I had a prison pen pal in college. What he said in his final letter changed everything

“Maybe,” I said, moving to pull my legs together, to quit what I was supposed to be doing.

He smiled at me, looked me up and down.

Someone called him away, but after that, he found reasons to hover over me in class, commenting on my body.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Looking good.”

“You need to start working your ass.”

“I’ll give a private session, no charge.”

I started wearing baggier sweatpants and my brother’s old T-shirts and often considered skipping class.

Every day, he’d stand above me, comfortable in his position of authority, while his comments turned to variations of: “We should go out.”

I’d reply with increasingly direct responses.

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“No, that’s OK.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Finally: “Stop asking me. It’s inappropriate.”

An acquaintance in the class looked at me with wide eyes and said, “That was ballsy. I hope you pass this class.”

I hadn’t always been so comfortable saying no to men. Back then, there were no TikTok videos describing misogyny or what male entitlement was or how to deal with it. I’d grown up watching blockbuster romantic comedies like Say Anything and The Sure Thing, where the entire plot of the movie was the woman saying no and the man persisting. I absorbed the behavior as a kind of perfectly fine mating dance, where everyone lives happily ever after. I believed that tenacity wasn’t disrespect; it was a sexy chase.

I had experienced this behavior in college, people reacting to the word “no” as if it meant “try harder” or, like with the Magic 8 Ball toy, upon shaking it up, “ask again later.” I found this attention enticing at first blush but soon found it irritating, even as I smiled awkwardly and hoped they’d go away.

So where had I learned that no means no? That saying it can lead to peace and quiet, knowing you’ve communicated a boundary?

I learned it from a man in prison. I’ll call him Robert.

It was 1984, before the internet, before anyone could be found with the click of a button. I was sitting in my nursing school whites, reading the newspaper, when I came across a want ad from a man in prison looking for someone to write to.

I’m trying to remember why I answered his ad and sent my first letter to Fishkill Correctional Facility in New York. Was I fascinated by social justice or prison reform? Did I hesitate at the bleak address? Did I stop to consider that sending my name and address to someone in prison might not be the safest thing to do?

The answer to all of those questions is no.

I’d come from a small town and was enrolled in a small college. I was about to graduate and knew I’d be encountering different populations of people needing care. I was curious about other lives and wanted to be the kind of nurse that didn’t judge people harshly given their varied life circumstances. I was interested in what this man might have to say about his life.

And I liked getting mail.

We wrote short letters back and forth for a handful of months.

My letters were filled with things like, “My nursing classes are hard. I had to clean between someone’s toes and tried not to get grossed out. My roommate grew up on a farm, and she knows so much more than I do about everything.”

He’d reply, “I’m getting my GED.” “They’ve given me a new cell mate.” And “I work in the kitchen, mostly dishwashing.”

I hadn’t pictured a cellmate, nor did I know incarcerated people could get degrees or have jobs.

In one of his letters, he asked for a photograph of me.

I ignored the request. I blew past it as if I hadn’t registered it, hoping he would forget about it. I was naive, for sure, but not so naive that I didn’t know that when a man asks for a photograph, it’s for a personal reason. Since I wasn’t interested in that, I hoped he would let it go.

When he asked again, I wrote back and told him that I didn’t think we needed photographs to be friends.

Not long afterward, he sent a beautiful handmade card and wrote: “All the things I like are all the things you are.”

The depth of those words surprised me. I pictured him making it and was flooded with a feeling of friendship.

Then, in an enclosed letter, he wrote, “You are too nice to write to incarcerated men. Do not write to men in prison anymore.”

Surprised and disappointed, I thought we’d forged an interesting connection. I realized that he had wanted something different from our letter writing than I did, which was fair. People don’t always approach new relationships with full clarity of purpose or even their own wants. I didn’t feel manipulated.

There was protection in his words. Our friendship ended kindly, and I felt cared for.

What stayed with me after this experience was this: When I said no, he said OK. It had not been complicated.

He didn’t write back, negotiate or try to persuade me. Nor did he ask again. I can see how the inmate modeled respectful behavior, and I absorbed it, maybe because it was from an unlikely place.

After the last day of my weight training class in graduate school, I knocked on the door of the chair of the Kinesiology Department. He answered, and I walked in, feeling small as I read the words on several diplomas and awards on his wall. I cleared my throat and, in too small a voice, told him what had happened, how uncomfortable it had made me feel, and asked how to file a formal complaint.

The man in charge of the department, the weight training instructor’s mentor, looked at me with a blank expression and said, “Is this the hill you want to die on?”

I wish I could tell you I said yes, but I didn’t.

I said, “I don’t want to die on any hill.”

I remember opening my mouth to say more but not having the words or the chance. Instead, he said, “Keep your head down. Get back to work. This is nothing.”

I left his office, my complaint dismissed. I walked straight to the graduate student office and cried at my desk alone, like adults so often do. I wiped my eyes, worried about repercussions, gossip and my own ability to work in a place that didn’t care about me.

In the end, nothing was done about the instructor’s behavior. He went on to harass me, and he graduated without, as far as I know, a mark on his record.

For my part, I spread the word. I advised women to stay away from him, not to take his classes or volunteer to work with him. I told people what he had said and how it had made me feel.

I’m not saying I always knew how to stand up for myself or other women after that, but I’ve devoted my life to this. Later as a professor teaching Global Health for 20 odd years I taught classes on manipulative behaviors, warning signs and how to respond to discomfort from a place of autonomy and self support. Students would return to class and discuss their real life accounts.

If not for my correspondence with Robert, I wouldn’t have written my most recent novel about a woman learning to decode language and behavior to keep herself safe. It’s a fictional primer on the importance of relying on experience and instincts when reading the world.

In the end, the strength it took to stand up for myself in that weight room, and later, came from a person who was literally walled off from society. Knowing this has allowed me to feel good about my curiosity, desire to connect with people and my deep belief that everyone has a story.

If I ever forget, it’s not for long. I still have his card pinned to my bulletin board to remind me.

Ann Garvin is a bestselling author whose new book, Tell Two Friends, out in September 2026, follows a woman with an unexpected pen pal.

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

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