A Confrontation

[Gige]

I want to begin by asking a simple question: Has anyone ever been confronted about wearing a pair of heels, either just the heels themselves or wearing heels with "feminine" attire, such as a skirt or dress? Most unfortunately, such recently happened to me but it was not driven by any sort of "problem" some narrow-minded jackass has/had regarding a man wearing heels. Here's the story.

A few days ago, I headed to my health club/gym for my usual workout following a routine day at the office. Now, in the past, I made it a point not to enter the facility wearing any article of clothing that could be obviously identified/labelled as "feminine," such as a dress, skirt, or even heels. Thus, when I knew I was going to be heading to my health club after a day at the office, the outfit for work was always pants. When I pulled into the parking lot for the facility on such days, the heels, jewelry, neck-scarf (if worn) came off and remained in my car. Given that the level of excessive testosterone was frequently on display by individual taking topless selfies of themselves while flexing muscles in front of the locker room mirror, I did not feel comfortable walking into such a setting while wearing a pair heels and/or skirt/dress. During the cold of winter or heat of summer, this "pre-changing" in my car became cumbersome and unnecessary.  As my health club recently instituted a policy of no cell-phone use in the locker rooms, the instances of such selfies of flexed muscles has largely abated.  Thus, I felt the time for heading to the locker room without having to remove my heels or other items in my car had arrived. Unfortunately, the first instance of such resulted in a confrontation the truly spooked me.

I do not remember exactly what I was wearing that day but I seem to recall it was a knee-length skirt, a black turtleneck, and a pair of flat riding boots. I made my way into the locker room and started changing without incident. After I changed into my workout clothes, I went into the washing area to remove my make-up so that when I was sweating, it would not get all over the equipment. As I was doing so, I noticed a young man out of the corner of my right eye, shirtless and wearing "wrap around" sun glasses, quickly glance into the washing area. I made no note of it and finished what I was doing. When I was finished, I made my way back to the general changing area to ensure that my locker was locked. At that time, the same individual, hereinafter identified as "Person X"  came up to me and said there was a problem with my eyes. I was caught off guard and thought that maybe my eyes were suddenly inflamed by the chemicals in the make-up remover towelette I used. The conversation from here went as follows, as best as I can remember it.

"Oh my gosh, what's wrong with my eyes?" I asked

"They are seeing funny" Person X responded.

"What, they are not seeing funny. There's nothing wrong with them." I said.

"Well, why did you 'smoke my backside?'" Person X asked.

"What do you mean? I have no idea what you mean that I have 'smoked your backside!" I responded.

"You did it three times" he continued.

I continued to responded by stating that, honestly, I had not a clue as to what he meant 'smoking his backside.' He continued by insisting that, on three occasions, I had 'smoked his back side' and he needed it documented for the court of heaven. At that time, three words came to mind - mental illness/paranoia. Although I am not a trained mental health practitioner by any stretch of the imagination, I have been so exposed to such over the course of my career, that I have learned how to recognize it when I see it. Here, it was standing right in front of me. All that I could do was deescalate and get away from the person so as not to get hurt. Arguing with those who are mental ill is not advisable under any condition. Fortunately, the situation ended without any harm befalling me beyond just being "spooked" over the matter. After the incident was over, I quickly spoke to another patron of the facility who told me that he had observed Person X in the gym on previous occasions and felt that Person X was "disturbed."

As I replayed the incident in my mind and gave it some thought, I was able to develop a theory of what happened. Person X observed me enter the gym and followed me into the locker room (I did not notice him as I was doing so). Once he saw me washing my face, he confronted me after I was done. It is my contention that seeing me enter the either the facility or male locker room (or both) as I was dressed at that moment, his paranoia lead him to believe that my outward appearance that day was somehow meant as an unwanted sexual advance toward him. Thus, the confrontation. As crazy as this sound, to those affected by paranoia, any idea so crazy can be rationalized/justified.  I think was I spooked by this because a man so obviously wearing heels or a dress is going to be noticeable to average person. Should a person suffering from paranoia somehow take offense to this, the results could be deadly. I truly have to wonder if men who wear heels may be in an enhanced position for suffering harm from those whose mental illness causes them to take offense in some capacity at the sight of such.