INGRID DOULTON | Lady Writer | Contact
A vulnerable local man just trying to make his way home after finishing work at his local bar job, has tonight called on muscle memory in preparation for what feels like an imminent assault from a group of strangers.
Even though he walks this route two-to-three times a week after dark, John is never too careful about the types of people he might run into in this gentrified North Betoota suburb he’s called home for two years.
After approaching a drunken group of women who were taking up the entire width of the footpath as they stumbled through what looks like a late night pub crawl, John Menaswell (25) had to draw upon the men’s self-defence classes he was taught while in high school, in preparation for what could have easily been an unwanted encounter.
Even though the women in front of him didn’t match the commonly-held perception of what predators look like, their larrikin mob behaviour immediately reminded John of the other times he had been harassed and assaulted by women in a public place.
While instantly recounting the story of how a close friend was groped by an unkempt woman on public transport several weeks earlier, John decided to give himself a wide berth from the drunken group.
Walking with his head held high and with purpose, John pulled out his phone as if to make a call. While making sure he keeps in the street light, but off the footpath, John balls up a fist around his keys – in preparation for the worst.
As has happened many times before, John’s heart rate increases two-fold as his body begins to go through the physiological reaction known as fight-or-flight, while at the same time attempting to look like a normal pedestrian who didn’t notice the mob of rowdy women he was trying so hard to pass.
As the group all of a sudden stop laughing and shoving each other, the hairs on the back of John’s neck curl up – he can feel their eyeballs lasering into his side.
The unspoken tension is eventually broken by an oncoming car. John veers back onto the footpath, in a hope that the women he’s just spent five minutes trying to avoid will protect him if this car pulls over.
