I’m not sure what to even call the incident: sexual harassment I guess it I’m not sure.

I just need to put this down somewhere. I’ve never told anyone about it but I think about it every now and again. It makes me nauseous every time it crosses my mind.

Some years ago I went on a music cruise, as a musician. There were roughly 25 other bands on board, ranging from extremely famous right down to mid level. I was at the time in a mid level band and was so so excited to be part of the whole experience.

After our first gig on the ship, I got chatting to a guy who was the guitar tech for the headline band. I can’t name the band but they are very famous and have hit singles across the world. So this guy was just genuinely nice, pretty nerdy and dorky and awkward but we shared a lot of knowledge so it was decent conversation.

One of the nights on the boat there was a VIP party for performers- we got chatting again and I quickly got pretty tipsy on the free drinks. I was walking around the whole night, chatting to different people, and I walked past this guy a few times at the bar. Each time he would give me a kinda sad lonely look so I’d stop and chat for a moment and then carry on to wherever I was headed. Toward the end of the night he asked me to sit with him as he had been trying to chat with me properly all night. We got some drinks and the bar closed soon after, so I grabbed my band-mates and we started heading back to our rooms. On the way out of the bar, my friends stopped to talk to someone and the tech guy over to say he was meeting some of the other people from the bar at one of their rooms, and he asked if we wanted to go to, which we agreed. I gave my friend the “stay with me” look while she was getting the details of where the gathering would be. She started leaving and I excused myself from the tech guy, and we started leaving. My other band mate was a bit further behind so the friend I was with says to wait right where I was while she went back for her- we could see each other the whole time but also I didn’t really feel in danger or anything at this point- only to the point that we were on a huge ship in a foreign country and so we wanted to stick together. At some point, my friends quickly get caught up in conversation with a group of people and we get separated. I waited around where I was for them but started heading back to my room after a few minutes, texting them to say I was going to bed. They text back apologising and saying they thought I was in the group too but to meet them at the gathering if I wanted. As I’m walking, the tech guy catches up with me and says he is just headed to the new party so he can show me the way (after I explained the situation) and I agree. We were amongst other people that I recognised so felt okay. He stops at a room on the way and says he’s just going inside for a jacket, so I step in with him and text my friends to say what’s happening- including the room number. He’s looking around for a minute and I said I was just going to go to bed and started leaving the room, but he ran past me, blocked the door, and was saying “no stay, I won’t be long, sorry!” and not wanting to cause a fuss, I said I’d wait but stayed in the doorway. He put his arms around me and walked back into the room away from the door. I’m 5 ft tall and very petite, he’s 6ft something and built quite big, I was not able to stand my ground physically. I told him to stop and he got sad saying he didn’t mean to freak me out, he’s sorry, all of that. I said not to worry but I did want to go now. On my way out he put his arms around me again from behind, and kissed my head. I just froze. I said “don’t, please” and he asked if I would stay. I declined. He kissed my head again and said he just wanted company, nothing more, and asked me to relax.

I tried to move toward the door, and he moved around so I was facing into the room, with him still behind me. I tried to awkward-laugh my way out, saying “come on now dude, this is a bit much don’t you think? I’m just gonna go back to my friends”. My bag had dropped off of my shoulder to the ground, so I tried reaching down for it and he tightened his hug. I bucked backward and said I didn’t like what he was doing, and told him to stop which he did. I grabbed my bag and made for the door, which he was blocking again. As soon as I got my phone out of my bag, he moved and said he was only messing around.

I was shaking so much that I couldn’t even use my phone to call my friends, I just ran back to my room crying. Inside, my friends were waiting, and instantly they started saying how I was silly for wandering off and getting myself into a dangerous situation, the whole works. I felt so ashamed of myself and agreed.

Since then I have kept quiet, thinking I had done something wrong and that I had given him the wrong signals or something. Only recently, after reading another woman’s account of something similar with another man in the industry, I realised that I was not to blame.

For years I have thought that maybe I was making a bigger deal out of it than it actually was, but I now know that what I went through was not right, though it is common. I felt guilt toward my boyfriend because I felt like I’d led this other guy on with my friendly conversation. I felt so disgusting that I had done that to myself. But I hadn’t.

Im not looking for advice or kind words or anything, I just needed to finally get this off my chest. Hopefully it may help someone who has felt the same way.