I don’t go out too often, but when I do, I think, “Why don’t I do this more?” 

Sure, the bar is crowded and there seems to be a twenty degree temperature difference from outside and I can feel my shoes sticking to the floor. But it’s the kind of night where the sky is clear and the DJ is playing songs everyone knows the words to. It’s the kind of night where you forget your upcoming assignments and unclear future. 

The kind of night you don’t want to end. 

I raise my arms up in cue with the lyrics of the song blaring from the speakers. This kind of dancing I wouldn’t have the courage to do elsewhere, but this environment feels right. I’m screaming the lyrics with my friends, ensuring a lost voice in the morning. This is it. This is living. 

Until I feel a hand that doesn’t belong to me touching my skin. 

And then I remember, “Oh yeah, that’s why I don’t go out often.” 

It’s hard to fully immerse yourself in a night out with friends when you’re fending off unwanted advances from the opposite sex. 

I understand many people use the bars to mingle and hopefully meet a cute person. However, there is always a right and a wrong way to make your attraction for another person known. A simple compliment goes a long way and is always appreciated. However, if the gesture is encroaching upon someone’s personal space, that’s where it stops feeling innocent. 

I’ve shuffled around dance floors, trying to get away from a man who is determined to stand as close to me as possible, only to look over my shoulder everywhere I went to find him still there. I’ve stopped mid-conversation to yell at someone who won’t stop touching me. Because seriously, you don’t have to caress my arm when trying to get by. I’ve physically put my hand in someone’s face to stop it from inching any closer to mine. I get that the music is loud but come on. 

After a while, I stopped feeling like a woman, and I started feeling like prey. 

I’ll give men the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they don’t realize some of the things they do make women uncomfortable. Maybe they don’t realize the key to a woman’s heart isn’t touching them non-consensually or ignoring basic social cues. But I learned in kindergarten we should keep our hands to ourselves, so why doesn’t it apply in the party scene? 

Then, I think of all the ways women try to protect themselves while they’re trying to have fun. You see a woman — seemingly carefree as she loses herself in the music —while she has her hand covering her drink. You think nothing of a group of women going into the bathroom together, but there’s safety in numbers and anything can happen. You think her friend is “cockblocking” you when in reality she’s trying to rescue her friend from a situation she doesn’t want to be in. 

It’s sad we have these necessary but unspoken rules for ourselves in the first place. 

My revealing clothing, dancing and a full face of makeup do not magically open myself up to harassment. Nor am I looking for attention or begging for a guy to sweep me off my feet and whisk me away to the nearest bedroom. I’m simply enjoying a Saturday night with friends in my early 20s, but sometimes the men in the environment make it hard to do so. 

So please, can I enjoy my amaretto sour in peace?

Faith Fistler is an opinion writer. Contact her at [email protected].