I’m picking up donuts for the staff on our first day of school. The young man on the other side of the counter takes a look at me and says: “You look like one of those ladies from the 40s.”
To which I immediately respond with: “Is that a compliment?”
This is not the first time I have questioned the intentions of a male stranger who tried to engage with me. Men have approached me in public spaces, soliciting my attention or my number or both. They say things like: “Honey, that’s a good look on you” or “can I have your number?” Their comments don’t appear to be derogatory. Mildly irritating, yes, but not offensive. Yet, they rub me the wrong way.
My 16 years in Dhaka taught me to be wary of public spaces, to cover up my “offensive” chest and legs, to lower my gaze and stare at my toes if -- God forbid -- I had to leave the confines of my home. Getting in or out of a waiting vehicle, the short distance between the pavement and the store-front, the school yard -- all were areas that were “unsafe,” teeming with “lascivious beings.” And if a man were to poke his head out of a car or a doorway and holler at me, I was to run to safety.
I could not figure out if it was perhaps my physique that drew male attention, or the mere fact that I’d grown into a woman. It did not take long, however, for me to panic at the sight of a man’s compliment. Why did I have to draw his attention?
The fault would be all mine. After all, men cannot help their gaze.
Fast forward seven years and here I am, living by myself in upstate New York, and it would seem as though the men hardly notice me, regardless of what I wear or how I do my hair. But when it does happen, when passers-by and fellow patrons tell me that my outfit is “vintage” or I look “half-Vietnamese,” I want to collapse in on myself. I fear retribution -- punishment for flaunting my womanhood. I fear the catcalls and jeering and leering that had caused me so much dismay back in Bangladesh.
My colleagues tell me it is gracious to accept a compliment with a smile and a thank you. But what type of compliment, and when, and from whom?
I would not have batted an eyelid, for example, if some lady implied I looked vintage. I subconsciously crave female approval for the way I put myself together every morning. I crave approval, female or otherwise, for the work that I do and every day that I manage to drive to school without ramming into a fence.
But when a male patron at Starbucks tells me that I have a “good look,” or wants to hold the door open, or asks me for my number, I seize up. I panic. My words run into each other.
Perhaps my cynicism has blinded me to the presumably good intentions of certain people who may just want to spread a little joy in the world. Or perhaps two decades of unwanted male attention, unsolicited male attention, male attention with obscure intentions, have left me questioning even the most benign of comments.