Last week, some guy yelled to me, "I almost got hit by that car because he was checking you out in that skirt!!" He pointed towards an old man in a minivan. I laughed out loud at the craziness of the situation. I had completely zoned out as I waited to cross the street, but I had vaguely heard some commotion. I felt like I should tell off the guy who yelled to me, but he wasn't actually leering at me or hitting on me. He was just relaying information!
Today, I walked out of the bathroom at work and headed back towards my desk. But as soon as I took the first step in that direction, I remembered that I wanted to get my printout, which was in the other direction. So, thinking I was alone in the hallway, I spun around with some sort of flourish. I heard someone say, "Cute." I looked up and there was a guy standing about 20 feet in front of me, about to walk into the men's room. I couldn't believe that the word "cute" came out of someone's mouth, at work--in the land of law suits! So I was like, "What did you say?" He was like, "I said that was cute." I was like, "Oh. Yeah. Because I spun. Yeah. I made a mistake. Had to turn around." If I wore glasses, I would have pushed them up and punctuated my sentences with snorts and guffaws.
So, in closing, I felt sort of complimented by these happenings. And I didn't feel insulted, threatened, or objectified by them--although there was a place there in my mind for that. When I was younger, I had no patience for uncouth male attention and brandished my middle fingers and curse words freely. I think that as I get older, I don't get as much attention, and it's more respectful(?) when I do get it.