The Girl at the Pool - Part 10

I woke up on a terrible Monday to get ready for school. Luckily, I had gone to bed early and was well-rested. I put on my debating skirt, -boy, are skirts ever uncomfortable- my black pantyhose and my debate face on. I knew that talking to Mr. Forman would not be easy, so I had to be prepared. The previous night,  I had talked to my true friend and she had agreed to come with me to talk to Mr. Forman, as he had sent her an email requesting to see her as well. When I got to school, I began ranting about the issue to my girlfriend. I don't think that she was listening. She's heard me rant about so many things, so many times that I'm sure that she has a mechanism to go deaf each time I start ranting.

My classes weren't going well, all I could think of was what I would say to Mr. Forman. I was stressed,  but nonetheless, I kept a straight face. Over lunch, I saw my true friend, and she told me to not go off on a whim about the freedom to expression/speech. She told me to basically just say that I was wrong. As the gangstas would put it: "AWWWW, HELL NO!" There was no way in hell that I was going to accept guilt. I had done no wrong, and of that, I was sure.

My true friend came to my last block class to pick me up. We walked down the hall and arrived at the room. Mr. Forman was sitting there and he greeted both of us with a really nice "hey girls!" Then we got into what had happened. He asked if I understood his problem. I said no, because I honestly didn't. I couldn't believe it when he told me that his issue wasn't the emails, it wasn't my actual post, but rather that it was the comment that I had left about his "forcing". My mind flooded in disbelief. I honestly thought that he had some problems. A grown man was nit-picking over one word, telling me that he didn't force me.

I said, "okay, but then what would you call it?"

His answer was "nothing, your outburst was out of line, and apologizing was the right thing to do."

"Okay, I understand that it was out of line, but I still don't see why I shouldn't have used the word 'force', what else could I have called it?" I demanded.

"It wasn't force because it was the right thing to do, no matter what you think it was right, and I'm right. I'm done." He said, as he stammered out the door.

Wow, right? In between this issue, he had stated that he hadn't received the emails from the wretched woman until last night, and that he was upset by them. When I asked him what he intended to do, he simply responded that he wanted to forget about it. So why wasn't I allowed to forget about my outburst? Why was I FORCED to apologize for my statements? Most importantly, why was this woman getting a free pass?