Of Christmas, hotels, dogs and assailants

Over the Christmas holidays, I spent time travelling like many do, to see family and loved ones.  Last night in the middle of a deep freeze, I embarked on the four hour trek from my mother’s home back to my own.  Partway through the journey, I experienced some car trouble and pulled off the highway into a gas station. With all the auto repair shops having closed for the night, I decided my only option was to check into a hotel.  I am not sure when the man began following me.  Was it in the gas station where I lifted the hood of my car? The Canadian Tire parking lot? The hotel lobby? I will never know…but what I’d already thought was turning out to be a disastrous evening was going to get worse.

Because I was travelling with my dog Georgie, the hotel clerk assigned me to a “pet-friendly” room in a building that was separate from the main hotel.  It was a short drive behind the main building to a smaller building that had its own parking lot- dark and empty.  I was too frazzled from the car problems (the hood of my car would not stay latched- no small matter when you’re driving on the highway!) to be nervous about the accommodation arrangement.  I was just looking forward to unloading my bags, getting settled in with my dog and getting out of the extreme cold.  My room was on the ground floor of a virtually empty building.  There appeared to be one other guest in my building judging by the single vehicle in the parking lot, but otherwise there were no signs of anyone anywhere. Guests had to enter this building via a locked common entrance in order to access their rooms from a  hallway inside; but from within their rooms, guests could open a patio door out to the parking lot.  This was going to be ideal for taking my dog out to pee in the night, I thought. I parked in front of my room, and then entered the building with only my purse and my dog on his leash. Barely taking any notice of the details of the room other than noting the queen sized bed I’d be sharing later with my dog, I dropped my purse on a chair and walked across the room to fling open the patio door so I could bring in my luggage from the car which was parked directly in front of the door. And that’s where he was waiting for me.

His plan, I realized in retrospect, was probably to push me back into my room and then do God knows what: rob me at best…and I can’t even think about the worst case scenario. I think what saved me (other than my mother’s prayers for safe travels) is that my dog walked out of the room ahead of me. From whatever vantage point the man had been watching me, he must not have noticed my large 60 pound dog in the backseat of my car. It must have disconcerted him to see my dog step out into the parking lot in front of me, and in surprise, he stepped aside and let me pass.  I don’t know what my initial thoughts were; maybe something like “Why was that man standing there?  Was there a sidewalk outside my door? Was he just walking by when I opened my patio door, or perhaps having a smoke?”  It was freezing cold and dark, and I hadn’t noticed the lay of the land a few minutes earlier when I’d parked my car, but the next morning, in the light of day, I could see that there was no sidewalk outside my door, and in fact my patio door was in a private alcove that no one had any reason for standing in.

Strangely I said hello; but what else do you do when you almost bump into someone? I didn’t immediately feel threatened because, as I would tell the police later that evening, he was respectable looking: a clean shaven white guy in his late 20’s/early 30’s, tall, slender and wearing jeans, a dark jacket and a blue hat. Even more strangely, my dog didn’t bark at the man. Georgie, who barks at my 11 year old paper boy, only sniffed the man and then walked with me to my car just 3 feet away.  Perhaps that’s why the man lingered.  Maybe he figured that the dog was not going to be a problem after all.  Maybe the plan could proceed as he’d intended. It was just the two of us in the dark, surrounded on three sides by the wings of the empty building, and the highway behind us where cars were whizzing by, headed to warm, safe and happy homes.  He remained standing in front of my open hotel room door, while I opened my car doors and fiddled with bags. That’s when I knew I had a problem. He wasn’t moving on.  He remained in front of my door and watched me, with only the length of my car between us. My head was spinning.  I noted his black car beside mine that had not been there just minutes earlier.  I stalled- hoping it would suddenly be clear that he was lost, or sick or had some other good reason for blocking my entrance to my hotel room. I moved behind my car and opened the hatchback to add an additional foot of space between us. I pretended to nonchalantly talk to my dog who hovered around me.  Clearly the man was not going to leave.  I struggled to think of what to say or do.  I knew it was unsafe to approach my open hotel room door, since he stood between me and that sanctuary. 

In that framework within which only women are socialized to operate, I was trying to come up with a way to ask him to move away from my door without being confrontational or causing him to feel awkward.  Imagine that! A man is menacingly barring my entrance to my hotel room in a dark empty parking lot, and I was concerned about appearing impolite. 

WOMEN: FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE RUDE!!!!! IF HE IS A MAN OF INTEGRITY, HE WILL UNDERSTAND THAT HIS BEHAVIOUR IS MAKING YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, APOLOGIZE AND WITHDRAW.  IF HE IS UP TO NO GOOD, STANDING YOUR GROUND MIGHT JUST WELL CAUSE HIM TO BACK OFF!

How have we, women of my generation especially, been so thoroughly socialized to defer to men that even when they make us feel threatened, we are concerned about their egos?

Suddenly and without me even thinking it through, my survival instinct kicked in, and I knew what I had to do. Something I’d read years ago re-surfaced. “Be assertive. Be aggressive. Kick up a fuss. Attackers are looking for easy prey and do not want to be bothered with a fighter. Make noise. Be loud.”  So from the back of my vehicle, I shouted at him for standing in front of my door. I shouted at him that he had no right to be there. My voice sounded surprisingly authoritative and unwavering to my ears.  I sounded like someone used to calling the shots. He met my eyes, and said a quiet “Sorry”, but remained in the same position, staring me down.  I continued to shout at him saying that he needed to leave, that this was MY hotel room, that he had no business being there.  All the while my dog was strangely silent. Could my over-protective dog not see that I was terrified?  If I fooled him, maybe I was also fooling my would-be assailant. Our final exchange went something like this.  I shouted: “A man standing in front of my hotel room door does not make me feel safe”, to which he replied something like “it’s NOT safe” and then …all of a sudden, he turned away from me, walked to his car and sped away.  I did not get the license plate number.  I was so terrified that I ran into my room with my dog, bolted the door, and put a chair beneath the door handle.

I don’t know why it worked. I can’t say exactly how much of his departure is attributable to the presence of my dog and how much was due to my angrily calling him out for trying to intimidate me.  But by the grace of God, he gave up on whatever he had planned for me.   I certainly don’t mean to suggest that women can be safe by simply yelling at a potential attacker, but I do know that it’s got to be better than being silent.

An hour later, I was on the phone (in a different room!) telling my mother not to worry because I’d relocated to the main building, and had called my husband. He was driving from Toronto 2 ½ hours away to join me.  As I said the words, I was struck with a terrible wave of sadness about living in a world in which the only way to assure a worried mother, was to inform her that a man was coming to ‘rescue’ me. It’s true that I’d have wanted to hear the same thing from my daughter if she’d been in danger.  “Is your boyfriend with you?,” I’d want to know, and only then would I be able to breathe easy. It was a man who filled me with terror, and a man who would make me feel safe again. It is men who harm, rape and maim us, and it is men we turn to for protection from those men.  I am weary of a world in which most men- even the good ones- have no idea what it is like to navigate the world as a woman…what goes through your head when you walk your dog in a remote area, what effort it takes to find a spot under a light when parking your car for late-night grocery shopping, how it feels to pretend to talk to your brother/husband/boyfriend on your cell phone when a man is walking too close: “Oh where are you honey? Just around the corner? Perfect, you’re just 30 seconds away then”.

Twenty four hours later, I am still sad. And weary. And afraid. And angry.  I am afraid for my daughter, my sister, my mother, my niece and my friends. I am afraid for every woman and girl on this planet. And I am afraid that I will always be afraid …and that what almost happened to me means I will now not ever be able to let down my guard, that I will see danger everywhere, even where there is none. And I am angry that a woman needs a weapon, a man or a ferocious-looking dog to feel safe in the dark.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the man was there to harm me, but I’m willing to bet some people, both men and women, reading this will find themselves trying to come up with explanations for that man’s behaviour other than ill-intent.  It’s what we do.  We downplay our fears. We ignore our instincts. We resist appearing to be dramatic. We’re afraid to be accused of overreacting.  We distrust our inner voices in the name of maintaining a narrative that the world is an orderly and predictable place.  But at what cost?  Sexual assault is the only violent crime in Canada that is not declining, with almost 600,000 reported annually, and thousands more that go unreported.*

Please be careful daughters, sisters, and mothers.  The world is a scary place. Use your voice.  Shout. Yell. Scream. Get angry. Fight against the injustice of it.

Here’s what I did right:

1) Carried a fully charged cell phone with a data plan (if only to find out that there were no auto repair shops open past 5:30, and that very few hotels accept guests with large dogs- at least in the town where I was stranded)

2) Trusted my gut. (My younger self would have disregarded my instinct, trusted that the man was harmless, and attempted to get past him to enter my room.)

3) Shouted at the man in a firm loud voice. (My younger self would have been tongue-tied and too afraid to challenge the man.)

4) Phoned the police (Although I had no license plate number for them, I did have a good description.)

5) Demanded that the hotel move me into the main building (even though it was not a ‘pet-friendly’ room), and that a male hotel employee help me gather up my things and escort me (and my car) to the new room.

Here’s what I did that was stupid:

1) Opening my patio door onto a dark parking lot without looking through the peephole and window

2) Giving him the benefit of the doubt for too many minutes.

3) Agreeing to being placed in a separate building because of travelling with my dog.

4) Not getting in my car, locking the door and driving for help (I was worried about my purse that I’d left in my room).

5) Worrying (albeit briefly) about appearing rude.

6) Assuming that a nicely dressed, clean shaven man could not possibly be a bad person.  (Paul Bernardo was clean shaven and baby-faced.)

* https://www.canadianwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Facts-About-Sexual-Assault-and-Harassment.pdf

Resources

http://www.crimedoctor.com/hotelinvasion.htm

https://www.bemytravelmuse.com/solo-female-travel-safety/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elisadoucette/2013/02/07/sarai-sierra-emphasizes-that-women-need-to-keep-traveling/#23ecc8a341a7

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stay-safe-in-a-hotel-2016-3/#stay-at-hotels-that-offer-restricted-access-1

http://www.women-on-the-road.com/hotel-safety.html

I took the pictures below the next morning. That’s my reflection (and my dog’s) seen in the door window.