feeling scared and small
November 7, 2014 2:11 PM Subscribe
I had a pretty terrible encounter with an incredibly aggressive person today. I feel a bit shaky and fragile. How do I cope when I deserve what happened to me?
While I was incredibly drunk last night, I hid my friend's roommate's watch to give me an excuse to give it back and talk to him. (We've had sex before but I'm a bit shy around him and in my inebriated state, this seemed like a brilliant plan. Clearly it wasn't.) It was a silly idea, it wasn't funny and I'm embarrassed that I thought it would be funny. It was one of those things that seems logical when you're drunk but I am well aware of how irredeemably childish and wrong it was to do what I did. I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice. I make absolutely no excuses for my actions.
He found out from another roommate that I hid it in my bag and he retrieved it.
After seeing him this morning, he began shouting at me to fuck off and get out of his house. I apologised profusely. He grabbed my bag and threw it out the front door. He kept stepping up to me in such an aggressive manner that I kept having to step backwards. At one point, he pushed me. It wasn't super hard or anything but I was startled that he put his hands on me. He is 6'6 and quite athletic. I am 5'3' and 110 pounds. I was terrified. My friend walked me home and told me that his roommate overreacted. However I understand this guy's anger because what I did was so incredibly stupid and senseless, but I'm still feeling shaken after the level of aggression he displayed and especially at the fact that he got physical, if only in a very minor way.
I'm still shaky and scared. I don't even want to leave my house. This incident triggered memories of my sexual assault and of a relationship where my partner at the time would pin me down and put his hand over my mouth if we were arguing and I was being too loud. I feel violated but I also know that I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision.
How do I feel okay again when I know I brought this on myself?
While I was incredibly drunk last night, I hid my friend's roommate's watch to give me an excuse to give it back and talk to him. (We've had sex before but I'm a bit shy around him and in my inebriated state, this seemed like a brilliant plan. Clearly it wasn't.) It was a silly idea, it wasn't funny and I'm embarrassed that I thought it would be funny. It was one of those things that seems logical when you're drunk but I am well aware of how irredeemably childish and wrong it was to do what I did. I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice. I make absolutely no excuses for my actions.
He found out from another roommate that I hid it in my bag and he retrieved it.
After seeing him this morning, he began shouting at me to fuck off and get out of his house. I apologised profusely. He grabbed my bag and threw it out the front door. He kept stepping up to me in such an aggressive manner that I kept having to step backwards. At one point, he pushed me. It wasn't super hard or anything but I was startled that he put his hands on me. He is 6'6 and quite athletic. I am 5'3' and 110 pounds. I was terrified. My friend walked me home and told me that his roommate overreacted. However I understand this guy's anger because what I did was so incredibly stupid and senseless, but I'm still feeling shaken after the level of aggression he displayed and especially at the fact that he got physical, if only in a very minor way.
I'm still shaky and scared. I don't even want to leave my house. This incident triggered memories of my sexual assault and of a relationship where my partner at the time would pin me down and put his hand over my mouth if we were arguing and I was being too loud. I feel violated but I also know that I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision.
How do I feel okay again when I know I brought this on myself?
Part of your reaction is purely physical, because of the adrenaline rush and then comedown (and the hangover). That part will pass - drink some water, and eat something. You can try distraction (TV, podcast, etc.) to let your brain spend time doing something else than ruminating.
As for the rest.... What he did was wrong, but that's his to deal with. For your own actions, don't beat yourself up, but do deal with the fact that you used alcohol as a way to let yourself do something you know you shouldn't have; consider if this is a pattern. And since this incident did trigger some traumatic memories and reactions, google [your city + crisis hotline] and see if there's some short-term counseling you can get.
posted by rtha at 2:21 PM on November 7, 2014 [12 favorites]
As for the rest.... What he did was wrong, but that's his to deal with. For your own actions, don't beat yourself up, but do deal with the fact that you used alcohol as a way to let yourself do something you know you shouldn't have; consider if this is a pattern. And since this incident did trigger some traumatic memories and reactions, google [your city + crisis hotline] and see if there's some short-term counseling you can get.
posted by rtha at 2:21 PM on November 7, 2014 [12 favorites]
You did something that may have frustrated or annoyed him but was not threatening or would have caused him fear beyond concern over an inanimate object.
He caused you to be afraid for your physical safety.
These two things are not equal. He was way out of line. Please do not think you "had it coming" or deserved that in any way. Telling you to leave or, hell, cutting off all contact with you is inside the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Physically threatening you was not. I'm sorry you are dealing with this.
posted by _Mona_ at 2:24 PM on November 7, 2014 [29 favorites]
He caused you to be afraid for your physical safety.
These two things are not equal. He was way out of line. Please do not think you "had it coming" or deserved that in any way. Telling you to leave or, hell, cutting off all contact with you is inside the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Physically threatening you was not. I'm sorry you are dealing with this.
posted by _Mona_ at 2:24 PM on November 7, 2014 [29 favorites]
I feel violated but I also know that I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision.
You didn't deserve to be pushed and threatened. If he was upset about what you did then he could have explained that calmly. Imagine if a friend or sister was telling you that this had happened to them. Would you think that they deserved his reaction? If he had hidden your watch would you have pushed him in retaliation?
Something to consider, you mentioned that you found this incident triggering because of previous abuse. Could that be where some of the feelings of shame are coming from?
I have had incidents that have triggered very similar feelings for me and it does fade with time. Please be kind to yourself.
posted by Laura_J at 2:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
You didn't deserve to be pushed and threatened. If he was upset about what you did then he could have explained that calmly. Imagine if a friend or sister was telling you that this had happened to them. Would you think that they deserved his reaction? If he had hidden your watch would you have pushed him in retaliation?
Something to consider, you mentioned that you found this incident triggering because of previous abuse. Could that be where some of the feelings of shame are coming from?
I have had incidents that have triggered very similar feelings for me and it does fade with time. Please be kind to yourself.
posted by Laura_J at 2:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
How do I feel okay again when I know I brought this on myself?
You start by giving up the notion that you brought this on yourself in the first place, because you absolutely didn't.
You did something kinda dumb when you were drunk. That is NOTHING. Every person alive has done something dumb while they were drunk.
He, on the other hand, assaulted you (by shoving you), berated you, and threw your stuff out the door. The fact that you did a dumb prank does not justify his reaction at all, and what you deserve from him is an apology.
Seriously, blaming yourself for the way he reacted is like saying that an eight-year-old kid who stole a candy bar from the newsstand on the corner deserves to be incarcerated for 15 years. The fact that you did something imperfect does not at all justify what he did.
He treated you cruelly. You can feel okay again by insisting he apologize for it. Or speaking with your friend to get him to make the peace if you can't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:28 PM on November 7, 2014 [16 favorites]
You start by giving up the notion that you brought this on yourself in the first place, because you absolutely didn't.
You did something kinda dumb when you were drunk. That is NOTHING. Every person alive has done something dumb while they were drunk.
He, on the other hand, assaulted you (by shoving you), berated you, and threw your stuff out the door. The fact that you did a dumb prank does not justify his reaction at all, and what you deserve from him is an apology.
Seriously, blaming yourself for the way he reacted is like saying that an eight-year-old kid who stole a candy bar from the newsstand on the corner deserves to be incarcerated for 15 years. The fact that you did something imperfect does not at all justify what he did.
He treated you cruelly. You can feel okay again by insisting he apologize for it. Or speaking with your friend to get him to make the peace if you can't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:28 PM on November 7, 2014 [16 favorites]
Did he think you were stealing it? Or was it clear you were hiding it temporarily?
posted by festivus at 2:34 PM on November 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
posted by festivus at 2:34 PM on November 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
1. This entire event tells you that this is someone you don't want to talk to, let alone have sex with, again...
right? 2. To recapture your sense of agency and reinforce your self worth, I suggest you write him a letter detailing why his over-the-top reaction was so very wrong and such a violation of your personhood. Get it all out: every bit. Done? Good. Rip it up or burn it. You're not going to send it to him because 3. This entire event tells you that this is someone you don't want to talk to, let alone have sex with, again...
right?
posted by carmicha at 2:35 PM on November 7, 2014 [25 favorites]
right? 2. To recapture your sense of agency and reinforce your self worth, I suggest you write him a letter detailing why his over-the-top reaction was so very wrong and such a violation of your personhood. Get it all out: every bit. Done? Good. Rip it up or burn it. You're not going to send it to him because 3. This entire event tells you that this is someone you don't want to talk to, let alone have sex with, again...
right?
posted by carmicha at 2:35 PM on November 7, 2014 [25 favorites]
What? Nothing that happened here is your fault, you didn't "bring this on yourself", divorce yourself of that notion.
This guy, full stop, acting like a total fucking diaper babby.
This is way, way WAY beyond any legitimate kind of anger to have at this. Being annoyed, even really annoyed, and possibly even yelling a bit and calling you a drunk idiot would have been within the range of normal. Everything beyond and after that is not only verbally abusive but assault. He doesn't get to touch you, or shove you, or threaten you.
You did nothing to justify this or bring it on yourself, this guy is an asshole, and a violent asshole. Just don't ever fucking associate with him again, and be happy he isn't more intertwined in your life.
How do I feel okay again when I know I brought this on myself?
Accept that you did not bring this on yourself. You did something really mildly stupid and he reacted like a giant diaper babby. He literally assaulted you. This is not normal, and nothing you did justifies this or "brought it" on you. Anyone who disagrees or goes "well yea, but.." is an asshole and not worth listening to.
posted by emptythought at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
This guy, full stop, acting like a total fucking diaper babby.
This is way, way WAY beyond any legitimate kind of anger to have at this. Being annoyed, even really annoyed, and possibly even yelling a bit and calling you a drunk idiot would have been within the range of normal. Everything beyond and after that is not only verbally abusive but assault. He doesn't get to touch you, or shove you, or threaten you.
You did nothing to justify this or bring it on yourself, this guy is an asshole, and a violent asshole. Just don't ever fucking associate with him again, and be happy he isn't more intertwined in your life.
How do I feel okay again when I know I brought this on myself?
Accept that you did not bring this on yourself. You did something really mildly stupid and he reacted like a giant diaper babby. He literally assaulted you. This is not normal, and nothing you did justifies this or "brought it" on you. Anyone who disagrees or goes "well yea, but.." is an asshole and not worth listening to.
posted by emptythought at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
The first thing to remember is that you did something which would never have done worse than inconvenience the guy and which was intended (drunkenly) in a spirit of play. And it wasn't a prank on a stranger that you pulled just to see them confounded, either. Sure, it was a bit annoying, but in the grand scheme of Things People Do While Drunk, it was very small potatoes. In the now, do your best to talk yourself down - remind yourself that the sun will rise tomorrow, almost everyone who has ever lived has done something cringe-worthy, and your value is not determined by playing one silly little prank. One silly little prank does not wipe out all your good qualities or your place in the world.
I will just relay this anecdote - I did something foolish that was worse and more thoughtless than what you did, and I did it completely sober....and went into an awful shame-depression-spiral that was so bad that one of my friends basically begged me to go to therapy while saying, as people are saying here, that what I did really was totally disproportionate to the kind of shame I was feeling. Therapy helped enormously. For Bad Personal Experiences reasons, I am inclined to be the kind of person who blames themselves way too much for small stuff and who tends to completely overlook anything other people do to me, and your anecdote really resonates with me. Pre-therapy, I would totally have been all "sure this was scary but I made this person angry with my stupid actions".
Another thing - the Actual Bad Thing that I did, that actually caused legitimate pain to people who had done nothing to deserve it, well, that thing....everyone forgave me, saw it as the mistake that it had been, and moved on. I had a much harder time forgiving myself than anyone else had forgiving me. And I think that your silly little prank is the same way. If a friend told me "Oh, I hid my crush's watch while I was sloshed so I'd have an excuse to give it back to him and talk", it would barely even register as wrong, more foolish and maybe too-much-influenced-by-the-movies.
If you find that you are easily shamed when you commit minor mistakes or errors of judgment, it is totally worth trying to unpack that.
posted by Frowner at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [28 favorites]
I will just relay this anecdote - I did something foolish that was worse and more thoughtless than what you did, and I did it completely sober....and went into an awful shame-depression-spiral that was so bad that one of my friends basically begged me to go to therapy while saying, as people are saying here, that what I did really was totally disproportionate to the kind of shame I was feeling. Therapy helped enormously. For Bad Personal Experiences reasons, I am inclined to be the kind of person who blames themselves way too much for small stuff and who tends to completely overlook anything other people do to me, and your anecdote really resonates with me. Pre-therapy, I would totally have been all "sure this was scary but I made this person angry with my stupid actions".
Another thing - the Actual Bad Thing that I did, that actually caused legitimate pain to people who had done nothing to deserve it, well, that thing....everyone forgave me, saw it as the mistake that it had been, and moved on. I had a much harder time forgiving myself than anyone else had forgiving me. And I think that your silly little prank is the same way. If a friend told me "Oh, I hid my crush's watch while I was sloshed so I'd have an excuse to give it back to him and talk", it would barely even register as wrong, more foolish and maybe too-much-influenced-by-the-movies.
If you find that you are easily shamed when you commit minor mistakes or errors of judgment, it is totally worth trying to unpack that.
posted by Frowner at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [28 favorites]
This doesn't excuse him touching you in anger in any way, but might he have thought you were stealing his watch rather than hiding it for mischievous/prank purposes? Again, no excuse for physically intimidating you, but it might ever so slightly "explain" his reaction.
You know your intent and that in hindsight it wasn't a great choice, so please try to lighten up on yourself. Anyone who claims they've never done something dumb they wish they could take back is either a psychopath or a liar. If at all possible, try to reframe this as "wow, I'm so glad I know this about this person I thought I wanted to spend more time with." If the end result is you get a guy who would react this way out of your life, then you have dodged a bullet.
posted by cecic at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
You know your intent and that in hindsight it wasn't a great choice, so please try to lighten up on yourself. Anyone who claims they've never done something dumb they wish they could take back is either a psychopath or a liar. If at all possible, try to reframe this as "wow, I'm so glad I know this about this person I thought I wanted to spend more time with." If the end result is you get a guy who would react this way out of your life, then you have dodged a bullet.
posted by cecic at 2:38 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
I don't agree that you deserved this treatment. Your plan was not clearly thought out, but others are right (including your friend/the roommate) about how this guy overreacted tremendously. Based on your description, this dude is an asshole.
This incident triggered memories of my sexual assault and of a relationship where my partner at the time would pin me down and put his hand over my mouth if we were arguing and I was being too loud. I feel violated but I also know that I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision
This seems very germane: from a first blush, it's hard not to connect the evaluation ("I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision") with your history of abuse. This sort of belief is frequently the result of emotional manipulation, i.e., gaslighting, and is one of the identifying features of an abusive relationship.
It seems that you have not unlearned all the damaging falsehoods your ex implanted in your brain. Have you seen a therapist to come to a resolution about your experience? If not, I recommend one, and if so, keep going. I think you're right in that this experience triggered a lot of similar feelings and memories from your past, so to move past this specific incident, and to deal with any similar future incidents, it might be a good idea to (continue) sort(ing) out your own sense of self-worth and identity with a mental health professional.
I'm sorry this happened, and good luck.
posted by obliterati at 2:44 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
This incident triggered memories of my sexual assault and of a relationship where my partner at the time would pin me down and put his hand over my mouth if we were arguing and I was being too loud. I feel violated but I also know that I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision
This seems very germane: from a first blush, it's hard not to connect the evaluation ("I deserved the anger because I made a bad decision") with your history of abuse. This sort of belief is frequently the result of emotional manipulation, i.e., gaslighting, and is one of the identifying features of an abusive relationship.
It seems that you have not unlearned all the damaging falsehoods your ex implanted in your brain. Have you seen a therapist to come to a resolution about your experience? If not, I recommend one, and if so, keep going. I think you're right in that this experience triggered a lot of similar feelings and memories from your past, so to move past this specific incident, and to deal with any similar future incidents, it might be a good idea to (continue) sort(ing) out your own sense of self-worth and identity with a mental health professional.
I'm sorry this happened, and good luck.
posted by obliterati at 2:44 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
This guy is an asshole. Whether you did something dumb or not doesn't mean you deserved that sort of reaction. I do wonder if he thought you were stealing it, rather than just playing some sort of prank. Maybe that could at least explain why he was so irate about it, but I would tell you that his reaction, whether he thought you were stealing it or not, was inappropriate. Yes, he was probably bothered that you were touching his stuff, but he has no right to put his hands on you, full stop.
I don't have any advice on how to deal with how shaken up you feel, but I would stop blaming yourself for this at least. What you did might've earned some scolding. It definitely didn't earn anything beyond that, like a shove. The bad reaction is this guy being a dick and he is the one to blame for that, not you.
It's embarrassing when you do something that upsets other people and your intention wasn't to upset someone. We all know that feeling and I think that may be part of what you're feeling, on top of feeling violated because of how physical his reaction was. Everyone does dumb things, which is no big deal, but truly, this guy is a jerk. Try to separate the dumb thing embarrassment from the fact that this guy sounds like a Grade A Asshole.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:46 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't have any advice on how to deal with how shaken up you feel, but I would stop blaming yourself for this at least. What you did might've earned some scolding. It definitely didn't earn anything beyond that, like a shove. The bad reaction is this guy being a dick and he is the one to blame for that, not you.
It's embarrassing when you do something that upsets other people and your intention wasn't to upset someone. We all know that feeling and I think that may be part of what you're feeling, on top of feeling violated because of how physical his reaction was. Everyone does dumb things, which is no big deal, but truly, this guy is a jerk. Try to separate the dumb thing embarrassment from the fact that this guy sounds like a Grade A Asshole.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:46 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you can't accept what the other posters have sensibly said - that you didn't deserve his behaviour - then deal with it as you would any other wrongdoing. Admit it to yourself, right the wrong where you can (he has his watch), recognise the impulses and events that contributed to your behaviour and make a planet ways to work around such stuff: drink less around crushes, cab fare home when toasted etc and then finally, forgive yourself. It's not like you kicked a cat or told a child they would never achieve their dreams. Forgive yourself, and let it go.
It's also reasonable to not only be scared but angry. That might help you.
posted by b33j at 2:47 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's also reasonable to not only be scared but angry. That might help you.
posted by b33j at 2:47 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Like rtha says, your feelings of guilt and shame now are largely physiological. You're hung over. Drink fluids, eat couple of bananas. Treat yourself to some nice takeout. Rent a movie. Stay warm.
You don't need his guy's apology. Don't attend parties at his place again. Find new friends if you have to. Don't allow him near your personal space.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
You don't need his guy's apology. Don't attend parties at his place again. Find new friends if you have to. Don't allow him near your personal space.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2014 [9 favorites]
Did he step forward so that you had to step back because you weren't leaving after he told you to get out of his house?
posted by rhizome at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 2:48 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
He found out from another roommate that I hid it in my bag
Another term for "hiding someone else's stuff in your bag" is "stealing".
So he probably thought you were stealing his watch, because it looked like you were stealing his watch. That in no way justifies physical assault but it certainly warrants getting tossed out of his house. But not in the way he did.
posted by Justinian at 2:50 PM on November 7, 2014 [35 favorites]
Another term for "hiding someone else's stuff in your bag" is "stealing".
So he probably thought you were stealing his watch, because it looked like you were stealing his watch. That in no way justifies physical assault but it certainly warrants getting tossed out of his house. But not in the way he did.
posted by Justinian at 2:50 PM on November 7, 2014 [35 favorites]
oh! You poor thing.
I've done really stupid things while drunk, who hasn't?
His response was bizarre, aggressive and un-called for. Hopefully HE'S feeling some regret about his massive overreaction.
In my experience, another night of sleeping on things should help put everything a bit more into perspective for you. His reaction was unwarranted, but i'd definitely urge you not to try to waste too much time thinking about it and making yourself feel sick over what prompted his outburst.
Sleep, watch some TV, see some friends and forgive yourself. You're seriously beating yourself up over nothing.
posted by JenThePro at 2:53 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've done really stupid things while drunk, who hasn't?
His response was bizarre, aggressive and un-called for. Hopefully HE'S feeling some regret about his massive overreaction.
In my experience, another night of sleeping on things should help put everything a bit more into perspective for you. His reaction was unwarranted, but i'd definitely urge you not to try to waste too much time thinking about it and making yourself feel sick over what prompted his outburst.
Sleep, watch some TV, see some friends and forgive yourself. You're seriously beating yourself up over nothing.
posted by JenThePro at 2:53 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I know it doesn't feel this way, but it sounds like you might have dodged a bullet, because now you know that this guy reacts in scary, violent-seeming ways when he's really angry. And if you were to be in a relationship with him, at some point he would probably get really angry at you, because that happens in relationships. You were interested in him, and now you know that he's not a good person for you to pursue for any sort of romantic or sexual relationship. Bullet dodged.
I'm sorry this happened. Take care of yourself, and don't have anything to do with this guy again.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [28 favorites]
I'm sorry this happened. Take care of yourself, and don't have anything to do with this guy again.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [28 favorites]
I don't know how well you know these people, but I think if I noticed one of my friends was "stealing" from me, my reaction would be to ask what's going on -- "Why was my watch in your bag? Is everything OK with you?" rather than exploding in anger. That is completely out of line. You were playing a mostly harmless prank on someone you like (and have slept with!). It seems bizarre to me you weren't given the benefit of the doubt, like a rational people would do.
So no, you in no way deserved this. Take care of yourself -- sleep, eat food you like, indulge in comforting TV -- and you'll get past this. (You are not, by far, the only person who has done stupid things while drunk. At all. I have a long list.)
I would tell your friend you're not going over to his house again, though, and why. (And your friend absolutely needs to tell his roommate that wasn't cool. And probably move.)
posted by darksong at 3:01 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
So no, you in no way deserved this. Take care of yourself -- sleep, eat food you like, indulge in comforting TV -- and you'll get past this. (You are not, by far, the only person who has done stupid things while drunk. At all. I have a long list.)
I would tell your friend you're not going over to his house again, though, and why. (And your friend absolutely needs to tell his roommate that wasn't cool. And probably move.)
posted by darksong at 3:01 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
Do you really think people deserve to be hit and pushed and have their things thrown around over a watch? A returned watch, no less? Do you think you would have the right to do the same to another person?
Or do you just think YOU deserve it but other people don't?
Either answer means it's time to do some soul-searching.
In the meantime, that person is a toxic abusive piece of shit who should be dead to you forever. And unless this roommate has no choice but to live with him, you should consider that person only as good as the company he keeps. Which is, to reiterate, a toxic piece of shit who pushes around people much smaller than him (possibly women, if you are a woman, which makes him a piece of shit who hits women, and it makes his friend someone who stands by and watches).
It was a watch, not his dog or his ancestral lands. He had every right to be upset. It would even be feasible to forgive him if he'd said something mean. But it was a watch, and you gave it back. You don't start hitting people for that.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:08 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Or do you just think YOU deserve it but other people don't?
Either answer means it's time to do some soul-searching.
In the meantime, that person is a toxic abusive piece of shit who should be dead to you forever. And unless this roommate has no choice but to live with him, you should consider that person only as good as the company he keeps. Which is, to reiterate, a toxic piece of shit who pushes around people much smaller than him (possibly women, if you are a woman, which makes him a piece of shit who hits women, and it makes his friend someone who stands by and watches).
It was a watch, not his dog or his ancestral lands. He had every right to be upset. It would even be feasible to forgive him if he'd said something mean. But it was a watch, and you gave it back. You don't start hitting people for that.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:08 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
On one hand, yes, your hiding his watch precipitated the situation. However, the other person in this situation is also an adult, and should be behaving as such.
He is within his rights to be angry about your hiding his watch. He is within his rights to ask you to leave. He is in no way whatsoever remotely near the limit of his rights to be getting into your personal space or laying his hands on you or touching your things.
You are responsible for hiding his watch, but you are not responsible for his reaction to your hiding his watch. You made a mistake, which is part and parcel of being a living human being. He made a mistake too, as he is also a human being. Making a mistake happens. It's a fact of reality, like apples falling to the ground. Accept that. Then accept that you don't deserve to be physically assaulted, ever. The fact that it happened doesn't mean you asked for it or that it should have happened.
I am not any kind of doctor, but it sounds like you might be having some kind of traumatic stress response to the situation. Perhaps seek out someone you can trust that you can talk this over with. Failing that, I've had some success with redirecting myself when I get into a full-on panic. Even if just for a few minutes, I try to do something that's cerebral, like a sudoku, to take my mind off whatever it was that set me off. It's almost like there's a lot of energy scrambling around in my head and doing a sudoku gives it some way to bleed off a little.
Also, I sometimes find coming up with a backup plan quite useful. Reviewing the situation as though it's on a TV programme and thinking about what I'd do differently next time really helps me. I try to look for the things that I can control and see how action A leads to result B, and think about what other actions I could take. It gives me a sense of ownership of the situation, and of control.
posted by Solomon at 3:09 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
He is within his rights to be angry about your hiding his watch. He is within his rights to ask you to leave. He is in no way whatsoever remotely near the limit of his rights to be getting into your personal space or laying his hands on you or touching your things.
You are responsible for hiding his watch, but you are not responsible for his reaction to your hiding his watch. You made a mistake, which is part and parcel of being a living human being. He made a mistake too, as he is also a human being. Making a mistake happens. It's a fact of reality, like apples falling to the ground. Accept that. Then accept that you don't deserve to be physically assaulted, ever. The fact that it happened doesn't mean you asked for it or that it should have happened.
I am not any kind of doctor, but it sounds like you might be having some kind of traumatic stress response to the situation. Perhaps seek out someone you can trust that you can talk this over with. Failing that, I've had some success with redirecting myself when I get into a full-on panic. Even if just for a few minutes, I try to do something that's cerebral, like a sudoku, to take my mind off whatever it was that set me off. It's almost like there's a lot of energy scrambling around in my head and doing a sudoku gives it some way to bleed off a little.
Also, I sometimes find coming up with a backup plan quite useful. Reviewing the situation as though it's on a TV programme and thinking about what I'd do differently next time really helps me. I try to look for the things that I can control and see how action A leads to result B, and think about what other actions I could take. It gives me a sense of ownership of the situation, and of control.
posted by Solomon at 3:09 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Honestly, it sounds like this guy may think you're stalking him or otherwise seriously compromising his boundaries. I say that because the way he reacted is exactly how I've reacted in similar circumstances. I wanted to scare the other person. I wanted them to associate me with negative emotions like fear and stay away
You say you've slept with him but now you don't talk and wanted to make an excuse to force him to talk to you. I'm assuming you're all young here so benefit of the doubt and assuming neither of you is a horrible person, the best way to get over this is to accept that you can't change his opinion of you now and to try not to get into similar situations in the future. Specifically: don't sleep with people you can't talk to, don't drink so much in fraught situations, dont try to manipulate people and when someone gets aggressive just get out of there and don't try to talk to them because you can't predict how violent they might get.
posted by fshgrl at 3:13 PM on November 7, 2014 [34 favorites]
You say you've slept with him but now you don't talk and wanted to make an excuse to force him to talk to you. I'm assuming you're all young here so benefit of the doubt and assuming neither of you is a horrible person, the best way to get over this is to accept that you can't change his opinion of you now and to try not to get into similar situations in the future. Specifically: don't sleep with people you can't talk to, don't drink so much in fraught situations, dont try to manipulate people and when someone gets aggressive just get out of there and don't try to talk to them because you can't predict how violent they might get.
posted by fshgrl at 3:13 PM on November 7, 2014 [34 favorites]
If a woman came on AskMe and posted that a guy that she used to sleep with had stolen some of her things so that she'd have to talk to him in order to get them back, I doubt that most of the answers would be about how it was a minor inconvenience. People would respond that it was a Big Fucking Deal, and they'd be right.
I don't think that it will do you any good to dismiss that you fucked up. You don't need to beat yourself up over it. It happens, you've certainly experienced the consequences, accept what happened as a lesson and move on.
His reaction was also not appropriate.
Neither of you seems very good for the other. That doesn't make you a bad person, but it does mean that you should probably avoid each other from here on out. You've both done things that warrant apologies, but at this point I think that the best thing that you can do is forgive yourself for fucking up and avoiding this dude like the plague from here on out.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:22 PM on November 7, 2014 [34 favorites]
I don't think that it will do you any good to dismiss that you fucked up. You don't need to beat yourself up over it. It happens, you've certainly experienced the consequences, accept what happened as a lesson and move on.
His reaction was also not appropriate.
Neither of you seems very good for the other. That doesn't make you a bad person, but it does mean that you should probably avoid each other from here on out. You've both done things that warrant apologies, but at this point I think that the best thing that you can do is forgive yourself for fucking up and avoiding this dude like the plague from here on out.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 3:22 PM on November 7, 2014 [34 favorites]
This watch you stole, was it a $20 Timex or a $2000 Rolex?
And when someone asks you to leave their home, you leave their home. Anything else is trespassing. The fact that he's larger than you doesn't take away his rights there.
posted by Hatashran at 3:34 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
And when someone asks you to leave their home, you leave their home. Anything else is trespassing. The fact that he's larger than you doesn't take away his rights there.
posted by Hatashran at 3:34 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice.
Are you actually meaningfully owning up?
I mean, in your retelling this sounds like he was really over the top and inappropriately physical. And I'm sure it was scary.
But as others say above, the word for what you did was "stealing." Being angry with you about that sounds reasonable. Asking a thief to leave your home sounds reasonable.
In your retelling here you don't seem like you're cognizent of what this would feel like to him - what were your intentions and in your head versus what this seems like to him. And here you still seem like you're prevaricating. So I have to assume that when he asked you to leave his home and you instead insisted on apologizing and were not leaving, that would have been pretty upsetting.
None of us were there so we're just getting this filtered through your retelling. You have every right to be freaked out by the incident and I can imagine being shaken by it for a while, hang-over aside. I don't think trying to parse out your culpability is going to help with that; being in fear is traumatic and you get over it with time.
I think questioning your own actions is a different issue, but from the way you retell it here I don't feel like you're at all examining how this was perceived by the person you took something from.
posted by phearlez at 3:59 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
Are you actually meaningfully owning up?
I mean, in your retelling this sounds like he was really over the top and inappropriately physical. And I'm sure it was scary.
But as others say above, the word for what you did was "stealing." Being angry with you about that sounds reasonable. Asking a thief to leave your home sounds reasonable.
In your retelling here you don't seem like you're cognizent of what this would feel like to him - what were your intentions and in your head versus what this seems like to him. And here you still seem like you're prevaricating. So I have to assume that when he asked you to leave his home and you instead insisted on apologizing and were not leaving, that would have been pretty upsetting.
None of us were there so we're just getting this filtered through your retelling. You have every right to be freaked out by the incident and I can imagine being shaken by it for a while, hang-over aside. I don't think trying to parse out your culpability is going to help with that; being in fear is traumatic and you get over it with time.
I think questioning your own actions is a different issue, but from the way you retell it here I don't feel like you're at all examining how this was perceived by the person you took something from.
posted by phearlez at 3:59 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
Stealing and trespassing are a couple of things that can get you arrested, so while you're getting plenty of assurances from internet strangers about how you did nothing wrong, your local branch of law enforcement might not necessarily be in agreement.
It would be a good thing to take a big break from drinking.
posted by sageleaf at 4:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [13 favorites]
It would be a good thing to take a big break from drinking.
posted by sageleaf at 4:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [13 favorites]
Honestly, it sounds like this guy may think you're stalking him or otherwise seriously compromising his boundaries. I say that because the way he reacted is exactly how I've reacted in similar circumstances. I wanted to scare the other person. I wanted them to associate me with negative emotions like fear and stay away
This is what I thought as well. If a person I knew stole from me, I caught them, and then they came over to my house and walked in the next day, I would freak out too. He doesn't know what you'll do. He may have been afraid of you. Hell, he may have a traumatic experience of his own in his past.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
This is what I thought as well. If a person I knew stole from me, I caught them, and then they came over to my house and walked in the next day, I would freak out too. He doesn't know what you'll do. He may have been afraid of you. Hell, he may have a traumatic experience of his own in his past.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
I dunno, I'm not sure how much he overreacted...
He found out from another roommate that I hid it in my bag and he retrieved it.
He took his watch back that night, and it doesn't seem like he made any fuss over it - merely "retrieved" it from someone who was evidently trying to steal it.
After seeing him this morning, he began shouting at me to fuck off and get out of his house.
But then she somehow showed up at his house in the morning? And he yelled at her to fuck off - not friendly, but I mean, maybe she had kind of freaked him out, and what exactly was she doing there?
I apologised profusely. He grabbed my bag and threw it out the front door. He kept stepping up to me in such an aggressive manner that I kept having to step backwards.
Shouldn't she have already left the house by now? Maybe he was "stepping up" to encourage that?
At one point, he pushed me. It wasn't super hard or anything but I was startled that he put his hands on me. He is 6'6 and quite athletic. I am 5'3' and 110 pounds. I was terrified.
Well, maybe leave his house then...
My friend walked me home and told me that his roommate overreacted. However I understand this guy's anger because what I did was so incredibly stupid and senseless, but I'm still feeling shaken after the level of aggression he displayed and especially at the fact that he got physical, if only in a very minor way.
I understand that you're startled, but I don't know if he did anything particularly reprehensible. He was probably startled too, to see a thief in his house? Had you agreed to stay over? Did he know you would be there? I dunno, as others said, I think once the adrenaline wears off you can think about the details a bit more clearly. But I think some people are being a bit harsh on the guy, if he got his watch back the night before and then saw you in his house the next morning.
posted by mdn at 4:36 PM on November 7, 2014 [10 favorites]
He found out from another roommate that I hid it in my bag and he retrieved it.
He took his watch back that night, and it doesn't seem like he made any fuss over it - merely "retrieved" it from someone who was evidently trying to steal it.
After seeing him this morning, he began shouting at me to fuck off and get out of his house.
But then she somehow showed up at his house in the morning? And he yelled at her to fuck off - not friendly, but I mean, maybe she had kind of freaked him out, and what exactly was she doing there?
I apologised profusely. He grabbed my bag and threw it out the front door. He kept stepping up to me in such an aggressive manner that I kept having to step backwards.
Shouldn't she have already left the house by now? Maybe he was "stepping up" to encourage that?
At one point, he pushed me. It wasn't super hard or anything but I was startled that he put his hands on me. He is 6'6 and quite athletic. I am 5'3' and 110 pounds. I was terrified.
Well, maybe leave his house then...
My friend walked me home and told me that his roommate overreacted. However I understand this guy's anger because what I did was so incredibly stupid and senseless, but I'm still feeling shaken after the level of aggression he displayed and especially at the fact that he got physical, if only in a very minor way.
I understand that you're startled, but I don't know if he did anything particularly reprehensible. He was probably startled too, to see a thief in his house? Had you agreed to stay over? Did he know you would be there? I dunno, as others said, I think once the adrenaline wears off you can think about the details a bit more clearly. But I think some people are being a bit harsh on the guy, if he got his watch back the night before and then saw you in his house the next morning.
posted by mdn at 4:36 PM on November 7, 2014 [10 favorites]
I am truly sorry you're feeling the way you're feeling, and I have felt that way myself, and I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone.
I keep rewriting and rewriting trying to express exactly what I mean, but I think Parasite Unseen and phearlez have it. Heed their wisdom.
posted by tel3path at 4:52 PM on November 7, 2014
I keep rewriting and rewriting trying to express exactly what I mean, but I think Parasite Unseen and phearlez have it. Heed their wisdom.
posted by tel3path at 4:52 PM on November 7, 2014
At one point, he pushed me. It wasn't super hard or anything but I was startled that he put his hands on me. He is 6'6 and quite athletic. I am 5'3' and 110 pounds. I was terrified.
Well, maybe leave his house then...
Even if he believed that you were a horrible trespassing thief, he still doesn't get to assault you. What he could have done if he was that freaked out was call the police.
Regardless of gender, the "hiding something so that you have an excuse to talk to them later" plan is actually a pretty common trope. See: many instances of one person taking another person's gloves so that they have an excuse to return them in person later. Clearly, like many other grandiose romantic plans, this usually doesn't work out as spectacularly as it does in movies.
Sometimes in life we are hit with a series of unfortunate events, which is what this seems to be. A full stream of profound misunderstandings. You did something that was carried to the worst case scenario. It's a horrible outcome, but at least try to remember that it is in fact a misunderstanding, even if it's one that doesn't get resolved.
posted by Shouraku at 4:56 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Well, maybe leave his house then...
Even if he believed that you were a horrible trespassing thief, he still doesn't get to assault you. What he could have done if he was that freaked out was call the police.
Regardless of gender, the "hiding something so that you have an excuse to talk to them later" plan is actually a pretty common trope. See: many instances of one person taking another person's gloves so that they have an excuse to return them in person later. Clearly, like many other grandiose romantic plans, this usually doesn't work out as spectacularly as it does in movies.
Sometimes in life we are hit with a series of unfortunate events, which is what this seems to be. A full stream of profound misunderstandings. You did something that was carried to the worst case scenario. It's a horrible outcome, but at least try to remember that it is in fact a misunderstanding, even if it's one that doesn't get resolved.
posted by Shouraku at 4:56 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
The trope is generally to "accidentally" leave your stuff at their house so you have to come back for it later, not to steal something of theirs from their house.
I really think the best thing for everyone involved from here on out is just to avoid this guy like the plague. Then it hardly matters who did what to whom and how much of it was justified.
posted by Justinian at 4:59 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
I really think the best thing for everyone involved from here on out is just to avoid this guy like the plague. Then it hardly matters who did what to whom and how much of it was justified.
posted by Justinian at 4:59 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
The trope is generally to "accidentally" leave your stuff at their house so you have to come back for it later, not to steal something of theirs from their house.
No, actually, there is also a trope of people taking the winter gloves or hat of another person and pretending that they accidentally carried it off. This is a thing that happens, even though it is very inadvisable. I've also heard of it happening with umbrellas, for some reason.
Here is the thing OP, you are not the first person to have pretended to accidentally have something that belongs to someone else that you want to return. However, for all the reasons above, this in a very bad plan. I'm sorry that he assaulted you, and that this was carried to the extreme. If it were me, I would just not see him any more, as I'm not sure that he would believe you, or even want to hear any more explanation.
Again, I'm sorry that this happened.
posted by Shouraku at 5:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
No, actually, there is also a trope of people taking the winter gloves or hat of another person and pretending that they accidentally carried it off. This is a thing that happens, even though it is very inadvisable. I've also heard of it happening with umbrellas, for some reason.
Here is the thing OP, you are not the first person to have pretended to accidentally have something that belongs to someone else that you want to return. However, for all the reasons above, this in a very bad plan. I'm sorry that he assaulted you, and that this was carried to the extreme. If it were me, I would just not see him any more, as I'm not sure that he would believe you, or even want to hear any more explanation.
Again, I'm sorry that this happened.
posted by Shouraku at 5:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Mod note: From the OP:
I did not just walk into his house. I was invited by my friend to sleep over the night before. I did not argue when I was told to leave. I did not refuse to leave. I left as quickly as I could, considering that I was not fully dressed. He threw my bag in the street while I was picking up my tights and shoes to put them on. I was saying sorry while I was getting dressed. My exact words were, "I'm sorry, I'm leaving, I just need to get dressed." Sorry for not making this clearer in the original question.posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:14 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
There is an entire paragraph dedicated to me admitting that what I did was so incredibly stupid. It was an action that I had not even considered while I was sober. It was a plan I came up with while heavily intoxicated and I am aware that I displayed a severe lapse in judgement and need to reconsider my drinking habits. I completely understand why he was angry and that my actions were not just a harmless prank to him. He had every right to be angry and to ask me to leave. That's not what I've taken issue with. He put his hands on me. That is the only reason this is of any note.
I'm not really comfortable calling backing down and pushing someone who won't leave "assault" when you have reason to believe they have nefarious intent. I know we call everything on metafilter assault but I've personally done that to someone and I didn't and don't consider it assault.
posted by fshgrl at 5:16 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 5:16 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
What you consider it is kind of not relevant here fshgrl, and i'm saying this to respond to the OP.
I've seen people get arrested for shoving in similar situations before more than once. it's a pretty clean cut case of assault. "Wanting to scare the other person" doesn't make it something that's legally ok, even if you agree with it(which i don't, but i'm saying the law is on the side of not agreeing with it here).
Screaming and yelling and being aggressive is one thing, as soon as you actually shove the other person you're in the wrong and you've committed a crime.
And this isn't even getting in to the fact that everyone involved here is an adult, and they shouldn't be acting like toddlers and daycare arguing over who gets to play with the bob the builder backhoe.
posted by emptythought at 5:26 PM on November 7, 2014 [13 favorites]
I've seen people get arrested for shoving in similar situations before more than once. it's a pretty clean cut case of assault. "Wanting to scare the other person" doesn't make it something that's legally ok, even if you agree with it(which i don't, but i'm saying the law is on the side of not agreeing with it here).
Screaming and yelling and being aggressive is one thing, as soon as you actually shove the other person you're in the wrong and you've committed a crime.
And this isn't even getting in to the fact that everyone involved here is an adult, and they shouldn't be acting like toddlers and daycare arguing over who gets to play with the bob the builder backhoe.
posted by emptythought at 5:26 PM on November 7, 2014 [13 favorites]
The OP acknowledges his/her wrongdoing: It was one of those things that seems logical when you're drunk but I am well aware of how irredeemably childish and wrong it was to do what I did. I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice. I make absolutely no excuses for my actions.
OP, yes, it was stupid. Yes, it was stealing. Yes, stealing is wrong. Yes, it's not a very smart way to try and attract the romantic or sexual attention of someone else. But in a civilised world, when people steal, society requires them to return the goods or equivalent, acknowledge their wrongdoing, apologise (all of which you have done) and sometimes to face a punishment, which might be some kind of community service, or incarceration (but not usually for the theft of a watch). The civilised world does not say you should be yelled at, or physically threatened, or shamed for this behaviour. I'm disappointed that you are getting a number of responses suggesting that you don't feel bad enough, when not only do you feel guilty for stealing (though you didn't term it that way, because that wasn't your intent), but your question was really about "how do I deal with my very natural, human flight-or-fight response to an experience that reminds me of a terrible time in my past, especially when my behaviour led to these circumstances, and I feel like I deserved such treatment?"
OP, you didn't deserve to be treated badly in your past. You fucked up (but if it makes you feel any better, I did something strikingly similar, but it was a wallet on a booze bus trip, and the owner of the wallet was just relieved to have it back and understood the drunken impulse). You fucked up. You fixed it. It's over. If you want more punishment (which some of the other posters think you deserve) go volunteer somewhere, or do something nice for someone.
Otherwise, for your health and safety and sanity, forgive yourself and plan future events so that this doesn't happen again. Choose in future to drink less, space your drinking with water/juice and/or head home (on your hidden cab fare) when you're at crush-annoying drunkenness. I remind you again, in terms of how bad you were - you didn't say something cruel to someone by prefacing it with "No offense but...", you didn't use a racial or sexual based slur, you didn't cause any physical harm to any person or animal, you didn't destroy or damage any property, you didn't risk someone else's opportunity to achieve a dream, you didn't do so bad, okay? You already feel crap. You already know it was a. stupid and b. wrong, and I reckon you're not going to do it again, which is the best possible outcome.
Drink lots, get over that hangover, spend time being quiet and good to yourself. Engage in some mindfulness, so you can quiet those nasty thoughts that keep pounding your esteem into jelly. Make this a worthwhile learning experience. Remember this, so that when you need to, you can forgive someone who trespasses against you.
If you don't start feeling calmer within a couple of days, I hope you can afford to see a health provider. But
"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
posted by b33j at 5:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [16 favorites]
OP, yes, it was stupid. Yes, it was stealing. Yes, stealing is wrong. Yes, it's not a very smart way to try and attract the romantic or sexual attention of someone else. But in a civilised world, when people steal, society requires them to return the goods or equivalent, acknowledge their wrongdoing, apologise (all of which you have done) and sometimes to face a punishment, which might be some kind of community service, or incarceration (but not usually for the theft of a watch). The civilised world does not say you should be yelled at, or physically threatened, or shamed for this behaviour. I'm disappointed that you are getting a number of responses suggesting that you don't feel bad enough, when not only do you feel guilty for stealing (though you didn't term it that way, because that wasn't your intent), but your question was really about "how do I deal with my very natural, human flight-or-fight response to an experience that reminds me of a terrible time in my past, especially when my behaviour led to these circumstances, and I feel like I deserved such treatment?"
OP, you didn't deserve to be treated badly in your past. You fucked up (but if it makes you feel any better, I did something strikingly similar, but it was a wallet on a booze bus trip, and the owner of the wallet was just relieved to have it back and understood the drunken impulse). You fucked up. You fixed it. It's over. If you want more punishment (which some of the other posters think you deserve) go volunteer somewhere, or do something nice for someone.
Otherwise, for your health and safety and sanity, forgive yourself and plan future events so that this doesn't happen again. Choose in future to drink less, space your drinking with water/juice and/or head home (on your hidden cab fare) when you're at crush-annoying drunkenness. I remind you again, in terms of how bad you were - you didn't say something cruel to someone by prefacing it with "No offense but...", you didn't use a racial or sexual based slur, you didn't cause any physical harm to any person or animal, you didn't destroy or damage any property, you didn't risk someone else's opportunity to achieve a dream, you didn't do so bad, okay? You already feel crap. You already know it was a. stupid and b. wrong, and I reckon you're not going to do it again, which is the best possible outcome.
Drink lots, get over that hangover, spend time being quiet and good to yourself. Engage in some mindfulness, so you can quiet those nasty thoughts that keep pounding your esteem into jelly. Make this a worthwhile learning experience. Remember this, so that when you need to, you can forgive someone who trespasses against you.
If you don't start feeling calmer within a couple of days, I hope you can afford to see a health provider. But
"You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
posted by b33j at 5:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [16 favorites]
And OP, if you would like to chat with me at all, please feel free to memail me.
posted by b33j at 5:28 PM on November 7, 2014
posted by b33j at 5:28 PM on November 7, 2014
I know we call everything on metafilter assault but I've personally done that to someone and I didn't and don't consider it assault.
I'm not entirely sure how the OP wants to frame this aggressive action, but when I personally use the term assault, I am using it by it's definition:
In common law, assault is the act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm.
So even if the person who was pushed had done something nefarious, or was perceived to have done so as what seems to be the case here, the act of physically threatening another person is still assault. Assuming of course that the OP is a reliable narrator, which I think would need to be assumed if we are to take her comment in good faith.
As for what to do to get over this situation, I'm not sure that this is the type of issue that you can "fix." As in, since this looks like a theft, your explanation will probably look like an excuse that he may or may not believe. With this in mind, all I can recommend is that you leave him alone and try to forgive yourself.
posted by Shouraku at 5:29 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm not entirely sure how the OP wants to frame this aggressive action, but when I personally use the term assault, I am using it by it's definition:
In common law, assault is the act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm.
So even if the person who was pushed had done something nefarious, or was perceived to have done so as what seems to be the case here, the act of physically threatening another person is still assault. Assuming of course that the OP is a reliable narrator, which I think would need to be assumed if we are to take her comment in good faith.
As for what to do to get over this situation, I'm not sure that this is the type of issue that you can "fix." As in, since this looks like a theft, your explanation will probably look like an excuse that he may or may not believe. With this in mind, all I can recommend is that you leave him alone and try to forgive yourself.
posted by Shouraku at 5:29 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
I am shocked that so many people here are criticizing you. You totally owned up to your mistake in your original post (and follow-up), and as far as I'm concerned, this guy was over the top in physically touching you...especially considering the size differential. Yes you did something stupid, but that is no reason for him to push you.
To answer your question, I think you can get over this by allowing yourself to be angry/hurt/scared that someone twice your size physically assaulted you. Steer clear of him and take care of yourself. Try not to get so drunk that you make poor decisions in the future.
posted by barnoley at 5:51 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
To answer your question, I think you can get over this by allowing yourself to be angry/hurt/scared that someone twice your size physically assaulted you. Steer clear of him and take care of yourself. Try not to get so drunk that you make poor decisions in the future.
posted by barnoley at 5:51 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Oh good grief. This guy totally overreacted under any circumstances. You didn't leave the house with his watch- he took it back. It was a dumb prank on your part, but all he had to do was say "Hey, I'm pretty pissed that you took my watch and I don't want you in my house any more." This is a perfectly normal reaction. However shoving you and throwing your bag out the door while you were getting dressed is violent bullshit. I'm amazed people here are making excuses for him- people have been pushed, fallen, and seriously injured or killed. It is not a less violent assault because it's not a slap or a punch.
I know you've learned something from this, and I think you have also dodged a bullet as far as hooking up with this guy again. He has some pretty serious issues.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
I know you've learned something from this, and I think you have also dodged a bullet as far as hooking up with this guy again. He has some pretty serious issues.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [14 favorites]
Be kind to yourself. You made a mistake, but, this guy sounds like a total jerk. Sleep, give yourself distance, and forgive yourself. At some point you'll realize that this guy was a bit scary and you dodged a bullet.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by ch1x0r at 6:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
True. I guess the word abuse is more appropriate to my comment than assault. Abuse seems like an extremely weird characterization of the situatuon, as wrong as the guy was to do it. OP, I'm not saying he was right. Especially with your clarification you were trying to leave, which I didn't see as we posted at the same time.
posted by fshgrl at 6:08 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by fshgrl at 6:08 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I guess I think more of the people I'm intimate with, as I couldn't imagine having such an explosive reaction to the situation as this guy did. Even if your intentions were to really steal his watch (I don't think they were), it seems odd to me that he would treat you so callously--like a stranger he'd never even seen before. But then, he had a whole night to stew about it.
Why not kick you out the moment he retrieved the watch? If he was uncomfortable doing it, why wouldn't he ask your friend (one roommate), or the one that told him in the first place (the other roommate)? Why didn't your friend (his roommate) intervene at all--surely you had told him all about the watchplan by then, right? I find it hard to believe he didn't know what was going on and if he did know, what kind of 'friend' stands there and does nothing to intervene in a situation where their friend is being assaulted by someone twice her size?
Putting his hands on you, especially because of frustration or anger is NOT OK. There was simply no reason for it. You did not deserve that reaction. Accepting that and believing that is how you can start to get over it. Voicing your thoughts also helps. YMMV, but I find alone time in more remote areas of nature really helps my body come down from the effects of adrenaline too. There are also certain video games (DDR mostly) that I turn to that require nearly 100% of my focus, and that's helpful for not only getting my mind off of the event itself, but for stopping rumination in general. It can have the added benefit of physically tiring you out too, which I find is nice/calming when you want to start processing what happened.
posted by stubbehtail at 6:10 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Why not kick you out the moment he retrieved the watch? If he was uncomfortable doing it, why wouldn't he ask your friend (one roommate), or the one that told him in the first place (the other roommate)? Why didn't your friend (his roommate) intervene at all--surely you had told him all about the watchplan by then, right? I find it hard to believe he didn't know what was going on and if he did know, what kind of 'friend' stands there and does nothing to intervene in a situation where their friend is being assaulted by someone twice her size?
Putting his hands on you, especially because of frustration or anger is NOT OK. There was simply no reason for it. You did not deserve that reaction. Accepting that and believing that is how you can start to get over it. Voicing your thoughts also helps. YMMV, but I find alone time in more remote areas of nature really helps my body come down from the effects of adrenaline too. There are also certain video games (DDR mostly) that I turn to that require nearly 100% of my focus, and that's helpful for not only getting my mind off of the event itself, but for stopping rumination in general. It can have the added benefit of physically tiring you out too, which I find is nice/calming when you want to start processing what happened.
posted by stubbehtail at 6:10 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Avoid this guy. You are not your best self when you are with him. He is obviously not his best self when he is with you.
I know when I was young, single and desperate for someone's attention I didn't care if the attention was positive or negative. If me and Guy-I-liked couldn't love each other, the next best thing was to hate each other. Not having any contact was to be avoided at all costs because I was so desperate to have some kind of relationship with the person, be it positive or negative. Is this you?
I know your friend invited you to sleep over, but did you really sleep over so that you could have another chance with this guy? Why weren't you dressed when you were walking around the common space of the apartment? Were you hoping that the guy would see you without your tights on? I am NOT trying to victim blame here. I am trying to shed some light on a behavior that I have seen in myself and that you have ownership over. You hid his watch as an excuse to talk TO him. I think you might be beating yourself up about what happened as an excuse to talk ABOUT him.
Yes, he was wrong. Yes, he did hurtful things to you. You validate this hurt by holding onto it and dwelling on it. Don't hold onto this hurt if you're only doing it to have an issue with this guy. Don't tell people this story if what you're looking for is just to hear your name and his name in the same sentence. Focus on yourself. Focus on people who treat you well. Focus on treating yourself well. The relationship with that guy is over. Don't drag it out any further.
posted by RingerChopChop at 6:18 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
I know when I was young, single and desperate for someone's attention I didn't care if the attention was positive or negative. If me and Guy-I-liked couldn't love each other, the next best thing was to hate each other. Not having any contact was to be avoided at all costs because I was so desperate to have some kind of relationship with the person, be it positive or negative. Is this you?
I know your friend invited you to sleep over, but did you really sleep over so that you could have another chance with this guy? Why weren't you dressed when you were walking around the common space of the apartment? Were you hoping that the guy would see you without your tights on? I am NOT trying to victim blame here. I am trying to shed some light on a behavior that I have seen in myself and that you have ownership over. You hid his watch as an excuse to talk TO him. I think you might be beating yourself up about what happened as an excuse to talk ABOUT him.
Yes, he was wrong. Yes, he did hurtful things to you. You validate this hurt by holding onto it and dwelling on it. Don't hold onto this hurt if you're only doing it to have an issue with this guy. Don't tell people this story if what you're looking for is just to hear your name and his name in the same sentence. Focus on yourself. Focus on people who treat you well. Focus on treating yourself well. The relationship with that guy is over. Don't drag it out any further.
posted by RingerChopChop at 6:18 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
I think, at worst, you BOTH made mistakes. You in stealing his watch (that's what it looked like to him) and he in (arguably) overreacting to your presence.
But it's fair to consider things from his POV... You have been intimate, he is shocked that someone he's that close to would steal from him while a GUEST in his home... and then you had the nerve to stay over when you were caught red handed. Then you didn't leave when he told you to.
So yeah, at worst he misjudged his actions but so did you.
It's disturbing to encounter someone who, we feel, is overreacting to a mistake we made. I understand your being rattled and triggered, I really do. What you did is no huge deal.
But consider this ... you got in this predicament from a weird kind of social anxiety ... you need a ploy to talk to someone you've had sex with? That's abnormal. Maybe you should work on that.
posted by jayder at 6:28 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
But it's fair to consider things from his POV... You have been intimate, he is shocked that someone he's that close to would steal from him while a GUEST in his home... and then you had the nerve to stay over when you were caught red handed. Then you didn't leave when he told you to.
So yeah, at worst he misjudged his actions but so did you.
It's disturbing to encounter someone who, we feel, is overreacting to a mistake we made. I understand your being rattled and triggered, I really do. What you did is no huge deal.
But consider this ... you got in this predicament from a weird kind of social anxiety ... you need a ploy to talk to someone you've had sex with? That's abnormal. Maybe you should work on that.
posted by jayder at 6:28 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
Go for some long runs, drink a lot of water and get a couple full nights of sleep. You'll feel better.
posted by michaelh at 6:35 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by michaelh at 6:35 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Be easy on yourself. You didn't deserve his over the top, physically aggressive reaction. What you did was stupid. Okay. We all do stupid shit.
Seriously, try to be easy on yourself. Sleep in. Work out. Watch a movie. And stop casting blame at yourself. That's how you move on.
posted by J. Wilson at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Seriously, try to be easy on yourself. Sleep in. Work out. Watch a movie. And stop casting blame at yourself. That's how you move on.
posted by J. Wilson at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm sorry, but a large man has no business pushing around a small woman who is in no danger of causing him any bodily injury. Full stop. That is an inappropriate level of escalation. There was no need for this to get physical.
I'm sorry you went through this. Don't beat yourself up for your actions but do learn from them as much as you can. It sounds like you're already evaluating what you could do differently in the future (e.g. drinking less). A therapist might be helpful for working some of that stuff out. Good luck.
posted by sockermom at 7:20 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
I'm sorry you went through this. Don't beat yourself up for your actions but do learn from them as much as you can. It sounds like you're already evaluating what you could do differently in the future (e.g. drinking less). A therapist might be helpful for working some of that stuff out. Good luck.
posted by sockermom at 7:20 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
"In your retelling here you don't seem like you're cognizent of what this would feel like to him - what were your intentions and in your head versus what this seems like to him."
It's a really common cognitive bias to judge our own actions by intention and others' actions by effect.
As for how you feel OK again? Well, you fucked up but you've already apologized and given the watch back. The only other thing that's called for is to not steal any more stuff. Past that, time is the only real cure. Take care that you don't beat yourself up too much and think of this shitty experience as a learning moment.
posted by klangklangston at 7:26 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's a really common cognitive bias to judge our own actions by intention and others' actions by effect.
As for how you feel OK again? Well, you fucked up but you've already apologized and given the watch back. The only other thing that's called for is to not steal any more stuff. Past that, time is the only real cure. Take care that you don't beat yourself up too much and think of this shitty experience as a learning moment.
posted by klangklangston at 7:26 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]
A really minor add-on, mostly piggybacking on what b33j said:
I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice.
It wasn't a "life choice" at all.
It won't affect your career; it won't affect where you're going to live for the next decade; it won't affect your relationship with your family--or, from the sound of it, with your friends; and it's not (again, from the sound of it) representative of the way you normally treat people, or the way you're going to treat them going forward.
It was just something stupid you did, under the influence, to get the attention of somebody with whom you probably already had a complicated emotional history. You don't need to berate yourself or overapologize for it. You just need to acknowledge that it was wrong and live with the consequences.
I think the danger of an experience like you've had with this guy is that it confuses "learning your lesson" with internalizing his aggressiveness towards you--making yourself feel like you need to reaffirm, constantly, that what you did was awful and beat yourself up about it continually (when most of your friends have probably chalked the whole thing up to drunken mischief and forgotten about it already.) Learning your lesson is healthy and constructive; being too hard on yourself does nobody any good--in fact, it can create internal resentment and actually make it more likely that you do this sort of thing again.
So yeah: you are (still) a child of the universe. Breathe deep, burn incense, accept what you did, learn what you need to learn from it (if you do this kind of thing a lot when you're drunk, then yeah, examine that), and move on. Yes, what you did conceivably could have looked like stealing to him; yes, this incident probably means you and he need to avoid each other for a long time, if not forever; no, you did not, in any universe, "deserve" to the way he treated you. His aggressiveness isn't part of the lesson here. The best way to "feel okay again" is to not treat yourself like it is.
posted by urufu at 7:39 PM on November 7, 2014 [10 favorites]
I am owning up to my ridiculous behavior and I acknowledge that it was not a great life choice.
It wasn't a "life choice" at all.
It won't affect your career; it won't affect where you're going to live for the next decade; it won't affect your relationship with your family--or, from the sound of it, with your friends; and it's not (again, from the sound of it) representative of the way you normally treat people, or the way you're going to treat them going forward.
It was just something stupid you did, under the influence, to get the attention of somebody with whom you probably already had a complicated emotional history. You don't need to berate yourself or overapologize for it. You just need to acknowledge that it was wrong and live with the consequences.
I think the danger of an experience like you've had with this guy is that it confuses "learning your lesson" with internalizing his aggressiveness towards you--making yourself feel like you need to reaffirm, constantly, that what you did was awful and beat yourself up about it continually (when most of your friends have probably chalked the whole thing up to drunken mischief and forgotten about it already.) Learning your lesson is healthy and constructive; being too hard on yourself does nobody any good--in fact, it can create internal resentment and actually make it more likely that you do this sort of thing again.
So yeah: you are (still) a child of the universe. Breathe deep, burn incense, accept what you did, learn what you need to learn from it (if you do this kind of thing a lot when you're drunk, then yeah, examine that), and move on. Yes, what you did conceivably could have looked like stealing to him; yes, this incident probably means you and he need to avoid each other for a long time, if not forever; no, you did not, in any universe, "deserve" to the way he treated you. His aggressiveness isn't part of the lesson here. The best way to "feel okay again" is to not treat yourself like it is.
posted by urufu at 7:39 PM on November 7, 2014 [10 favorites]
Many people are saying that him pushing you was "assault" and that he had no right to touch you, etc.
But I would ask: what state did this happen in? In some states - California, for instance - the lawful resident "may use reasonable force to make the trespasser leave".
Someone wrote "NOBODY has the right to lay a hand on you." This is patently untrue. Trivially, the police may legally lay hands upon you if, for instance, you are trespassing and they are escorting you to jail.
Calling this "assault" cheapens the meaning of the word "assault".
Frankly, you need to stop drinking.
posted by doctor tough love at 8:01 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
But I would ask: what state did this happen in? In some states - California, for instance - the lawful resident "may use reasonable force to make the trespasser leave".
Someone wrote "NOBODY has the right to lay a hand on you." This is patently untrue. Trivially, the police may legally lay hands upon you if, for instance, you are trespassing and they are escorting you to jail.
Calling this "assault" cheapens the meaning of the word "assault".
Frankly, you need to stop drinking.
posted by doctor tough love at 8:01 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
what you did conceivably could have looked like stealing to him
As someone who's had this dodge pulled on them more than once I have to say while it's annoying to be the target of theft it's 100x worse to be in some weird hostage negotiation over having to meet someone to get your stuff back. Its scary and destabilising. It's not really a harmless prank, imho. And OP, you seem to totally get that. But unless you go around doing stuff like this all the time you can chalk it up to a learning experience. It's embarrassing that your actions generated anger and possibly fear in someone you like but the way he ultimately expressed that is on him, not you. No one acted well here but you only need to feel remorse for what you did, even if the situation ultimately spun totally out of control. That doesn't mean you don't have to live with the consequences, s you've discovered, but you don't have to beat yourself up for what someone else did.
I'm not always one to recommend therapy but it sounds like you could use some help with boundaries. Yours and other people's.
posted by fshgrl at 8:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
As someone who's had this dodge pulled on them more than once I have to say while it's annoying to be the target of theft it's 100x worse to be in some weird hostage negotiation over having to meet someone to get your stuff back. Its scary and destabilising. It's not really a harmless prank, imho. And OP, you seem to totally get that. But unless you go around doing stuff like this all the time you can chalk it up to a learning experience. It's embarrassing that your actions generated anger and possibly fear in someone you like but the way he ultimately expressed that is on him, not you. No one acted well here but you only need to feel remorse for what you did, even if the situation ultimately spun totally out of control. That doesn't mean you don't have to live with the consequences, s you've discovered, but you don't have to beat yourself up for what someone else did.
I'm not always one to recommend therapy but it sounds like you could use some help with boundaries. Yours and other people's.
posted by fshgrl at 8:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [11 favorites]
There is a serious difference between some action or offense that deserves a correction or punishment vs using that to rationalize out of control rage and aggression and bullying. The way this guy lost his shit at you was not OK, and you should stay away from him in the future. You did not deserve to be cursed at and shoved around. I'm sorry this happened to you, and also for the abuses you describe your ex perpetrating upon you. You don't deserve to be the victim of violence and I am so sorry that you have been, and that this fight triggered the feelings of helplessness from your previous relationship. You don't deserve to be abused. Ever.
That being said, there is also a serious difference between "I hid the watch" and "I hid the watch in my purse."
You are describing this incident of theft and borderline stalking as " [not] funny", "silly", "childish", "ridiculous," "embarrassing." Can you see how you are systematically infantilizing yourself and minimizing the impact of your actions? You are saying that you don't think of yourself as a thief, so of course when you steal your crush's watch, it's "childish and wrong," but not actually stealing. But, unfortunately, it is stealing. Stealing someone's possessions as an excuse to gain sexual access to them is stalking behavior. I understand that this must have been a tremendous trigger, but being physically backed out of someone's house after stealing from them is very different from being held down and restrained for being too loud during an argument. This guy aggressively backed you out of his house and was rude to you. Keep in mind that he also could have pressed charges when he found the watch in your purse. You do not and did not deserve to be abused. You deserve to be safe. But part of keeping yourself safe is not drunkenly committing petty crimes.
Nthing the suggestion to hydrate, sleep, and focus on understanding boundaries.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [17 favorites]
That being said, there is also a serious difference between "I hid the watch" and "I hid the watch in my purse."
You are describing this incident of theft and borderline stalking as " [not] funny", "silly", "childish", "ridiculous," "embarrassing." Can you see how you are systematically infantilizing yourself and minimizing the impact of your actions? You are saying that you don't think of yourself as a thief, so of course when you steal your crush's watch, it's "childish and wrong," but not actually stealing. But, unfortunately, it is stealing. Stealing someone's possessions as an excuse to gain sexual access to them is stalking behavior. I understand that this must have been a tremendous trigger, but being physically backed out of someone's house after stealing from them is very different from being held down and restrained for being too loud during an argument. This guy aggressively backed you out of his house and was rude to you. Keep in mind that he also could have pressed charges when he found the watch in your purse. You do not and did not deserve to be abused. You deserve to be safe. But part of keeping yourself safe is not drunkenly committing petty crimes.
Nthing the suggestion to hydrate, sleep, and focus on understanding boundaries.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 8:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [17 favorites]
A lot of the comments are saying: well, you pretended to steal it, and maybe he thought you were stealing it. No. You literally stole his watch. Even though it was only temporary. If you take a scarf out of a clothing store to stay warm outside for a little while but you plan to go back and return it and laugh about it and use it to start a conversation with the store employees, guess what — you shoplifted. All that stuff in italics doesn't change that.
And he also did something wrong later on. But that doesn't somehow go back in time to excuse what you did before. I don't know where some people get the idea that a maximum of one person can be in the wrong in an encounter. You were both wrong.
And you both sound like you're very young and prone to needless, explosive drama. You didn't want him to react the way he did, but you wanted to provoked some reaction. I agree with the commenter who suggested staying away from him. And stop taking things that don't belong to you.
posted by John Cohen at 9:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
And he also did something wrong later on. But that doesn't somehow go back in time to excuse what you did before. I don't know where some people get the idea that a maximum of one person can be in the wrong in an encounter. You were both wrong.
And you both sound like you're very young and prone to needless, explosive drama. You didn't want him to react the way he did, but you wanted to provoked some reaction. I agree with the commenter who suggested staying away from him. And stop taking things that don't belong to you.
posted by John Cohen at 9:06 PM on November 7, 2014 [6 favorites]
OP, honestly, I think you need to stay away from this roommate guy you had a crush on and ALSO from your "friend" that walked you home. Let me explain why:
You had sex with friend's roommate in the past, and it seems pretty clear it was a one-time thing that you would have liked to maybe become more. I think this guy may very well feel it is stalkerish to show up at his house now, even before the watch incident.
Your "friend", I assume knowing about the awkward situation with his roommate, invites you to spend the night over at their place anyway, maybe without said Crush Guy knowing or agreeing to it.
"Friend" then gets very drunk with you, to the point where you are obviously not thinking clearly. You make a dumb drunk decision to hide the watch, and "friend" does not attempt to dissuade you from stealing it. This reinforces you as Crazy Stalker Girl to the roommate if he finds out.
Which he does, when Yet Another Roommate tells your crush about the theft--how did that other roommate even know what you did, though? How did he know where the watch was hidden? Seems to me like your "friend" was the likeliest source for that information.
Finally, when your crush retrieves the watch and, furious, demands you leave his house, even throwing your bag out the door and shoving you, what does your "friend" do? I don't see anything in your narrative about him interceding on your behalf to explain it was just a silly prank and calm his roommate down.
And then, after you have been humiliated and thrown out (I think roommate had a right to be upset but the shoving and the rage are over the top), this "friend" walks you home, making sure, now that you are upset and vulnerable, to soothingly take your side against his roommate.
This does not strike me as the behavior of a true "friend"! It strikes me as the behavior of the kind of Nice Giy crap someone pulls when he wants a woman to transfer her crush from his roommate to Himself.
OP, you are a former victim of abuse, and I think you really need to work on your boundaries here. Not just because the watch incident was clearly a bad idea from the get-go, but because both this roommate and your "friend" sound like the types to exploit your own weaknesses against you. I think you are not seeing this because your own concept of what is appropriate behavior is not healthy. I just want you to be really alert to this possibility that you may be being played here.
Please do Not, do Not, do NOT get out-of-control drunk with friend again! Stay away from these guys. They are bad news.
posted by misha at 10:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [12 favorites]
You had sex with friend's roommate in the past, and it seems pretty clear it was a one-time thing that you would have liked to maybe become more. I think this guy may very well feel it is stalkerish to show up at his house now, even before the watch incident.
Your "friend", I assume knowing about the awkward situation with his roommate, invites you to spend the night over at their place anyway, maybe without said Crush Guy knowing or agreeing to it.
"Friend" then gets very drunk with you, to the point where you are obviously not thinking clearly. You make a dumb drunk decision to hide the watch, and "friend" does not attempt to dissuade you from stealing it. This reinforces you as Crazy Stalker Girl to the roommate if he finds out.
Which he does, when Yet Another Roommate tells your crush about the theft--how did that other roommate even know what you did, though? How did he know where the watch was hidden? Seems to me like your "friend" was the likeliest source for that information.
Finally, when your crush retrieves the watch and, furious, demands you leave his house, even throwing your bag out the door and shoving you, what does your "friend" do? I don't see anything in your narrative about him interceding on your behalf to explain it was just a silly prank and calm his roommate down.
And then, after you have been humiliated and thrown out (I think roommate had a right to be upset but the shoving and the rage are over the top), this "friend" walks you home, making sure, now that you are upset and vulnerable, to soothingly take your side against his roommate.
This does not strike me as the behavior of a true "friend"! It strikes me as the behavior of the kind of Nice Giy crap someone pulls when he wants a woman to transfer her crush from his roommate to Himself.
OP, you are a former victim of abuse, and I think you really need to work on your boundaries here. Not just because the watch incident was clearly a bad idea from the get-go, but because both this roommate and your "friend" sound like the types to exploit your own weaknesses against you. I think you are not seeing this because your own concept of what is appropriate behavior is not healthy. I just want you to be really alert to this possibility that you may be being played here.
Please do Not, do Not, do NOT get out-of-control drunk with friend again! Stay away from these guys. They are bad news.
posted by misha at 10:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [12 favorites]
moonlight on vermont: Keep in mind that he also could have pressed charges when he found the watch in your purse.
I'd like to grandfather this into my last comment.
In my first response I said that what happened "won't affect your career." I said that because you seemed shocked and guilty about what happened and I was worried you were being hard on yourself in a way that wouldn't help you learn what you need to learn from this.
But a felony conviction definitely would affect your career, and you need to be clear that what you did arguably does meet the legal definition of theft. Admittedly, most people aren't going to press charges in a situation like this unless they're incredibly vindictive or some kind of law-and-order robot, but by doing this you did open yourself up to a lot of damaging accusations that would be hard to argue against.* So yeah: don't torture yourself about how "childish" it was, but do understand that this kind of act can mean something very different in a legal context than it means in a social/relationship context.
Building on that:
John Cohen: If you take a scarf out of a clothing store to stay warm outside for a little while but you plan to go back and return it and laugh about it and use it to start a conversation with the store employees, guess what — you shoplifted.
I think most people recognize some sort of meaningful distinction between taking something from a store without paying and drunkenly taking something that belongs to a friend you see all the time to leverage time alone with him.
One is inscribed in a simple, one-time exchange relationship: if you don't pay you're stealing; if you do you aren't; and your emotional history with the metal detector, the cashier, and the cop who arrests you typically doesn't have a lot of bearing on why you took the scarf.
The other is shrouded in a haze of extended friendship networks, poorly understood emotions, and plausible deniability. People accidentally walk off with each other's stuff all the time when they've been out drinking. Yes, it's shitty to take someone's stuff, intentionally, in a situation like that; but it's shitty because it exploits the ambiguity of the situation and the goodwill of friends to manipulate another person's behavior, not because of the cash value of the items stolen. (This gets more complicated if you steal something like a Faberge egg, but you get the idea.)
So yes, OP, what you did technically meets the definition of stealing: you took something that didn't belong to you. But the definition of stealing isn't the real issue.
Be honest: do you feel bad because you got borderline attacked, because you could have gotten in trouble with the law,* or because you let your insecurity (and your drunken state) make you do something manipulative and crappy to someone you care about? My guess is it's some combination of all of those, and that's totally understandable. But as you calm down I hope you'll realize that those are separate issues, that there are different reasons to feel bad about each of them, and that those differences matter. Feeling bad because you took advantage of your friend doesn't excuse him flipping his shit at you; likewise, the legal/practical question of whether you "stole" from him doesn't exhaust the ethical feelings here. If somebody could prove, definitively, that what you did wasn't stealing, would you feel better about this? My guess is no.
Please keep being kind to yourself as you try to get over the shock of being assaulted like that. You didn't deserve it, and no one is saying you did. But try to understand that what you did was a bad way to treat a friend--because of the manipulativeness and the breach of trust, not just the stealing.
posted by urufu at 11:18 PM on November 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
I'd like to grandfather this into my last comment.
In my first response I said that what happened "won't affect your career." I said that because you seemed shocked and guilty about what happened and I was worried you were being hard on yourself in a way that wouldn't help you learn what you need to learn from this.
But a felony conviction definitely would affect your career, and you need to be clear that what you did arguably does meet the legal definition of theft. Admittedly, most people aren't going to press charges in a situation like this unless they're incredibly vindictive or some kind of law-and-order robot, but by doing this you did open yourself up to a lot of damaging accusations that would be hard to argue against.* So yeah: don't torture yourself about how "childish" it was, but do understand that this kind of act can mean something very different in a legal context than it means in a social/relationship context.
Building on that:
John Cohen: If you take a scarf out of a clothing store to stay warm outside for a little while but you plan to go back and return it and laugh about it and use it to start a conversation with the store employees, guess what — you shoplifted.
I think most people recognize some sort of meaningful distinction between taking something from a store without paying and drunkenly taking something that belongs to a friend you see all the time to leverage time alone with him.
One is inscribed in a simple, one-time exchange relationship: if you don't pay you're stealing; if you do you aren't; and your emotional history with the metal detector, the cashier, and the cop who arrests you typically doesn't have a lot of bearing on why you took the scarf.
The other is shrouded in a haze of extended friendship networks, poorly understood emotions, and plausible deniability. People accidentally walk off with each other's stuff all the time when they've been out drinking. Yes, it's shitty to take someone's stuff, intentionally, in a situation like that; but it's shitty because it exploits the ambiguity of the situation and the goodwill of friends to manipulate another person's behavior, not because of the cash value of the items stolen. (This gets more complicated if you steal something like a Faberge egg, but you get the idea.)
So yes, OP, what you did technically meets the definition of stealing: you took something that didn't belong to you. But the definition of stealing isn't the real issue.
Be honest: do you feel bad because you got borderline attacked, because you could have gotten in trouble with the law,* or because you let your insecurity (and your drunken state) make you do something manipulative and crappy to someone you care about? My guess is it's some combination of all of those, and that's totally understandable. But as you calm down I hope you'll realize that those are separate issues, that there are different reasons to feel bad about each of them, and that those differences matter. Feeling bad because you took advantage of your friend doesn't excuse him flipping his shit at you; likewise, the legal/practical question of whether you "stole" from him doesn't exhaust the ethical feelings here. If somebody could prove, definitively, that what you did wasn't stealing, would you feel better about this? My guess is no.
Please keep being kind to yourself as you try to get over the shock of being assaulted like that. You didn't deserve it, and no one is saying you did. But try to understand that what you did was a bad way to treat a friend--because of the manipulativeness and the breach of trust, not just the stealing.
posted by urufu at 11:18 PM on November 7, 2014 [8 favorites]
* I'm actually not positive about the legality here, as I think shoplifting and petty theft are separate legal categories and that the precedents are probably very different for cases of theft between friends. Maybe a lawyer could shed more light on this. But yeah, this isn't just about stealing.
posted by urufu at 11:21 PM on November 7, 2014
posted by urufu at 11:21 PM on November 7, 2014
Mod note: A couple of comments deleted. Folks, let's try to focus this on the question asked. Please don't argue with each other here, and please don't debate points of law since a) this is not the question, and b) nobody knows where the OP is located. Please stick to helpful, productive answers that address the question. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:59 AM on November 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:59 AM on November 8, 2014 [4 favorites]
(Actually the shove was almost certainly a battery in your state not an assault. The threatening may have been an assault.)
I think you're getting excellent advice to take care of yourself, get over your hangover, cut yourself some slack. We all make mistakes. Own up to what you did - which I admit probably looked like stealing to him - and then move on. Time will help. I've done plenty of embarrassing things, and time helps a lot. As far has the guy - cut him some slack for feeling violated, and maybe scared of you because you were acting a bit stalkerish, but keep your distance because he seems prone to excessive anger and he scared the crap out of you.
posted by semacd at 9:15 AM on November 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think you're getting excellent advice to take care of yourself, get over your hangover, cut yourself some slack. We all make mistakes. Own up to what you did - which I admit probably looked like stealing to him - and then move on. Time will help. I've done plenty of embarrassing things, and time helps a lot. As far has the guy - cut him some slack for feeling violated, and maybe scared of you because you were acting a bit stalkerish, but keep your distance because he seems prone to excessive anger and he scared the crap out of you.
posted by semacd at 9:15 AM on November 8, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't have anything to add about the fucked-upedness of either of your actions as you have enough to chew on there.
I just want to sort of validate how absolutely terrifying it is when someone unexpectedly gets aggressive and physical.
As a very petite women like yourself (but shorter!) I can sadly say I understand how scary it is when a bigger guy uses force against you. You have literally zero chance of defending yourself and a big athletic man has all the control in a physical confrontation. He could mess you up extremely badly if he chose to, and that is a scary thing to face even though it didn't go that far.
Your body likely sent out all these stress hormones and the adrenaline was racing and your brain was likely in some sort of full-on fear mode. Of course it's going to bring up your memories of other times that mode has been activated. It sucks.
So I echo others in saying you should take extra nice care of yourself while you physically and emotionally come down from this.
And don't ever get in touch with that guy again. Even--especially--if he gets in touch with you first.
posted by kapers at 10:23 AM on November 8, 2014 [9 favorites]
I just want to sort of validate how absolutely terrifying it is when someone unexpectedly gets aggressive and physical.
As a very petite women like yourself (but shorter!) I can sadly say I understand how scary it is when a bigger guy uses force against you. You have literally zero chance of defending yourself and a big athletic man has all the control in a physical confrontation. He could mess you up extremely badly if he chose to, and that is a scary thing to face even though it didn't go that far.
Your body likely sent out all these stress hormones and the adrenaline was racing and your brain was likely in some sort of full-on fear mode. Of course it's going to bring up your memories of other times that mode has been activated. It sucks.
So I echo others in saying you should take extra nice care of yourself while you physically and emotionally come down from this.
And don't ever get in touch with that guy again. Even--especially--if he gets in touch with you first.
posted by kapers at 10:23 AM on November 8, 2014 [9 favorites]
I feel violated
Everything else aside, I just want to validate this: you were violated. You were bodily threatened by having someone more powerful advance on you while you were trying to get dressed, abuse your possessions, and push you. Regardless of reasons or who is to blame ir the semantics of assault, It Happened.
But it's over now, and you are not in danger. Keep reminding yourself of that. If there are life lessons to be had from this whole event, you can think them over later, after your nerves have calmed. Maybe write it in your calendar for a New Year's reflection, one of many good or bad things to think about from the previous year.
posted by zennie at 7:03 AM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
Everything else aside, I just want to validate this: you were violated. You were bodily threatened by having someone more powerful advance on you while you were trying to get dressed, abuse your possessions, and push you. Regardless of reasons or who is to blame ir the semantics of assault, It Happened.
But it's over now, and you are not in danger. Keep reminding yourself of that. If there are life lessons to be had from this whole event, you can think them over later, after your nerves have calmed. Maybe write it in your calendar for a New Year's reflection, one of many good or bad things to think about from the previous year.
posted by zennie at 7:03 AM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]
On more thing: An invited guest is not a trespasser the instant they are uninvited.
! !!
posted by zennie at 7:11 AM on November 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
! !!
posted by zennie at 7:11 AM on November 10, 2014 [4 favorites]
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posted by Sassyfras at 2:21 PM on November 7, 2014 [70 favorites]