King Leer

Audio!!

I know I’ve described to some, though possibly not all, about the leering phenomena that exists here in New York. Until recently I lived in Kensington, which is a couple miles south of here and significantly more ethnically diverse. And somehow there is a fair amount of residents that can afford to just sit on the streets outside of shops. So when a young lady, such as myself, steps out of a store she may find herself between two creepy old Indian men. The one of the left who says, “Nice. Very Nice.” And the one on the right who says “Yes I like that.” I can say wholeheartedly that this was the most jarring thing I had to deal with in my move. Hands down. It’s not talked about and it’s is just entirely out of my realm of experience until now.

Other than the comments there are a few other things that may happen. Staring. Just. Constant. Staring. Not to be deterred by subtle gestures of non-interest. Oh no. But then they add something particularly classy. Start with a stare and then add in lip licking. I shudder to think of it.

Now I don’t mean to isolate the Indians. It can probably be attributed to a cultural difference, because it’s predominantly common in first generation Indians, while many Indian-Americans clearly know what’s what and act with class. In fact there’s been a few who I’ve just wished would turn into their lewder counterparts, because damn there’s some good looking Indian males around. And I’ve had my share with Hispanics (like that nice fellow who saw fit to escort me the half mile to my train station) and blacks (Particularly in Queens. Oh the smile I got from a dude with a grill today.) But truly they just go above and beyond any other group.

Finally I reached a breaking point. Out for drinks after the first day of Comic con an Indian fellow introduced himself to me. I was polite but disinterested so he proceded to sit in the both next to ours and stare at me. He had intermitten visitors, but whenever they would leave he would continue to stare at me, and if I ever looked over he’d wink and mouth words that I didn’t bother to interpret. I gesture for him to come over, he quickly obliges and leans over the table where I whisper to him, “If you don’t stop staring at me I will rip your balls off.” Mark that day on your calendar folks, because that was the first time I got something to work! He smiled. Walked away. And not a glimpse of him for the rest of the night.

And that is how my crusade started. Clearly this was a cultural difference and I just needed to let them know, one at a time, that this is not, in fact, the way to make an American woman feel special. I felt like I’ve done a real service in my short time in Kensington. But now I live in Park Slope and young, attractive and well off men (no matter their race) just don’t seem to have the same leering tendency. Luckily I work in Queens and also ride the subway on a regular basis. New York’s little traveling pie chart. So I still have my run ins.

Truly this is the only reason I wrote this post. A couple days ago I had one such run in. I was sitting innocently looking at my feet or something equally innocuous when we come to a stop and very large. Large. Man walks on and sits across from me. Because I have that just ridiculous tendency to be nice I look up and smile. Oh no. How am I still making this rookie mistake? That is his in. He returns with that pedophile, heavy on the creep smile. But his bulking demeanor makes him look similar to a large brown toad in a haggard wife beater. With this visual in mind I can’t whipe the smile off my face, but I break eye contact post haste and stare at a very interesting ad for the next five minutes.

I cant’ help but check back in. The dude. Still smiling looks back at me and his greasy lips part as his large wet cow tongue veeery slowly makes it’s way around his lips, grazing against his ill formed and scratchy mustache. I just… I couldn’t help it. I burst into smile. Okay. Few more minutes and the man is just clearly staring at my crotch. I start to get fairly uncomfortable. But then we meet eyes again and… again with the ever so slow mouth licking. I start to laugh. Who is this giant old toad? Is he in on the joke or does their really exist someone this vile and strange?? I laugh until my stop where I shake my head as I get off. Oh boy.

So there’s your bite of New York for today.