Just turned around and walked out of friends house. May have over reacted!

[SafeMouse]

Me (5'0 female) has a good friend (6'2 male). Every few weeks I go to his house for a few drinks and a catch up. This has been going on since 2019. We bubbled together during lockdown as we are both in single households.

Every summer I walk down to his. Its across the otherside of town about a 25 min walk. Part of the way is through a bit of a badly lit seedy area. When it starts to get dark I get an uber. Have for 5 years.
EVERY single bloody year when I start getting ubers I get 'lazy' jokes and teasing. I have patiently explained why I'm not comfortable walking in the dark. I have explained it in the context of Sarah Everard. I have made light of it. I have got annoyed. I've snapped. I've even had the uber drop me off a street away so he doesn't see.

Got to his tonight and get the 'haha, I saw the uber, feeling lazy today are we'?
I put my coat back on and walked out.
I'm now sitting in the pub at the end of his road wondering whether
A) go back and explain again for the 50th time why I don't walk in dodgy areas in the dark
B) order an uber and go back home.

I'm a little bit thinking I've overreacted but it's been the same joke for 5 sodding years with obviously no attempt to understand.

Wow, didn't expect this reaction!
He phoned when I was in the pub and I said I was going home and we'd speak over the weekend. He then phoned again just as I got home and has asked if he can come round and talk. Sounds genuinely upset.
Lots more I can say, but this is one snap shot and as I said early he's not usually a prick or we wouldn't be such good friends. Perhaps a bit socially awkward. And insensitive.

@SafeMouse Might have been the kick up the bum he needed, hope you can work things out and still be friends. 😊

Oh, so now he's upset?

Any bets he's upset because OP has been so mean to him? He's been trotting out this dismissal of her choice - a choice framed by the very real dangers men present to all women - and repeatedly mocking her as "lazy", and now he's upset.

Boo fucking hoo.

No, you have no overreacted. Your “friend” sounds as if he has zero empathy or understanding. Pathetic.

Hopefully you have finally driven it home to him that this isn't funny and it's not acceptable, and you can move on from it.

He could bring the nice wine to your house!

Firstly - he really hasn’t worked out that the reason he’s not getting this has a lot to do with the fact he’s probably never….speeded up or looked over his shoulder when walking alone, avoided going for a run when it’s dark, or held his keys tightly in his hand as he walks to his car. Because he’s a six fucking foot bloke.

Secondly - if someone tells you they don’t find your ‘jests’ remotely funny, you’d be wise to shut up and consider the possibility you’re not remotely funny.

Thirdly - if the person tells you to stop with the comments and you carry on, you deserve if they turn round and walk out. Better have something very good to say if the friendship has a future.

It’s juvenile and disrespectful behaviour. Were you my friend, I’d be insisting you got that Uber or I’d walk you home.

This. Seriously! Ask him why he can’t get off his arse and why he’s not the lazy one.

Sorry if someone has posted this already - I read the OP and was reminded of it…

Saoirse Ronan has said the reaction to a viral clip of her talking about women's safety on The Graham Norton Show has been "wild".
The Irish actress appeared on the BBC One talk showlast week alongside actors Paul Mescal, Eddie Redmayne and Denzel Washington.
Redmayne explained he had been taught how to use a phone as a weapon while training for his role as an assassin in The Day of the Jackal.
In response, Mescal questioned whether anyone would realistically have time to take their phone out when being attacked, before Ronan said: "That's what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?"
She was applauded by the audience and the clip has been trending on social media in the days since.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8x266myzyo.amp

They are. They really are.
I am raging this week about one I thought was decent and isn't.
Goes off to another country for work for three years. Comes back married. And then starts telling me I'm the most amazing worman in the world. What? Better than his new wife who is in another country waiting for paperwork to be completed so she can come here?

Fucking prick.

And this one in the OP is a massive knob too.
He's a complete and utter waste of OP's time and energy if he needs to be told the basics of women's safety walking home alone at night. FFS.

Sounds immature to me, which would be a turn off…

Good on you for going home.

has asked if he can come round and talk.

He doesn't need to talk he needs to LISTEN and actually take on board what you have repeatedly told him.

Socially awkward and insensitive, hmm, more just refusing to actually hear, understand, believe and support what you have been saying with his dismissal of it.

I think you have handled this well @SafeMouse.
Sounds like the penny has finally dropped and his 'funny quips' are just tedious and annoying.

He sounds like a good friend though so I am hoping you can reset and maybe he comes to your house every other week

Hope you can sort it out

I'm glad he contacted you otherwise I think this friendship would be seriously damaged. Hopefully he's finally engaged his brain. Sounds like it was a crappy joke to get a rise out of you which he and he alone found funny.

It’s not only his lack of awareness but also that he keeps repeating the same unfunny joke every time…! I would be bloody fed up of it too.

He's upset? He has no right to be upset. He might come across as a nice guy, but he has failed as a decent human being by dismissing your attempts to explain your rational fear of walking in the dark as a lone female.

He needs to be really fucking sorry for the way he has upset you.

He sounds bloody tedious and hard of thinking.

I find it really insensitive when men willfully forget that walking home alone in the dark is risky for women.

This.

This is good to illustrate how men and women experience a dark walk differently:
https://www.newswise.com/articles/study-visually-captures-a-hard-truth-walking-home-at-night-is-not-the-same-for-women

He's a shit stirring prick.

He knows it winds you up and so he says it every time.

Lacks imagination and originality too.

Let him come to you in future. I'd be backing off from the 'friendship' anyway.

A few months ago I was listening to a podcast by a 49yr old gay bloke in the US who'd just joined a queer running group, and went out on a night run with them, in a nice suburban area.

He was genuinely surprised when the women in the group commented that this was the only opportunity they'd had to safely run after dark through a park.

He commented that it simply hadn't occurred to him that women might have to consider their safety while running at night.

Men and women inhabit different realities.

He must be scintillating company if you've put up with this for five years ...

Well that’s something. Hopefully you can salvage the friendship if he can apologise and going forward drop this tedious insensitive and unfunny “joke”. But if he tries to gaslight you about it or make you feel bad for your reaction don’t engage any further!

Ignoring the actual subject matter for a moment - he sounds a bit like my dad who gets into the habit of making the same comments / jokes about the same things / people every single time I see him. It’s only when I change my reaction to him in a very blunt way (as you have today / me telling my dad I’ve heard that joke 1000 times) that he actually remembers and changes the mental record.

Hi OP. Maybe show him the clip of Saiorse Ronan on Graham Norton about the safety considerations and calculations all women learn to make - and the news stories about it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8x266myzyo

She shut those men on the sofa up for sure.

might be a less personal way of demonstrating this to him and make the conversation less confrontational.