I just got back from a Model UN competition conference at Harvard.
Rosegrams are tradition there (you buy a rose, write a note and send it to someone) and the director woul read the messages out loud while distributing them. One session, I got a rose. He started reading the message, which said, "You have beautiful hair, a gorgeous face, and a hot body. So point of personal priviledge (what you say when you have a question), be my date to the dance tonight?" Which was obviously followed by "ooooh"'s and catcalls.
But there was more.
"I have seen the scars on your wrists and I know you haven't eaten the entire weekend. I just want to make you feel beautiful again."
As soon as my director read out the word "scars" I panicked - my face went blank and I just kept mouthing "stop stop" at him. He realized after a second and stopped, mumbling the rest of the message.
But it was too late, because the entire room had gone silent from their cat calls, and every single eye in the room was on me as I walked back to my seat.
There were 400 people in my committee, and every single person heard that rosegram message to me being read out. 400 people that I had to continue working with knew about the scars and empty stomachs.