Column 5: A Near Miss
"A near-miss is defined as: a potential hazard or incident in which no property was damaged and no personal injury was sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury easily could have occurred. Near misses also may be referred to as close calls, near accidents, or injury-free events (OSHA 1).”
-Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Wine: ONEHOPE Napa Valley Petite Sirah
Recipe: @cookingforone1 “Ball Out Dinner” (a.k.a. steak, cheesy mashed potatoes & roasted asparagus)
Petite Sirah is a somewhat unknown and overlooked wine. Only 8,789 acres of it are planted in the world. To put that into perspective, there are 713,575 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon (a somewhat similar & more familiar grape) planted globally (Puckette 88 & 147). While it's bold and immensely flavorful, it has an intense purple color thats infamous for staining your teeth. Friendly reminder to always brush your teeth after a night of wine drinking. Even the best of things can quickly take a turn and leave their mark on you. Sometimes when you’ve been through some shit, you just gotta take care of yourself and give yourself some damn good food. This rich Petite Sirah is best enjoyed with a plate of steak, potatoes and asparagus.
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I was lying on his bed, with both of my hands pinned down above my head. He whispered, “We’re going to have sex”, and I replied “I don’t think I want to tonight”. He replied “No, we are.” I immediately felt that sinking feeling in my stomach where you know a situation just turned very wrong. I began to squirm my wrists out from his grasp, but his fists clenched tighter. I can’t remember another time when I felt like I’d completely lost control of a situation as much as I did in that moment. I don’t think I had experienced fear quite like that before. My heart sank and I couldn’t believe this was happening. I didn’t see it coming.
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I was home in San Diego for spring break of my senior year in college and I was out with some friends in Hillcrest. I remember meeting him at the first bar we were at that night. I don’t remember exactly who approached who. He wasn’t exactly going out of his way to be around me, but he definitely did have a way of coming back to me throughout the night. Although I didn’t see him being overly forward or trying to be around me that night, his presence did have a certain intensity to it.
He asked me if I wanted to go outside to talk. He had said something like the music was too loud, and he didn’t want us to have to talk over it. Music in bars that's so loud that you can’t hear the person next to you is one of my pet peeves, so I gladly agreed. Once we were outside and talking for a few minutes, he suggested that we go for a walk. I was attracted to him and liked the idea of spending more time with him, so I said yes. After we got a few blocks away from the bar, he said that his apartment was close, and that we could stop by there to hang out for a bit. And again, I said yes. I remember us walking pretty far and thinking that this place wasn’t that close after all.
Once we were in his apartment, it wasn’t long before we were in his bedroom. And then on his bed with him on top of me. I remember thinking that I had only wanted to makeout with him, but I definitely didn’t intend for it to go beyond that. Looking back, I wonder if I should have tried harder to just stay in his living room, and not succumb so easily to going into his bedroom. Just a few minutes passed before he made the statement that we were going to have sex. I turned it down, and then he insisted that we were going to. And that's when I felt that intense and bloodchilling wave of fear. My feeling of enjoying being with him instantly came to a screeching halt as I realized that I had completely lost control of the situation, and that terrified me. It was like I was in a hot shower, and in an instant the water became ice cold. There was something about the way he spoke that made me feel like he had no plans to accept my refusal. I couldn’t believe that I had put myself in this situation, but there I was. I remember thinking “Damn, I’m so much smarter than this.”
I knew that I needed to figure out a way to get out of the situation, but I didn’t have the physical power to do so. He was taller and stronger than me, and I knew that he could control me physically if he wanted to. If I had a shred of hope for getting out of this situation, I knew I would have to outsmart him. I don’t know how the thought came into my mind so quickly, but I’m so grateful that it did. It was then that I said “Ok, let me just go to the bathroom first.” I had this feeling that if I were to resist him, it would make things worse. But if I were to agree and just appear to hit the pause button, that maybe he would lower his guard and I would have a slim chance of getting myself out of this situation. To my immense relief, his grip on both of my wrists loosened, and he rolled off of me to the other side of the bed. I slowly got off of the bed, and moved a few feet away to where my shoes lay on the floor. I quickly reached down to grab them and began to turn out of the room to run out, but he leaped off of the bed and grabbed both of my wrists again. Heart pounding, I looked into his eyes and gasped, “You’re scaring me, let me go”. I ripped my wrists out of his grasp, and ran like hell out of his bedroom door and into his living room. I flung his front door open, and ran down the hallway until I saw the first exit in sight, being a door that led to the fire escape stairway.
I got halfway down the staircase before I took a pause to look behind me to see if he had followed. He hadn’t. I was breathing so heavily that I was half crying, half gasping for air & out of breath. I continued down the stairs and got outside of the apartment building to the sidewalk. I realized I was still barefoot, so I took a moment to put my shoes back on.
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It was important to me to share the story of this night. Stories like this often go untold, and many keep these experiences to themselves, silently suffering alone. I’ve done that, yet I’ve also found strength in sharing it when I’ve felt safe enough to do so. As nerve wracking as it is for me to share something so personal, hearing and reading other stories similar to mine always made me feel less alone. And that human connection from shared experience is a big part of healing…and hope.
It’s uncomfortable for me to revisit that night. I feel vulnerable sharing it. I fear that people will immediately think of this story when they see or think of me. This is not a cry for help, and I’m not looking for sympathy. It's a part of my story, but just that…one part of it.
I’ve had a hard time classifying what I experienced as sexual assault. I think of it more so as a very close call… a near miss. There are so many that have experienced so much worse than me. I don’t mean to diminish the significance of my experience, because it has certainly had its effects on me. I used to think that something like this would never happen to me. I’d think that I would be able to see a “predator” and know how to avoid them. It was sobering to have that belief proven wrong. It makes me uneasy to think about the amount of finesse and coercion involved on his part that night, and that I fell for it.
That night I felt that I was subtly but intentionally manipulated to get into a situation where I was no longer in control. In hindsight, the way he took small steps toward getting me back to his place without telling me his end goal feels manipulative, even if it didn’t appear to be so in the moment. I think there is a distinctive line between “having game” and luring someone into a situation that they didn’t intend to be in. What seemed like a romantic gesture to spend more time with me, turned out to be a calculated attempt to get me where he wanted me. The two things missing that night were communication and consent.
While the definition of a “near miss” says that “no personal injury was sustained”, that wasn’t exactly the case for me. I would be ignorant to say that I got away unscathed. I used to live in a somewhat ignorant state of mind thinking that type of thing would never happen to me. But once I experienced it, it was hard for me to think that it couldn’t happen again. It rattled me and I didn't feel as comfortable interacting with new guys I’d meet after that. And for a while I was more hesitant when given the opportunity for intimacy. That being said, now more than ever I appreciate & value the feeling of trust that has come with someone that makes me feel safe. The experience of having something taken away from you has that effect when that something comes back around.
I got a taste and a glimpse into what it would feel like when something happens to your body that is completely against your will. When I revisit that night, I still get sick to my stomach thinking about feeling completely powerless in that situation. Although that night was scary, I’m immensely grateful that it had the ending it did, and that I was able to get out of the situation. I think a lot about what might have happened if I stayed in that bed. I wonder what he would have done if I would have said no for a second time. Would he have then accepted my refusal? Or would me denying him again have made what could have happened that much worse for me? I used to feel that I needed to defend things like me leaving the bar and going up to his apartment. I used to place blame on myself. But what I keep circling back to is the same thought that one “no” should have been enough, and should always be enough.
Works Cited:
Puckette, Madeline, and Justin Hammack. “Section 3 Grapes & Wines.” Wine Folly: Magnum Edition: The Master Guide, Avery, an Imprint of Penguin Random House, New York, NY, 2018, pp. 146–147.
from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department. Near Miss Report Form, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/2021-07/Template%20for%20Near%20Miss%20Report%20Form.pdf.
