Rant

“Your eyes are driving me crazy, beautiful.” The words make my stomach churn. The look the man gave me as he gave me the once-over three times makes me want to throw up.

Sometimes I wish that I worked in a store that catered only to women, for this particular reason. I’ve had so many occasions where men come in to “shop” because there are attractive women who happen to work at Guess. I don’t know if they realize that we are here to sell them merchandise. That’s it.

The part that sickens me even more is that our society uses this to make money. Let them hit on you if it’ll get you the sale. Flirt back to sell more. I don’t think our company promotes this, but I do think that all too often it is accepted as normal. Attractive women sell.

This is my little rant.

I enjoy my job. I love servicing customers and talking to people because it really does bring me happiness. I try to make the most of every person I engage with not just to sell, but to feel like I can make their day a little bit better in some way. Customers usually respond very happily and/or thankfully in return, but, in today’s case, sometimes my friendliness gets mistaken for something else.

“Hey Beautiful.”

I didn’t think much of the questions this man and his group of friends kept asking me until they became more frequent and directed towards how the clothes might look on him. “How would this one be for a date?” Cheesy pick-up lines. Whatever. I sort of ignored them for a while and minded my own business. The one man in particular asked me for a fitting room, brushed up against me in the process of me opening the fitting room and made a rude sound followed by “your eyes are driving me crazy, beautiful.”

I bolted because I didn’t have another way of reacting at the time. And I was surprised at how startled and emotional it made me. I didn’t cry, but this overwhelming feeling of animosity rose up inside of me along with this urgency to cover my entire body from head to toe.

Why do men like him think that’s ok? This isn’t my first experience of this sort of thing. Is there something in our society that tells men like him it’s ok because they’re the shoppers and we’re the “attractive sales girls”? I’m not sure. But I hate this disrespect, and I struggle with not hating those who offer it.

I am reminded that God calls me to love and forgive them. I do. Despite the gross feeling they’ve caused to prickle my skin and sicken my stomach, I forgive them, I love them.

"And be ye kind one to another,

 tender-hearted, forgiving one another, 

even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

~Ephesians 4:32~

I am also reminded of that song by Aretha Franklin, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”