In high school (I was 15 going on 16) one of the most popular guys in school liked me and everyone thought we should be together. Me, someone who had never experienced interest from a guy I genuinely liked before, I was a super easy target. Naturally we got close in only a few months and before I knew it he was asking me to be his girlfriend. I said no because I was too young and didn’t want to have to sneak around my parents for a relationship. Anyway he ends up not even two month later dating my “friend” and having a very public relationship with her. He would even FaceTime me and tell me how he could hook up with her if he wanted to cause he was cool with her brother. Me not wanting to look bitter, I kept being friends with them both and talking to him just as a friend. Fast forward a few more months where he transfers schools (not with her anymore) and on a FaceTime call he flashes me his privates and tries to manipulate me into doing the same “I feel used, I showed you mine”. I never asked him to do that. And at the time I remember being offended but I didn’t register that this was sexual harassment until today.

The thing that makes me the angriest is that when I told my peers or friends, they thought it was funny or raunchy. No one ever told me that that’s what sexual harassment looks like. No one ever really painted him as the bad guy, rather just a guy being “a guy”. And me not wanting to tip the scales on either of us, I just let the situation ride out until no one mentioned him anymore. I didn’t want to look crazy or jealous or whatever by saying what he did.

This is partially why Mr. Popular is so dangerous. People were quick to tell me how much I fumbled by not getting with him when I could, or how cute we would have been. The whole situation was honestly a HOT mess and I’m so proud of teenage me for standing her ground on not dating him, I only wish I would’ve cut him off completely when he started dating my friend. The signs were ALL there. I’m so grateful for FDS because this happened 6+ years ago but I’m just now developed enough socially and emotionally to speak about the situation and call it what it was.