Guilt and blame are evil things ...

I was at a fundraising event this weekend past that involves around 150 people camping for 2 nights.  It is a big party, dinner, raffles, dance, etc out in the country.  Alcohol flows freely.

Friday is set up, and a dinner for the volunteers, then a chance for the volunteers to kick back and party a bit before our big day Saturday.  Increasingly, non-volunteers have been coming out on Friday, setting up their tents or what have you, and partying too.  This is the first year I have not had friends sharing my tent with me, but have been tenting by myself.  I set up as normal next to a friend, and then went and did my Friday volunteer stuff.

The party after went well into the wee hours.  There were people I knew, people, I recognized, and new faces.  It was a great time, I had a couple of drinks but didn't get drunk.  I am a friendly person until someone gives me a reason not to be, and was joking and enjoying myself, getting to know people.  There was a couple there I had only known casually before, and I spent some time with them; by the end of the night they were both pretty drunk.

I went to bed around 3:30 am.  I heard the party dying down around me, and was lying there listening to the sounds of the night, when I heard the zipper on my tent fly start to open.  It was the husband from the couple I had spent the time with.  Without too much detail, he laid down on my bed and tried to make himself quite at home, and I kept declining.  I kept trying to talk him into leaving and he kept trying to talk me into letting him stay.  After a couple of minutes I pushed him away and got up, unzipped the tent fly, and went out myself.  He followed me out and agreed to leave, but made it very obvious the offer stood.

There is a lot more to this that what I am writing here, but it gives you the background.  I didn't sleep the rest of the night, and when I went in to start my kitchen prep duties in the morning there were only a few people awake, including the landowner (M) who I like, but didn't know well.  M could tell I was upset, and the story came out.

Now it seems it is known within a circle that these folks have that sort of marriage where that is OK.  The landowner, M felt bad for not giving me the head's up on it; he thought I knew, and when he saw me friendly with them he was surprised but doesn't judge.  In hindsight he felt really bad about not telling me, but it is not his fault.  He did clue me in to a few other couples in the circle I need to be clear about my boundaries with.  And on the second night, I did not sleep in my tent, but in the house on the sofa, where the only males that invited themselves into my bed had four legs and fur.

Being me, I am beating myself up about the whole thing.  I should have known, I should have been more aggressive in stopping him from even getting in to my tent, I shouldn't have been as friendly with them earlier in the evening.

My rational brain knows that this was not my fault, that I didn't do anything wrong or anything to invite that behavior.  My rational brain knows that if there is awkwardness next time I see them, that it is not my fault, and I don't need to be the one who is embarrassed. 

But I have having a hard time getting that message from my brain to my heart and my gut.  I am having a hard time letting it go.  I am having a hard time not running "what ifs" in my head, about that night and about the future.