I’ve managed to acquire two male (possibly mentally off-kilter) stalkers on the train. One of them has sat down next to me on the train on three separate occasions over the past couple months and would proceed to ask me if I had a boyfriend, tell me he liked my hair, my nail polish, my clothes, and then talked and talked about nothing. Then patted me on the back when I left. The most recent occurrence was last week.

My second stalker has sat next to me two days in a row. Yesterday he unsuccessfully tried to get my attention while I ignored him with my headphones on. This morning he made sure I heard him, tapped my arm, told my I had pretty hands, and proceeded to grab one of them to bring up to his mouth to kiss and I yanked it away. “I don’t think so” I said, and he got huffy and pulled out his wrestling magazine.

Since I’ve been in DC I’ve taken the same train to work each day, sat in the same seat, and I guess these guys have started to notice. I sucks that I have to mess with my routine just to avoid being hit on at 6am. I can’t handle much at 6am, and I’m way too polite for my own good and don’t know how to make it stop without possibly angering them. Hey, a talky/grabby stalker is still better than one that’s mad at you.

This may seem like a really tame story, but it’s made my commute super uncomfortable as of late and it makes me feel very vulnerable in general. Getting off the train, and back into the next car wouldn’t help much – they’d probably just follow. Tomorrow I guess I have to get on a different train and sit in a different seat and hope no one notices.

Location:Green Line to Branch Avenue

Submitted by ‘wish I were invisible’ on 9/16/09

Do you have a personal experience with gender-based public sexual harassment you would like to submit? Just click here and fill out the online submission form. All submissions are posted anonymously unless you specify.