Sorry Prawn - it certainly rang bells for me: I've had a few "near misses" but am always hesitant to talk about them because I'm lucky enough never to have actually been seriously sexually assaulted, and I always feel a bit embarrassed saying "hey, this has happened" because it seems so trivial, compared to what others have been through.
But yes, I remember one time in particular as a student where I got "white-knighted". A bloke offered to walk me round the back way to avoid some yobs who were kicking off in the street (they genuinely did look quite scary). Initially I felt quite uncomfortable with him (was only 19 at the time and totally inexperienced). We bumped into a friend of his, and my levels of discomfort immediately dropped, because the friend came across as fine, so he (first bloke) invited us both back for a coffee. Somehow by the time we got to his room, second bloke had disappeared (oh god, the problems of naivety and not being able, aged 19, to say outright "actually, you know what, I've changed my mind.") He got himself between me and the door and put increasing pressure on me to stay the night, to which I kept saying "no", until eventually I had this strong sense of "it's now or never" and just got up and said very firmly "I am leaving now." I always count myself lucky that he didn't turn violent on me, but let me leave - I think his coercion was always going to be purely verbal, but I wonder how many women he just ground down with this approach (I later discovered he had a massive reputation for being a sex pest in the university debating society, which a friend of mine belonged to). And yes, I think he had a routine, and had tried this a lot.
The other near miss was when a friend's boyfriend offered to walk me home after a night in the pub. This one totally blindsided me because everyone in our friendship group had him down as a "gentle giant" type. He sat in my kitchen drinking tea, having walked me home, and pretty much admitted to domestic abuse, said he was getting tired of his current girlfriend, and he wanted me to be his next girlfriend. I managed to talk him out the door (was a deliberate ruse on my part to make myself seem as small and mousy and boring as possible, while flattering his ego and saying how men like him needed strong women and he'd be bored with me in no time - I later read somewhere that this is actually one of the tactics suggested to women trying to escape violent relationships: make yourself as invisible as possible so he almost doesn't notice you're gone). I still wonder whether I unfortunately acted as a learning experience for him - "don't play your hand too early", and whether with his next would-be victim he covered up the abuse, played to the "we don't get along any more, and I wish I was with someone more like you" line, and basically fine tuned his technique.
Because these blokes do come across as having a technique they know works for them - e.g. spike her drinks with vodka, make sure she's seen leaning against you as she stumbles out the pub - and there we have it, instant "reasonable doubt" in a court of law if she's stupid enough to go to the police the next day. Or a hundred and one variations on this theme.