What I was fearing came to pass today and the sky didn't come crashing down. For the past few days, I have been nervous about running into the two horrible women and their dog on my ride home from university. I didn't pass them on my ride today, and I was sitting on my favourite park bench when who swims into view but the two women and their dog. The strode up to me with fire in the eyes and cusses on their lips and started threatening and abusing me. It was all I could do to stop myself from screaming back at them, but I did. In fact, I was quite calm compared to them. When they tried to compare their dog to my nephews, I knew that they were slightly nuts. At the end of their diatribe, they told me to apologize to the dog. I refused, saying that I would have apologized if they hadn't threatened and abused me. They said I deserved it, to which I replied that it just showed what kind of people they were. They walked away in a huff and I went back to staring into space, with a serene expression on my face for their benefit.
I am quite proud of how I handled the situation. I didn't allow the situation to escalate but neither was I cowed down. Their abuses were water off a duck's back. Once I have decided not to engage with someone, it really doesn't matter what they say to me personally. Maybe if they had something racially offensive, it would have been different. Racial abuse turns you into a representative for your race and it offends on a different level than personal abuse. The women were large and aggressive but I didn't feel physically threatened at any point. If it had been a man or men in their place the equation would have been very different, I suppose. We are programmed not to see women as threatening.
I was glad this encounter happened sooner rather than later. I felt strong. Accepting your fear is the first step towards facing your fear, I guess, instead of trying to reason your way out of fear. Of course, I am not saying reasoning is useless. But fear does have an irrational element to it which doesn't respond to reason.
I am quite proud of how I handled the situation. I didn't allow the situation to escalate but neither was I cowed down. Their abuses were water off a duck's back. Once I have decided not to engage with someone, it really doesn't matter what they say to me personally. Maybe if they had something racially offensive, it would have been different. Racial abuse turns you into a representative for your race and it offends on a different level than personal abuse. The women were large and aggressive but I didn't feel physically threatened at any point. If it had been a man or men in their place the equation would have been very different, I suppose. We are programmed not to see women as threatening.
I was glad this encounter happened sooner rather than later. I felt strong. Accepting your fear is the first step towards facing your fear, I guess, instead of trying to reason your way out of fear. Of course, I am not saying reasoning is useless. But fear does have an irrational element to it which doesn't respond to reason.
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