The Guy at Tim Hortons Keeps Asking Me Out

I don’t really like to go to the Tim Hortons by my apartment anymore. Which really sucks because it’s only two blocks away and I can get a pretty good breakfast sandwich and Tims hashbrowns are my favourite fast food hashbrown. But a few weeks ago the guy who usually takes my order – he’s working pretty much every time I go in there – reached for my hand through the plexiglass barrier and asked me out. I thought he was just reaching for a handshake, since I’m there often and I thought we were finally introducing ourselves, and I was graduating to “regular.” Instead, he held onto it for a really long time and said “just let me know, and I’ll ask you out.” Now every time I go there and place my order, he asks, “and nothing else? are you sure?”. Sometimes he reaches out for my hand again. So I don’t really go there anymore.

In high school, I was always sad not to get male attention. Back then, I still thought I wanted it. And until recently I sometimes still did – last summer, I was working at a bar. My coworkers would tease me about how weird I was around men, and I felt kind of hurt, because that meant I wasn’t good enough at flirting, which meant that I wasn’t making good tips. I finally recognise and appreciate the weird vibes I put out to men as a result of my lesbianism, and I have very little shame about openly (apparently – I didn’t notice, but everyone else did) not really wanting to interact with men. I should clarify that by “men” here I mean “men I don’t know.” Men who want something from me. Something that I have very little patience to entertain.

I’ve always been very adamant that I owe literally nothing to the men who approach me on the street. Some of my friends would argue that, as long as they’re being polite, the least they can do is be polite in return. I really disagree. When I’m alone in public, and you’re a stranger, it’s incredibly rude to assume that I owe you even a fraction of your time just because you want a conversation. Because it’s always more than a conversation. If you’re a female McGill student I’m willing to bet that you’ve been approached by a man on campus looking for “friendly conversation.” If you’re not a woman who often frequents McGill campus: did you know that there are men who hang out on campus to look for girls they can talk to? It’s a really great place to hang out if you’re a man in his thirties looking for a vulnerable young adult woman to ask out. Once I was walking on campus with my headphones in, and a man looked like he wanted to ask me a question. I assumed he was asking for directions, so I took out my headphones. Instead, he asked me my name, if I was a student, what a girl like me was doing at McGill… I told him I was meeting my boyfriend and ducked into the used bookshop to make sure he didn’t follow me all the way home.

I used to preface my “I never owe a stranger a second of my time if I’m alone in public” position with “when it’s a woman, it’s different.” But when I was talking to my girlfriend about this, she pointed out that women never approach you in public the way men do. On the rare chance they do, it’s a “by the way” type of interaction. It’s always with consideration for your time. No lingering, no ulterior motives. Men who approach you in public never just want a conversation, and even if they did – which they never do – I still don’t care. I’m not being polite. It’s rude of you to assume you can take up my time like that. I have shit to do! And I want to do it alone, which is why I am alone. Once – on McGill campus, the place where I have been approached by the most men by far – I was reading on Lower Field and a man came up behind me. He opened by saying “sneak attack!” (no joke). He asked what I was doing. I said “reading.” He asked what I was reading. I said “a book.” Then he looked offended – “it seems like you don’t really want to talk to me.” I told him I didn’t. He seemed genuinely confused that someone would be that rude, as if he hadn’t interrupted my personal time to test out his pickup artist skills.

I knew I fucked with my friend Lucy the first time we hung out together. We were drinking in the park, and it was getting dark, and a man came up to us. When he wouldn’t leave us alone, Lucy pulled out her taser and flashed it once, as a warning. I’ve always been the “killjoy” friend who doesn’t want to hang out with guys my friends find at the club. Pulling my friends aside when they’re spending a lot of time dancing with a guy, asking if they’re really sure they like him, if they’re sober enough to decide. Sometimes my friends get annoyed with me. I get that – if you’re actually into a guy, I see how it can be a bit annoying to have your little lesbian friend discouraging you from spending time with him. But it is nice to hang out with friends who are just as eager to tell a man to fuck off, even if he’s being “polite.”

I have nightmares where men on the streets won’t leave me alone. In them, I always shout, “I’M A DYKE.” I couldn’t do that in real life. It would, more often than not, encourage them. When I tell my family about men frequenting lesbian spaces, they get confused and ask things like “do they know that you’re all into women?” And it’s hard to explain to people who have known you since you were a baby that, yes, that’s why they’re there. They want to stare at me and my girlfriend, two feminine women who kiss each other in public, because it’s hot to them. When I’m trying to get a man off my back, I never tell them, “I have a girlfriend.” It’s always “I have a boyfriend.” Because they respect my fake boyfriend, but they get off on the hypothetical of me making out with my real girlfriend. I’ve heard straight women joke that they tell strange men that they have a boyfriend, “or better yet, a girlfriend.” And I know they’ve never actually done that, because that would never deter a guy who approaches you in public.

I know I’m making it sound like I have men falling at my feet constantly, which we know isn’t true. But I’m tired. I can’t go to the Tim Hortons by my house anymore because I don’t want to deal with being asked out again, and I can’t say “no, I have a girlfriend,” because that doesn’t matter to him, and no matter how many times I reject him he still asks every time I go in. So while I used to be really sad that I apparently give out noticeably weird vibes to men, I’m grateful for that now. I’m a dyke. Leave me alone.