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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Drink spiking and an uncomfortable situation

34 replies

CoffeeAndEyeliner · 17/02/2019 23:04

Hi all,
I’m sorry if this isn’t the right place for this but I don’t know who else to talk to who might understand. Please go easy on me it’s not my proudest moment.

I’m really only looking for opinions I guess to settle my own mind. This happened a few years ago and still bothers me from time to time.

Basically, I got myself in to what could have been a nasty situation and I’m torn between feeling suspicious that the man I was with spiked my drink and feeling like he was helping me while drunk.

I was at a work conference. Dinner time came and I had two courses (starter and main) of stodgy vegetarian food. I had only water with my meal. Between main and dessert they had an alcohol tasting game- had to smell and taste the spirit and match it to a description. I was tasting it but literally just a taste (as in no swallowing required). I didn’t feel drunk after this.

After the meal a man from the same company but a different office sat by me and chatted to me. We talked for a while and drank red wine. He seemed nice (not in a sexual way. About as old as my dad and I am also happily married). In total I might have had a bottle (maybe not even that) in the space of about 4 hours.

At about 11 he said ‘you look like you should get to bed’. I was reading a great book at the time and thought if I went up then I could get some reading time in before I had to sleep.

He told me he’d walk me to my room. I said no and he kept insisting. I kept saying no. He said he couldn’t let me go alone in case something were to happen to me. So I said ok.
I guess I assessed the situation. The lady that was in the room across the hall from me had just gone up to bed, there were people all around in rooms. He was a colleague.
On the walk to my room he started talking about how nice my body was and was touching my legs. I asked him to stop and he did.

When we got to my room he asked if he could have coffee. I said no but he kept asking and saying that he was too drunk to make it back to his room without coffee to sober him up. I relented. I told him he could have one and then he had to go. At this point I felt a little merry but not drunk. I propped the door open and filled the kettle.

This is when it gets a little dodgy. I was filling the kettle and it was like I was hot by a tonne of bricks. I felt dizzy and sick and could barely stand. I told him he had to go now as I thought I’d be sick.
I was by far the illest i’d ever been. I was collapsed by the toilet vomiting profusely and shaking. I remember looking at him and he was sipping the coffee that he’d made himself and watching me puke.

He finally left and I laid down on the bathroom floor and passed out.

I have a vague memory of being put in to bed and being sick again badly.

I woke up the next morning to find that he’d let himself back in to my room. He was the one who’d put me in to bed. He’d slept in his underwear in the same bed as me.
I woke up when he got up to get dressed in the morning. He gave the impression that he didn’t expect me to be awake. He was talking a lot and rambled some weird story about getting in to trouble at a previous conference because he stayed in another young lady’s bedroom because she forgot that she said he could stay there.

I don’t know what to think.
I don’t expect anyone to know my personal tolerance for alcohol but I felt merry up until the point where I was floored. It came on so quickly. That, and the way he insisted on walking me to my room and coming in made me think it was a plan. But maybe he didn’t expect me to be so violently ill.

On the other hand, I know for sure I wasn’t assaulted (tights were still up around my tits) and I know that he’d flown to the conference. You wouldn’t risk bringing drugs on a flight would you? Also, you could spin the situation and see it as him helping a drunk young lady.
I remember pretty much everything as well which surely would defeat the purpose of spiking someone’s drink?

I think this really bothers me because of the poor decision making on my part, the ambiguity and the fact that but for the grace of god I could have been assaulted.

Any opinions or advice is welcome. I still struggle with it a couple of years later.

Thanks for reading

OP posts:
donquixotedelamancha · 19/02/2019 09:49

you could spin the situation and see it as him helping a drunk young lady.

Nope. In no conceivable way could you spin it like that. The best case scenario is that he is a creep taking advantage of someone who's drunk.

Whether he spiked your drink or not, you did nothing wrong.

CatandtheFiddle · 19/02/2019 10:11

The more I read your OP CoffeeAndEyeliner the more angry I get. He's a predator, and he has form.

Can you let HR in your company know? Could you frame it as - OK it's a few years ago, but I have been reflecting on events, and I'm concerned>
a) you didn't drink enough to cause the consequent physical reaction
b) you said No, clearly and repeatedly and he ignored your No.
c) he slept in your bed next to you without invitation - you'd said No, clearly & repeatedly
d) he disclosed to you that He was talking a lot and rambled some weird story about getting in to trouble at a previous conference because he stayed in another young lady’s bedroom because she forgot that she said he could stay there. (utter BS lie, I suspect).

Say to HR that you realise that as it's a couple of years ago, you're not expecting any action on your behalf,

BUT
you want your experience of this sexual harassment (that's what it is) on record so that some safety precautions are put in place re general arrangements at work conferences.

  • no alcohol games
  • managers keeping an eye out for men behaving as predators/focusing attention on individual women - not the women, but the men. They are the miscreants
  • a company policy that emphasises no "liaisons" at conferences. This would be harder to develop, but it's about a work conference being a sociable event, but still professional.

I suppose my overall suggestion is that it'd be good if you could find a way to flag up this man. I know it's crap, the way it's the female "victim" who has to do the reporting, but maybe (only maybe) it will help you find a sort of closure if you feel you've done something positive towards stopping this man (and others like him) harassing other women in your organisation?

Iused2BanOptimist · 19/02/2019 10:36

I think any "alcohol game" should be reported and no one should feel any need to join in. A simple "oh well, have fun boys, it's an early night for me" and leave them to it, whilst you write your email to HR and management detailing all the reasons why this is unacceptable should do it.

MotherOfDragonite · 19/02/2019 12:13

This is so uncomfortable even to read.

I wonder if it would be worth getting your concerns on record with the police and with HR at the organisation, even if you don't intend to take it further. It just sounds as if this is a pattern for this person and I would want to build up some kind of record of this behaviour in case he did it again or other people had had similar concerns.

WeRiseUp · 19/02/2019 12:26

Of course he could have spiked her drink. People are allowed to take medicines abroad. He could have easily taken a date rape drug in a container for his other meds.

MargueritaPink · 19/02/2019 14:05

you could spin the situation and see it as him helping a drunk young lady

What planet are you on?

BettyDuMonde · 19/02/2019 15:11

This is horrible. Makes me feel squicky just thinking about it - absolutely unacceptable and more to the point, he knows it.

His admitted history of it means it was likely premeditated, even if he didn’t drug you.

I really think it should be flagged up with HR - can you make a confidential disclosure or similar? Just get it on file somewhere (with the police too, if you feel able) so that if anything else ever comes up in relation to this man and another woman, you at least have a witness that a disclosure was made at this time? You might be able to take a friend or trusted colleague along with you?

Grace212 · 20/02/2019 10:21

OP
I'm really sorry this happened to you

there is no "ambiguity" - you were targeted and assaulted, though I suspect all the stuff with him hanging around and watching is probably his careful way of not actually touching you.

re the drugs - I have some experience of hypnotics for sleep - the first thing I will say is I wonder how accurate your memory is. You think you remember it clearly but you maybe don't. That's not a criticism of you, just saying, don't take the fact that you suddenly crashed as being meaningful. The thing with hypnotics, if you felt awful before you crashed, or you were tripping, you won't necessarily remember it.

when I was at my worst with depression and anxiety, I used to joke that the best thing about a hypno was that in the morning, if I'd had a massive anxiety attack in the night, I couldn't remember what it was about, or I could only remember academically and couldn't remember the feelings.

I can take 14 of my sleeping pills on a plane I think? I don't travel.

Anyway, this man will almost certainly have attacked someone else in the past, from what he is saying.

I'd be very concerned about a company that plays drinking games, I've seen this kind of thing go wrong so often.

men offering to take you somewhere for safety are claiming to protect you from...men.

I can understand if you can't face flagging it up with HR but I'd be tempted to send anonymous note or something. It will mean it's on their radar, though I suspect it might be already.

Juells · 22/02/2019 15:36

Isn't it typical that as a woman you couldn't just yell "Get away from me"? Men like him rely so much on the fact that most women are too polite to tell them to fuck the fuck off.

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