March 26, 2009 | Dear Cary,
Recently while I was on Facebook, the man who date-raped me in college showed up as "people you might know." Apparently a mutual friend has him as a Friend, at least virtually. I never filed charges, never told people for years afterward, and didn't even think of it as rape until five years ago. But now that I think about it, it infuriates me that he was able to victimize me without consequences. I don't want to bring legal action, or shame him publicly, but I do want him to understand what he did was wrong. I'd like an apology. I think I could easily forgive him if an apology was offered. We were both young. Mistakes are made. That doesn't make it OK.
Should I attempt to contact him, or just let bygones be bygones? Honestly, I could take it or leave it. My only worry is that he will think date rape is OK. (I was extremely drunk, and threw up for hours, and went in and out of consciousness while he had sex with me. He watched me throw up, and then still tried to have sex with me.) I've had a long path recovering from this incident and prior childhood abuse, and I'd hate to think he was still doing the same thing to other women.
All I want to know is that he knows what he did was wrong, and is sorry for it. But is it worth contacting him, if the answer may be "no" or "I don't know what you're talking about"? I worry the attempt of getting a response will be more trouble, emotionally speaking, than the satisfaction of closure from the right answer.
-Want Him to Know
This has become the tragedy of the internet. On some level, I think most victims want their rapists to have lived an unhappy life. You don't want him to have gotten up from that moment and walked away without consequence or thought or fear. You don't want his life not to have changed in that moment because in some way — or in many ways — yours did. And yet, Facebook can tell you it doesn't work that way. A close friend found her rapist there one drunken night, all smiling and normal looking, proudly proclaiming his good job and relationship status.
I wonder if the scars will ever really heal, or there are just armies of women, wandering the streets as little ghosts hiding their faces from men of their pasts.
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