My Body, Always Up for Discussion

time: 10:04 pm, Thursday
location: Montpelier Street, near Frisby

I was walking home from a friends house. I approached a man on my short walk. He said "hello", I said "good evening" and we exchanged proper pleasantries. Just as I thought I had had a satisfactory interaction with a stranger, he yells after me "Nice Feet!" This struck me as funny and bizzare. I was not personally threatened or really upset by this. But it was odd that he had to throw in something about my body at the last minute, lest I forget that we are not equals and cannot have an equal exchange of evening "hello's" because he is a man and I am not.

time: 10:38 am, Friday
location: Bus stop, corner of 32nd and Greenmount

"How long have you been waiting?"
"Not long. The bus should be here soon. But I guess you never know."

And then I made a phone call and tried to walk away from him a bit. But he sorta kept following me around in the small space of what is the "bus stop area." Then he decided to step it up a notch and ask me:

"So where are you going?"
I looked at him as neutrally as possible and said, "Downtown." (And that's where the only bus that comes by there goes, so I felt ok revealign this obvious information.)

Then as if it wasn't clear that I didn't want to talk to him. He said, "Are you ready for your tip of the day?" It took me a minute. How can I respond? What should I be ready for? "You shouldn't stand with your shoulders like that." And he went on to tell me how I wasn't standing up straight enough and that I should be aware of putting my shoulders back and my chest out, because otherwise I might have a hump on my back when I am older. I felt that this was so generous of him. He was saving me from present and future ugliness. What a service to my personal growth and understanding. (Ok, so clearly this is sarcasm.) Look jackass, I am not going to stick my breasts out for you to ogle. There are some times and places where I would rather hunch.

I usually am not harrassed and I usually have tactics and ways of handling possible harrassment that seem to work for me. And I am not sure I would label this as extremely upsetting or threatening especially in light of what other posts have said or will say on this site. But I felt like this was patriachy telling me ,"You are always up for discussion. Your body is not yours. And never forget that!"