(Untitled)

[nicholii]

I am no good at apologies. I never feel that I can completely convince people that I am sincere, and that pains me. Apologies normally seem self-indulgent anyway, a manner of making yourself feel better without actually fixing the issue. But in this situation I feel that I can only apologise and hope that I learn from my mistakes

Comments

[tevriel]

Important things to remember in life also include that Thatcher is a douchebag.

I can't pretend what you said didn't hurt. It did, a lot. Bad things happened and you made me feel worse about it, which was deeply upsetting and I was very upset with you - I would perhaps have yelled at you a lot had I not known that Chas was going to talk to you about it.

However.

I forgive you. Which, because I'm not sure you've ever been through something like this, means: no, really, I forgive you. We're totally okay, I won't hold this against you at all, because you know what you did wrong and why, and you have acknowledged your wrongness and your regret, which means we're cool. (But if you do it again, I'll be much more angry and less likely to forgive - fair warning.)

Chas and Vel have told you most of what I think really needs to be said - I will say this, though.

If something like this is upsetting for you to hear, and does make you cry - then saying *that* is okay. Expressing empathy is what helps. You may see that's what the other replies were - I'm not sure it's coincidence that the other responses are all from women, since it's a situation where men might have difficulty knowing how to respond appropriately, I don't know. But if you had just said, "That's terrible. I'm crying. I'm so sorry that happened," I would have been touched and it would have helped.

Sometimes, just your feelings are okay. And then, if you wanted, you could have talked about the social problems behind it in your own journal, although, speaking now more as a feminist, seriously, including what's wrong with the socialisation of *men* here is more important than that of women.

And one final note - I'm checking LJ a bit irregularly now, if you're posting an apology to someone in public, sending them a note letting them know might be a good idea, just in general - I did see this because I checked after you said that you would apologise, but not in reply there, and I didn't get an e-mail or anything.

*hugs*

[greyreviews]

"Important things to remember in life also include that Thatcher is a douchebag."

Prove it.

Oh and assuming any of your tale is true, the closeness of contact suggests you should be able to identify the attacker, the SMS to your phone is a method of tracing the individual and between the two that is enough for the police to at least investigate and question them.

Unlikely to be enough for a conviction, but as a significant percentage of these sort of attacks are power based, having the cops show up on his door asking pointed questions is typically enough to scare the shit out of that sort of person. Let them know they will be identified and tracked down before they develop a sense of security and attitude of "hey I can get away with this!" and it escalates to more than unwanted touching.

You are the victim at the time when it occurs, afterwards the only person who can make you the victim is yourself by doing nothing about it.

Im sure you will have plenty of excuses, but at the end of the day every moment you do nothing this person is in the clear and emboldened by his success.