By Janet Falk

I’m 63 years old and have some gray hair. I’m wearing pants and a jacket. It’s 7:45 pm on June 28, 2016 as I wait for the bus on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan.

Suddenly, a taxi pulls over to the curb and a man in a green blazer gets out.

He walks over towards me.

He says “I dig you.”

He says it repeatedly, “I dig you,” in a British accent. He looks to be at least 60.

Why does he think I will swoon at the opportunity to spend time in his company?

I ignore him.

New York City has all kinds of crazies. You learn to leave them alone.

He sidles up to me and stands as close as he dares. “I dig you.”

I am nervous, and concerned. Who knows what he might do next?

So, I pretend I do not understand what he said.

I speak to him in Spanish.

“Véte, fulano.” (Get away, you So-and-So.)

He doesn’t understand me, but he figures out that I do not speak English.

Still, he hovers nearby. “I dig you, darling. It’s too bad you don’t understand that.”

He steps off the curb, stands in the bus lane and flags down a cab. Like in the movies, a taxi immediately pulls up in the second lane.

He opens the passenger door and stands next to the cab. He motions, with a flourish, that I should get in the taxi.

I’m standing at the bus stop.

Does he really think that a woman he has barely met, and who has told him to get lost, is about to jump in a taxi with him?

After a few flourishes, the man realizes that I ignore him. He slams the cab’s door shut and tells the driver to go on without a fare.

Now he walks in the street, going past me. He stops at the corner on the south side of the intersection. I watch out of the corner of my eye.

I’m still at the bus stop.

I already saw one bus go by. I was unable to flag it down, because I was distracted and flummoxed by this man who proclaims his sudden infatuation to a woman who dismisses him.

The bus driver apparently did not see me. He drove in the middle lane, because the taxi in the second lane and the man himself in the bus lane blocked his view, even though I am practically hugging the bus stop post.

Now, with him pacing on the next corner, I spot two men, age late 20’s, approaching. They both have guitars slung across their backs and one is walking his bicycle.

I think, “These guys are cool.”

I pride myself on being a strong, independent woman, but I know when to play the damsel in distress card.

I call out to them: “Hey, guys. Come over here.”

They approach me, no doubt wondering what a woman my age could have to say to them.

“Do me a favor. Stay here until that guy in the green jacket goes away. He is harassing me.”

“Sure,” they nod. “No problem.”

A few awkward seconds pass.

To break the ice, I say, “Thanks. I thought I was too old for this.” They smile, sympathetically.

“I see him crossing the street,” says the guy with the bike.

“Yeah, he’s heading up the block,” says the other fellow.

“Thanks, I appreciate it. You can tell your friends about your good deed,” I say, trying to make light of the situation.

He is gone.

The two fellows walk on.

I’m standing at the bus stop.

The bus doesn’t come.

I was on my way to meet my husband downtown for live music and dancing outdoors. I am no longer in the mood. I call him and abandon my plan. I walk to the subway, heading home.

It took me a while to figure out what happened that night.

It was my knowledge of Spanish that was the key.

Fulano, the word I used to dismiss the man, is the Spanish term for So-and-So or an ordinary man whose name has no importance to the story being told.

It has an equivalent for women, of course: Fulana.

Fulana means a woman with no name. A female So-and-So.

It also means, a lady of the evening.

A street walker.

A hooker.

A prostitute.

The man who approached me thought I was a prostitute.

A case of mistaken identity.

Really?

© 2026 Janet Falk, Ph.D.

Janet Falk is a Public Relations and Marketing Communications professional in New York City. She has operated her consulting practice since 2009.