Yesterday, I went for a run. I like running, not least because a camel toe is an entirely appropriate accessory. Being a resident of London, I have plotted routes that allow me to pretend that I am not in London: back streets and alleys connect laps of parks, woods, and dog-fouled greens. When I am running, I could be in Staines. My current preference is for a disused railway that connects a small cluster of trees to a park. By London standards it is positively rural, and as such, it is congested as fuck. Yummy mummies, cyclists and biffter-honking teenagers jostle for space with dog walkers and optimistic foragers.

Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” keeping my pace steady, and a high SPF on my milky flanks, life could have been a lot worse at that moment. Running towards me at quite a pace was a 6ft man in his 30s, I realised too late that a more athletic specimen was just about to overtake me, so with both of us unable to edge to one side, and moving faster than we were aware, we slammed into each other. Like Telly Tubbies saying ‘eh oh’. It must have looked insane, so I did a laugh smile, put my hands up and said “Oh! Sorry!” expecting him to do the same. He did not; he got angry, and said “for FUCK’S sake, LOOK where you’re fucking going!” He stood there, glaring over me, and suddenly anxious to get away, I started running again, an unexpected lump in my throat.

Am I malcoordinated? Certainly. But in this instance, we were equally at fault, and equally innocent. Had I been an enormous be-muscled man, I feel strongly that Rev. FFS would have reacted differently, with far less, if any aggression. In fact, I think that even if my ripped-man alter ego had ran the length of the path with his eyes shut, arms flailing around, listening + singing along to “Mambo No. 5” on portable speakers, Rev. FFS would not have responded to the collision with such anger.

Physical + Verbal aggression demonstrated at times of sudden confrontation almost always follows the pattern of he who’s bigger, he who has the most power, assuming control and often righteousness. You see it in the playground, and you see it between countries, and how terrifically absurd it is that swagger and muscle can give you such a catastrophic sense of entitlement. If you are a man reading this, you may have on occasion been bullied or threatened by another, and I would bet handsomely that you have been the smaller, softer purveyor of dick + ballsack on the majority of these times. As a woman, you are almost always the vulnerable party, and nearly never have the power that comes with having the physical upper hand.

And it was shit to be reminded of this out running.

Dear Rev. FFS, I hope you slip on a dog turd in front of your crush, lots of love BGP xoxo