In the olden days—a period of time as ephemeral as the name suggests, encompassing far more than just the vague pseudo-Victorian semi-1950s era we think of when we use it—there was a societal code women used to reject unfit suitors without seeming untoward. Not that men have ever gotten the point, even with a point-blank firm “no”, but it used to seem fun—to demur, flutter your fan in this exact fashion; to snub, avoid eye contact; to let down easy, say, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

I keep my head down and I keep my answers single-syllabic.

This is not the richly romanticized “old way” of doing things and it truthfully doesn’t seem to be working much, but when one is paranoid and can’t tell the difference between a man being a little too friendly and a man attempting to make overtures, treating it all the same is how it’s done. It’s not as if flying into an empowered rage would do much. I pride myself on being quiet, on being soft, on being nice, as if “nice” was something to aspire to and not something used to gag other women into compliance. I’m white. I’m allowed to be nice, especially when it’s expected.

“Hey, girl,” he says, and my skin crawls. Does he even know my name? I don’t think he does, though he has to have heard our bosses call me by it before. I’m turning twenty-eight, for all that I still feel fifteen at heart, I’m nobody’s girl and certainly not his. “You know you’re doing a great job, right?” he says, as if I wasn’t aware that half of my job is chasing after him and his fellows to make sure they report their work so they can get paid. “Just some Friday fun,” he says as he sends me one of those animated emojis that truly freak me out a bit, not that he’d know it. Could just be friendly. No need to overreact. Calm down, you’re making a scene, you’re embarrassing him.

“Does she have a boyfriend?” he asked my boss, as if dating could be anywhere near my mind in the face of a global pandemic. “Does she have a boyfriend?”, as if sex could be on the table at any point even when not staring down a snapchat of my mother’s fading hair and feeling my heartbeat in my throat. I am asking questions like “if Mom passes should I stay at home to take care of Dad even though he doesn’t really need to be taken care of just yet” and “if Mom goes what happens to her collections of glass and rubber stamps and ribbons and paper” and “if we lose Mom, do I have to step up and be the leader of the family, especially once Dad starts going downhill? Take care of legal things? Sell their things and their house? Uproot the irises and peonies we planted here? Hope someone takes care of the hydrangeas?” I should have another twenty years to think about these things. My parents are fifty. I am not quite thirty. On paper they’re middle-aged and I’m an adult. In practice, I’m still stuck somewhere in my teen years and they’ve got another two decades at least, maybe three to four at most. Decades get smaller when you experience more of them.

How the fuck am I supposed to even think about things like “does she have a boyfriend” when my constant low-grade anxiety is certain that I not only have covid-19, but I’ve already spread it to my mother, weakened by cancer and chemo? That breathing on my niece when I hold her is a death sentence for her tiny five-month life? That my already-aching knees are a sign of my own impending moldering crumbling return to the earth?

There’s no way to hold a fan that conveys “not only am I not looking for a partner right now, but even if I was, you would not be it.” There’s no coy way to say “you are not even in the same stratosphere as my type and you are making me uncomfortable, please go away.” There’s no polite way to scream “stop, just fucking stop, if you are just being polite then go about it less creepily and if you’re looking for something from me the most I can manage is a half-second of nervous eye contact and a half-smile, because you make me feel like I am being hunted and I do not appreciate being the terrified rabbit in this scenario.” No way to convey “I am aware that if you wanted to corner me in this office and take from me what I won’t give, you could do it, because I am in here alone most of the time and nobody would hear me scream and locked doors mean nothing when those I am most frightened of have the code” without stepping on toes. Because men never have to consider what other men might do to them and women who don’t are the ones who get caught. As if avoidance was a morality tale. As if rape would stop if women would just use their head for five minutes and be clever and learn how to voice rejection in a way that still strokes a man’s ego, or just suck it up and deal with being taken advantage of, with giving what we don’t want to give.

If there’s a cute emoji combination that means “go fuck yourself” in the nicest way possible, I’d probably just use that. Heaven knows “I’m LDS and asexual and not interested” wouldn’t get through.