Facebook has a magical way of bringing people you thought you had put behind in your life to creep right back. Such was the case with a guy from college who attempted to sexually assault me (below).
He then sent me a message saying, "It's been a long time. How have you been?"
It's been a long time because I didn't want anything to do with him.
I'm not even sure why I'm writing about this tonight. It just bothers me that he had the balls to message me again after so many years. I thought that with college graduation, I could just lay him to rest in the graveyard of unpleasant experiences and memories from that time period.
We used to be friends. What had happened was this - I was in undergrad, and he was a graduate student. I went to his apartment to pick up a sweater I left behind at a house party. His roommates were home. He asked me to follow him to his room, as my sweater was there. I didn't think twice about it because I was 19, shy, naive, and had no expectation that anything foul was going to happen.
His room was dimly lit. He locked the door behind us. He then said he had downloaded some new Arabic music and asked me if I would like to hear it. I thought that the lighting was odd, but again, I didn't think anything of it. He told me to sit down. I sat down on the edge of his bed. He started the music. It was a slow song. At the time, I was studying Arabic. I was listening closely to the words of the song to see how much I could understand.
He sat down next to me, really close to me. I started to feel uncomfortable, but I kept my cool thinking that nothing would happen. Stuff like that only happened to other people. He started to scoot closer to me. He got close to my neck. I'll never forget the smell of his breath in that moment.
"I think you're really hot."
I scooted away and said that I just wanted to finish listening to the song. He moved in again, this time grabbing my arm and pulling me towards him. I felt so stunned that I didn't know what to do. I had never been in a situation like that before. I pulled away.
Then, he scared me. He grabbed me much more forcefully, grabbed me by the face, and said "Kiss me." He then pulled my head to his, and he forced me to have the most disgusting kiss of my life. I still remember what his lips felt like. I hated those lips.
I pulled away and told him to stop. He grabbed me again, pushed me down on the bed, and got on top of me. He started forcing my legs apart and rubbing himself on me. "Just give this a chance. You'll like it." I started panicking. I couldn't believe this was happening. I didn't scream yet. I just kept saying "No" and tried to wiggle away. He wouldn't listen to me and he grabbed my arms even tighter and pushed my arms down harder into the mattress. He switched his hands and manipulated my arms so that with one hand he was holding both of my arms down and with the other he tried to unbutton my jeans. I raised my voice and yelled "STOP!" One of his roommates knocked and asked if we were okay. He got off of me. He said we were just having an argument.
I took the opportunity to grab my sweater, dart for the door, unlock the door, and rush out of the apartment. I remember feeling embarrassed when I rushed out of the apartment because I felt that my hair was so messed up and it probably looked like we were messing around. The only time I ever saw him again was at parties or around campus. He would say hello. I usually said hi and then acted like I had to rush to class, answer a friend's phone call, or any other assortment of excuses.
I didn't call the police. Looking back, I wish I had, but at the time, I didn't think anyone would believe me. I was just a 19 year old undergrad student. I also didn't think it was a big deal because I thought I was partly to blame for what happened. I didn't think that it was sexual assault.
So here he is, 13 years later, sending me a friend request on Facebook. I didn't respond to his message. I deleted his request. I don't like to remember, and I wish I could forget.
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