The actual event that taught me to feel sorry for what the entirety of the female population has to put up with took place well over a decade ago (and involves me hightailing it down the road with a fear of sodomization forefront in my mind) whilst I was living in the UK.  But first I will relate what has brought this harrowing (but to you probably humorous) event back to mind.

The other day I was walking to work.  A woman in her mid 20’s was walking with her young son in a stroller.  She was dressed very neatly, looked like maybe she was a secretary in a law clerks office or something – business shirt, knee length skirt, jacket etc.  So dressed nicely but neatly – there was no overly ample amount of leg or other body part on show.

Around the corner came a fellow on a pissy scooter, looked like something one should be riding on the way to a picnic in southern France rather than around a country town in the bush.  He was dressed slovenly with a beard that would put Costa from Gardening Australia to shame.

He saw the woman, his eyes went wide and his mouth gaped a little.  He then uttered the following cry in her direction:

“Arghahagrhahghagagr!”

In fact it was less of a cry, more of a guttural gargle.  Apparently they phrase “Whey hey!” was too eloquent for him.  He continued on his little fricken scooter around the corner and was gone.

I saw the woman mentally sigh, straighten her shoulders, and then proceed about her day with her kid in tow.  I felt so sorry for this woman – all she was doing was walking with her son – she didn’t deserve to be gargled at in a lecherous fashion.  And what did the gargler expect to happen?  Was this woman going to throw her son – stroller and all – behind a bush, bare her breasts and run at him looking to copulate right there in the middle of the street?  I mean – what was the end result he was after?

You women have to put up with that kind of stupid crap all the time, and it makes me feel for you.  But what happened to me all those years ago made me feel it all the more.

I was in my mid 20’s and living in a small town called Grays in the Essex countryside in the UK.  As was my usual routine, on a Friday night I would catch a train for the 40 minute ride to London, party the night away with my mutual backpacker friends, then catch the last train home.  This of course left me feeling very seedy every Saturday morning.

This Saturday morning I’d pulled on some old clothes and left the house to walk the 10 minutes to the shops to grab some groceries.  Not long after leaving my front gate I walked past a fellow about my age, wearing a black mesh singlet and jeans.  ‘G’day’ I say in my friendly yet hungover Aussie drawl as I dragged my carcass off in search of food.

As I wandered the different stores, I must have walked past this fellow a good four or five times, always leaning against a wall.  I was not firing on all thrusters so didn’t think much of it.

On my way home there he was again, leaning against a wall.  He detached himself and wandered over to me with an outstretched hand.  “Hi” he said politely.

“Hi” I said and shook his hand for what turned out to be the limpest handshake I have ever endured.  This must have been done on purpose – no one has a handshake that limp!  It was like he had dropped a raw, deboned chicken breast into my hand!

After some initial pleasantries I began to walk home again and he kept pace, peppering me with questions about did I have a girlfriend (I made the stupid mistake of saying that I did but that she was back in Australia – damn you Truthful Trev!), where I lived, did I have housemates, would they be home now etc etc.  I was fending off this verbal barrage as best I could in my mentally sluggish state but this guy was getting more worked up and insistent with his questioning.   Apparently I must have taken this blokes fancy and he was not letting up in pursuit of his quarry.

Now let me preface what I’m about to say with this – I have NEVER had an issue with gay guys trying to pick me up.  It’s something that has happened to me quite a few times, especially since I have gay friends and we all used to hit the town together.  From bars in Melbourne to nightclubs in London (and even one naked guy in a tribal dancepit at Confest at 1am) I’ve been approached but it’s never phased me and I’ve never really understood why some guys get so angry about it.  Heck – someone finds you attractive and interesting – it’s a compliment!  And every other time it’s happened to me I’ve politely rebuffed their advances and it’s been all good.  In fact, now I’m approaching 40 it’s sadly been a few years since I got to enjoy that kind of compliment from someone of either sex.

But this guy was really starting to ring alarm bells, especially with him being insistent about coming home with me ‘to see where I lived’ and wanting to know ‘if it would be just us there’.  I stopped to look at him.

I looked at him and he looked at me and I realized this guy wanted to f*ck me.  He wanted to f*ck me very, very badly!  His eyes were wide and intense, his hands were grasping open and shut, his whole body looked poised to spring.  I realized that this guy was, with great difficulty, holding himself back from bending me over on the footpath and taking me right there and then!  I did not want to look down because there was NO WAY this guy was not sporting an erection! It made me feel really uncomfortable, I would have preferred the naked guy at Confest taking another crack! A smiling hippy, even one that’s nude, was way less threatening than this guy was coming across!

I made some hasty excuses, turned down a street that was not the one I actually lived on, then sprinted away into the grey English morning mist.

And this is how I came to have empathy for all women everywhere, because almost every woman on the planet has had to deal with this more than once in their lives.  It is very confronting to talk to someone and realize that they fiercely want to have sex with you right there and then – that you are basically a warm body for them to use to vent their sexual frustrations.  If it has never happened to you, you might be able to abstractly conceive of what it is like, but when it actually happens it is hard to describe how unnerving it really is (You can still laugh at the idea of me running like the wind to protect my back-door cherry though).

So guys, don’t gargle at women on the street.  And yes, the urge to mate can be overwhelming, I’ve felt it myself, like if you don’t shag right there and then something in you is going to shatter!  But tone it down, chill the hell out, and maybe it will happen.  But when you aim yourself at a stranger like you are an erection with legs, all you are going to do is ruin someone’s day.

And I suppose we must spare a thought for the now middle-aged mesh-singlet wearer, traipsing the English countryside at night, mournfully looking for his lost Aussie love… or his lost lust at any rate.

Got a story along a similar lines to share or wish to comment on the above?  Would love to read it in the comments section below!