotional limitations before hiring anyone they are going to bring into their home for any type of assistance. It’s not only a way to protect my safety but also prevent any type of psychotic breakdown during a session with me and/or my team.

So while I wish I didn’t have to say it in 2024, here goes…
Men…stop behaving badly.

Seriously…it’s enough.

And if you think we are just being hysterical about what it feels like to have men still thinking they can control every part of our physical, mental and emotion being, let’s see how that works out come November 5th.

But this isn’t intended to be a political post.

It is simply about respect.

My 60+ year old female friends and I should not have to deal with your rude and crude behavior when we are simply trying to have fun on a beautiful summer night.

And it should go without saying, the age of any female in the world shouldn’t matter when it comes to how men treat us.

A few weeks ago I was at an outdoor venue in one of the suburban communities right outside of Boulder CO and a man who had been sitting with his friends, including a few women, came over to me while I was minding my own business dancing and said he had a bet going with his friends whether or not I was wearing underwear.

WTH???

I had on what I know was a very appropriate sundress…I mean, I am 61 and know how to dress appropriately. It wasn’t suggestive in the least way.

Again, remember, I am 61 not 21 or even 31…6–1!!!

And while I suppose there are some who would be flattered that a man would approach them at my age, there was nothing flattering about his question. It was crass and offensive, to say the least.

I consider myself to be a very fit and I suppose attractive woman who can go from crawling around in a hoarder’s house to cleaning myself up and being presentable for a Friday night out but, trust me, that doesn’t mean I am dressing or acting in a way to draw attention to myself. I mean, yes, I love to dance, but it shouldn’t be an invitation for anyone to be a total asshole just because my body is moving to a band’s beat.

The sad part was I had to quickly decide whether this man presented a real threat to me and answer in a way that would hopefully make him just go away and not feel he had a right to engage further. I responded simply “I am not sure that is really any of you business, but the answer is yes. Now, if you don’t mind I would really like to return to dancing with my friends.”

Yeah, it was before #mindyourowndamnbusiness came out of the Philadelphia rally a few days later but clearly I am not ever alone in terms of what I think men or our government should be able to say or do when it comes to being a woman.

Meanwhile, I thought that would be the end of that particular douchebag bothering me, but as I was walking back to my car with my friends later that evening, he was following us with the woman he was with even drunker than when he approached me an hour before making comments like “I can still see your ass shaking”.

Once again, I am freaking 61 years old and that really makes me way too old to be dealing with this “boys will be boys” nonsense.

This behavior is plan and simply scary…at any age.

It was scary when I was 7 years old and had to report a creepy man asking me all kinds of questions while watching Dr. Doolittle with my 9-year-old sister. Yes, kids, we used to be able to be dropped off to watch movies at a very young age back in the “old days”.

It was scary in college when I went to a frat party and my date tried to sexually assault me. Luckily he was too drunk to really follow through on his aggressive thoughts/actions but still completely scary behavior.

It was scary when a regional director I was working with in my 20s in New York told me he knew I had been partially responsible for him getting fired for embezzling from the company we both were working for and told me he was going to hurt me if I didn’t have sex with him. I reported the situation to the proper authorities and let them handle it from there.

And it was incredibly scary when a man I went on a few dates with last year had lied to me about taking opioids after surgery, something I understood the first week post-op. I am not heartless…I know some pain is simply too much for some people.

But his behavior was odd and I asked him several times if he was still on the meds 3 weeks later and he didn’t fess up until I called 911 to report what I thought might have been a stroke due to his slurred speech after denying he took any drugs. I had no choice but to cut him off when I found out the truth and yet he would start ranting/screaming at me via texts about how I was the one with problems and I needed help.

Yeah, whatever dude, denial will never help anyone heal. And I am fully aware I could have blocked him but if there is one thing I learned by dealing with people who are out of control you need to continue to let them say what they are going to say without responding back to have the proper documentation should things escalate to the point where you have to involve the police. The burden of proof continues to be on the victim.

I weigh 110–115 pounds on any given day and maybe if I trained to be a black belt I could one day kick a man’s ass physically but it’s unlikely that’s happening anytime in the near or distant future.

Nor do I want to carry a gun and no I don’t want to get into a debate about that.

Pepper spray? Sure, but I didn’t have it on me that night at the venue a few weeks ago. It’s usually on my key ring but I had taken it off when I took my car in for service a few days before and forgot to put it back on.

So with the previously mentioned drunk piss poor excuse for a human following me to my car I stopped walking after about 15 seconds, turned around, and just stared at him, hoping he would keep walking to his car without further incident. I heard the woman he was with mumble to him and hoped it was something like, “What are you doing? Cut it out,” because they did go ahead of us and got in their car without another word.

Fast forward to this past week when I was at a different venue listening to music and again minding my own business dancing with a friend when a man that she had gone out with twice and decided there were too many red flags was also there that night. It wasn’t the first time she had run into him around town since she told him she didn’t want to go out again. And every time he would try to engage with her but she always politely but firmly as possible asked him to leave her alone. He even went so far as to have the bartender send her a drink which she, of course, refused.

So when he approached her the other night yet again she told him without getting confrontational, “Please go away” and somewhat surprisingly he did turn and walk out of the place. When we decided to leave, though, about 10 or 15 minutes later, I saw that he was still lingering outside and as he approached us I stood between him and my friend, telling him very loudly “Back off or I will call the police”, showing him I already had my phone set to call 911.

He looked at me as if he saw no reason for me to react the way that I did but I kept repeating over and over “Back off”. After about a dozen times he did go to his car but we still had a block to walk to ours and I wanted him to leave before he could see where we were headed.

My friend, unfortunately, was somewhat distracted by a phone call with her son and wasn’t walking quite as fast as I would have preferred and the stalker dude clearly was waiting for us to get to our car while sitting in his with the lights off and the engine running. I had to decide if we should head back to the venue or just get in our car and hope he wouldn’t follow us when he suddenly turned on his lights and gunned it down the street toward us. I honestly thought he was going to run us over but instead he kept going and disappeared into the night.

Even though it seemed he was gone I still was watching in the rearview mirror to make sure he hadn’t turned around at some point and was positioning himself to follow us on our drive home. Yes, there was a car that did appear seemingly out of nowhere a few blocks later but it ended up turning onto a side street and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

Listen, I take my safety very seriously. It is rather public knowledge that I had to leave my marriage in 2015 due to the fact that my ex-husband’s son was/is mentally ill and had threatened to kill me. And I ultimately left FL in 2016 to escape having to look over my shoulder the rest of my life in constant fear. Since landing in Colorado I have maintained a confidential address just for an added barrier preventing him from re-entering my life even 2000 miles away.

And then I experienced a very triggering PTSD moment almost two years ago involving my former stepson who called me from jail, over 8 years since I had any contact with him or his father. I knew intellectually he couldn’t hurt me but emotionally? It was very very very scary.

That said, while his behavior was unsettling, to say the least, I am not going to necessarily lump him into the same category as the dude asking me whether I am wearing underwear. I truly have great compassion for anyone with a mental illness especially if they are being compliant with their meds and seeking the proper care. My mantra has been and always will be that no one wakes up in the morning wanting to be mentally ill any more than someone wants to have cancer or heart disease or kidney failure. We just have little tolerance in our society for the mentally ill and that isn’t always fair.

A drunk or drugged-out man-child though gets no compassion and zero passes nor does a completely sober one if he feels he is entitled to saying or doing anything that puts a woman on the defense.

I don’t have the answers to this very real problem and clearly it isn’t going to end as long as we have leaders in our country that still think of women as their personal property but please boys/men, stop behaving badly. We are mad as hell and, therefore, do not underestimate the power we derive from that anger anymore. We are literally and figuratively kicking and screaming all the way to the voting booth and beyond.

Our time has come to fight for what is right no matter how much you try to take away our rights whether you believe/accept it or not. And for the record, the next time a man asks me an inappropriate question he is going to get a much more appropriate response…a kick in the you know what. Hey, I may be considered old but don’t f$%K with me…EVER!