I went into a skyscraper and wanted to call the lift, next to me was a guy. My hands were full. Bag, briefcase, car key, papers and phone. No wonder that my documents fell to the ground. He helped me pick them up, I barely would have been able to do so otherwise, without placing all my stuff onto the ground. I was extremely thankful and told him so several times.

Then he noticed that we wanted to travel to the same floor, after all we had to select the floor number before the journey. He also commented on the fact that we would be travelling to the same floor. That didn’t bother me. I’m not scared to travel in an escalator with a guy. When the lift arrived and I entered he stayed outside.

Surprised I asked him whether he wasn’t going to join. He said no. I was taken aback and asked him why and whether it was because of me.

He smiled whimsically and said that he is a lawyer and for several years has done everything to avoid travelling in an escalator with women that he didn’t know personally and that he is specialised in defending cases of sexual harassment.

‘Woah!’ I thought and said bye to him. I travelled alone in the lift.

In what kind of a world do we live if two strangers are scared to travel in the same elevator. This idea makes me feel very uncomfortable. In the past I could imagine that women used to be scared but today I realise that this fear has spread like a disease.

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