For the Guys Who Do the Right Thing

Fall of 1980, I’m a freshman at the University of Colorado in Boulder. 17 years old. Terrible at holding my liquor, in part because I weighed 103 pounds. I can’t recall where I met him or much else about him, but one night I went country dancing with a guy I barely knew. About the same age as me, Chris/Mark/Jim (maybe?) had blondish hair and wore jeans and cowboy boots (we were going to a western bar, after all). Soft spoken and what I would have called a regular guy, definitely not my type.

To be honest, I don’t recall much of our date except that I drank way too much (not hard to do since two drinks caused me to slur my words), and Chris/Mark/Jim had to help me into my dorm room. In fact, he may even have carried me up the stairs of the dorm and down the hall to my room. It was a weekend, so my roommate was back home in Denver; I had the room to myself. Chris/Mark/Jim got me into the room, laid me on the bed, took off my boots, and covered me up. And even in my watery daze, I sensed a pause in him, a consideration, a ‘What if I…’ Certainly I was an easy target, probably wouldn’t have put up much of an argument (as an abuse survivor, I didn’t do boundaries well). And as he stood over me, looking down at my pretty little body on the bed, I felt the pause.

And then Chris/Mark/Jim turned, switched off the room light, and closed the room door behind him. I spent 3 1/2 more years on that campus and never saw him again. Not surprisingly, I never heard from him again either. Why he wouldn’t want a second date with a girl he had to pour into her bed isn’t exactly a mystery.

Of course, it’s a basic decency to make the choice Chris/Mark/Jim did that night, and it’s one countless young men have made. I’m happy to say I raised a son who would certainly do the same. But there are also plenty who would have (and have) chosen differently. Those are other stories. In this story an 18 year-old boy listened to the inner voice of whoever taught him to be a good guy and a good human and did the right thing. Unless he’s reading this and recalls the experience, I’ll never know who that boy was, but I will always remember him and feel grateful.

That night Chris/Mark/Jim set a limit that my lost young self wasn’t able to set for herself. He protected me from both of us. So this is a shout-out to all the young men who quietly do the right thing, even when no one is watching. I want you to know your choice lives on and matters. Not just because you don’t get arrested and (potentially) have negative consequences, but because your simple act of respect reminds lost girls that they matter and deserve protection. Until we can know it for ourselves.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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