You are the problem.

I have been hit on by guys many, many times but this time has really got to me.

I have had old men put their tongues in my ear, I have had professional men tell me that they have had erections in meetings with me, I have been groped, I have had slobbering men tell me in drunk slur the things they would like to do to me but this one has really pissed me off.

I invited a client, Mr H, at last minute to an event, there’s a spare seat and I know he doesn’t have a job and he turns up to the opening of an envelope. We have known each other several years but never have we been at a social event together that was not work related. He does a vast amount of philanthropy work and is very wealthy. He offered my services to a children’s charity he also works with, at my request, and I was really pleased to be involved. Was.

The networking lunch is pleasant enough. I have a great conversation with the influencer sitting next to me who is launching her make-up range in the UK and the gentleman on my other side who imports rugs.  But no sooner did the influencer get up from her chair to visit the ladies did Mr H take her seat to sit next to me. Mr H keeps touching my thigh (clad in a thick white denim below knee length skirt) in conversation, I notice it but I try not to read too much into it, Mr H and I haven’t been out socially, maybe he is just a touchy feely kinda guy. 

But I find myself being the victim of an intentional separation from the group for follow-on drinks, the effort to get me alone is dawning on me the more I think on it. Enroute to the first post lunch bar, with a breakaway group of 4 including Mr H and I, Mr H tries to draw me into another bar, disregarding the party we are with, telling me he owns it and given I’m considering opening a wine bar I really should see it. Something tells me not to, I don’t take the bait.

After half an hour Mr H doesn’t like the first bar and wants to leave, I say no problem let’s go to the official meeting place bar to join the rest of the group. Sadly, they won’t let us in there’s a private function. This is confusing, I know the group are in there but I’m not there long enough to argue the point. I am taken to another bar much closer to Mr H’s home; which I am well aware of as I sold it to him along with all of his neighbours. Another drink. I ask him lots of questions about his childhood, how he made his money etc. I now note that even though I love asking people questions and am generally happy being the ask-er, at no point during the evening was I the ask-ee.

I say I need to find the group. We head back to the meeting point and this time get in. We are greeted by two other guests who inform me everyone is leaving and we’re all going to another bar. I head off again with Mr H in tow.

As a side note – by this stage I have done over 10,000 steps in my 2inch high wedges and if I hadn’t had been drinking, I would have been crippled by the pain.

This time it’s a new party of 4 including Mr H and I, I being the only girl. We drink Margs, my thigh gets touched significantly more than my thigh is comfortable with and the time comes that I really need to get home and feed my poor dog. I learn later the rest of the party retired pre-Margs. I get in a taxi and head home.

And then it starts.

A ludicrous number of texts from Mr H telling me to get the taxi to turn around and come back. Telling me he only need make ‘one call and I can shut the bridge down’ and ‘I will send a helicopter to get you, just send me your address’ and ‘pack your pyjamas’ and ‘tell your dog goodnight and you’ll see her soon’. This goes on for at least 45 mins. Thinly veiled insistence that I come back to his apartment.

On review of the messages – twice I said ‘Stop’ and yet that seemed to fall on deaf ears; or blind eyes as the case may be.

In the moment, I couldn’t give it the old ‘fuck off and go away’, he is a client, he knows many, many of my other clients and there’s the children’s charity I’m going to need to see him at.

Eventually he stops. I feel really icky.

The next morning, I feel worse.

At what point did I ever give the indication that I was interested in him? At what point over the preceding years did I ever give the impression of being a woman that would sleep with her clients? Did I ever imply that wealth was in any way attractive to me?  That ‘sending a helicopter’ would somehow make me drop my pants – and my convictions!?

And in equal measure, at no point during the evening, outside of the thigh touching, did Mr H flirt with me. There wasn’t one solitary compliment; not even a gross one! He went from nothing to nagging and nagging for sex like a snively, self-indulgent man-baby who’s only available resource to getting laid is a fucking helicopter.

It’s gross and I am now repulsed by him.

I have a massive blister on the sole of my foot, I slept really badly and I feel uncomfortable in my own space, like he’s somehow polluted it.

I am expecting an apology text, some acknowledgment that perhaps he went too far. At 6:30pm the following evening a text comes in:

Mr H: “Howdy, how was your ANZAC day?”

The arrogance is palpable.