First of all, I want to say that I don't hate my parents, I love them, they have given me absolutely everything in life but what they said today made me feel really bad and I don't know how to cope with it. They are brilliant parents, but what they said today surprised me totally.
Basically I go to college to a city that is around 2.5h bus ride away from my hometown. I have a female friend that goes to that same college with me. Today we were returning to our hometown in a bus together.
We were a bit late, she already had her ticket and I didn't so we agreed that she should just enter the bus and if I manage to buy the ticket before the bus goes, great. If not, I will just wait another hour by myself and go with that another bus that will arrive in another hour.
So she goes inside the bus. A random guy sits next to her. I manage to get there in time and enter the bus literally seconds away from the bus starting and going away. Anyways, I see there another acquaintance and I sit next to her since already that guy sat next to that friend.
5 minutes pass by and I hear my female friend scream "ARE YOU CRAZY WHAT ARE YOU DOING"..and that guy next to her just starts laughing. So I look at her and she is literally on the verge of tears. She's like 5 seats away so I text her if everything is okay and she tells me that that guy tried to inappropriately touch her. Basically, he started touching her arms and then her legs and despite her moving to another side a bit, he continued doing it more and more slowly trying to get to the point when he touches her private parts.
So I immediately get up and stand next to him. Now this guy is much bigger than me. And also there were like 50 other people there and nobody even tried to stop him.. Even older guys they just looked away and didn't want to have anything with that situation.. So I stand next to those 2 seats occupied by my friend and that guy and just look at his next move. I was ready to confront him but she told me not to do it as it wouldn't teach him anything and also because I would get in trouble only. She couldn't move to another seat because the bus was full . So when a few people got out of it at a bus stop in a city between our starting point and destination, I helped her move away from that guy and she sat for the next of trip with me due to those new empty seats.
My parents were waiting in my hometown at the bus station. When we arrived, I greeted them and told them I'll be back in 10 minutes because I needed to make sure that my friend goes back to her home safely because that guy started following her after she left the bus. So I did that, I made sure she was home safely and it wasn't too hard because she lives like 10 minutes away from the bus station.
So when I arrived back to my parents I told them what happened my dad started joking about it. My mom even said that my female friend isn't really innocent in this situation because "she was wearing a t-shirt that revealed her stomach" . She also said that I should have just looked away like the rest of the bus and not even do anything because "that guy could have had a knife or a gun and killed me". She also reffered to a story about a guy who tried to save a girl from an assault in a city bus in my hometown 20 years ago and he was killed by the attacker ( this is a true story and is well known in my country) .
I told what happened to one of my male friends because it was really fu*ked up for me and I needed to vent and he also joked about it and even told me that I am probably overacting and that it wasn't that bad and that he doesn't even believe my story.
I always knew that my conservative country is like this, a lot of people share these opinions, they usually believe that the victim is the one who is to blame, but I was shocked to actually see this in real life. I just feel super shitty about everything and even ashamed of myself.
Also, my female friend cried when I made sure she got home safely and she also messaged me later multiple times thanking me and telling me that she is so grateful that I was there for her today. She also said that she feels bad for all the girls out there who simply couldn't even shout like she did or who weren't helped in these situations.
So how do I feel better about what happened and not feel ashamed?
Tl;dr helped female friend in an assault situation, feel ashamed of it because of my environment and society judging me.
Submitted September 30, 2019 at 06:47PM by Own_Chemical https://ift.tt/2mqXs39
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