To the man who grabbed me at the UGA vs. Mizzou game, I am not sorry at all for ruining your night.
Let’s set the scene. I’m with my family at the game. We’re up pretty high in the bleachers, which is already making me slightly uneasy, but I’m really excited to have my parents with me. It’s their first ever in-person college football experience. A man sits down by himself next to me and my mom asks if I want to switch seats with her. I think I’ll be fine, so I say no.
UGA scores their first touchdown of the night, and everyone around me is high-fiving. Suddenly, the man next to me is falling onto me, his arm reaching around my back and his hand landing on my breast. I think I said “please don’t touch me” as I jerked away, and my mom asked me if I was alright as I burst into tears. I switched seats with my dad, so I’m now sitting next to my mom and sister. My mom was rubbing my back, and I’m still crying. The man is angrily telling my father that he was falling and didn’t mean to touch me. “You grabbed her, it freaked her out,” my dad explained, maintaining his calm.
Apparently, my response to this man’s actions made him uncomfortable. Minutes later, after I’ve stopped crying, he gets up, yelling that his night has been ruined and that I’m being ridiculous. He won’t be staying at the game because of it. Obviously, he’d been getting so worked up in his own head about it, somehow I became the villain. I’m only five feet tall and about 120 pounds, and I think a grown man violating my private space and groping me is reason enough to cry.
He could have apologized and continued to sit in his seat, which may have been awkward, but maybe as the game went on the tension would have lessened. And, the upper bleachers had plenty of empty spaces. He easily could have switched sections and watched the game. Regardless of if he meant to touch my breast or not, he did. I think people around us realized that, and he did not like looking like the villain of the situation.
Mostly, I can’t believe that it was somehow my fault that I ruined this man’s night. Did he expect that I would sit calmly down in my seat, unbothered by his actions? He’s the one who was attending a football game alone, at least partially impaired, and he’s the one who grabbed me. The woman sitting above us remarked that she would have punched him, and maybe if I wasn’t so shocked, I would have thought to react differently than just to burst into tears and move away. I felt bad the rest of the game for dampening my family’s mood, but I realize that it’s not my fault but his.
I know I am not the only woman who has been touched by a drunk man at a sporting event. Stuff like this happens every single day, and women are expected to turn a blind eye. Even though I was with my family in a place I usually feel safe, it happened to me. It was a clear-cut situation where he was in the wrong, not me, and I wasn’t going to pretend nothing happened. My tears got him so worked up that he had to say I was being ridiculous and flee the scene. No matter which way you look at it, he was the perpetrator, and I will not apologize for the emotions I had in response. His actions and reaction was what was wrong with the situation- not mine. Any person who feels violated by someone else’s touch should be allowed to react and respond.
I know my experience could have been much worse, but it will still stick out as a horrible memory for me at Sanford Stadium. I keep thinking about where he touched me, and I’m not sorry at all that he did not get to watch the rest of the game because of what he did to me. I pray the next time I cry there, it will be because of a happy reason like a graduation. Moving forward, I’m going to try and remember this as the game I attended with my parents, not the game I was groped, but I wanted anyone who goes through a situation like this to know that they are not alone and that their response to it is valid and understandable. Don’t let others tell you how you should or should not react to an upsetting situation.
Cover photo from Unsplash.
30 Rock screencap from Pinterest.