Being Followed AIBU?

[SnapesMistress]

I go out most Saturdays to the same club where most of my friends go to as well. The alcohol is very cheap so I am usually halfway drunk when I leave, usually between 2 and 3am.

The route back to my flat takes about 10-15 mins and is well lit with no dodgy back alleys. I always walk back usually with DP and my flatmate.

DP had been away for the last few Saturdays so it has just been me and my flatmate walking there and back or yesterday it was just me since flatmate decided to stay in.

Last week flatmate was exceedingly drunk so had to be physically held up by me on the way back and at once point a car with a bloke in it stopped next to where we were walking, I ignored him and he drove a little further down and stopped as if to wait for us. Thankfulle we managed to turn off before getting to where his car was but I felt very uncomfortable and could not stop looking over my shoulder.

Last night I went out alone and when it was time to go considered asking one of my male friends to walk me home but decided against it. At one point the street I was walking down was totally deserted and a car pulled up alongside me with a bloke in it. He shouted at me but I ignored him and walked on he then pulled up beside me again and shouted at me to look at him. I did and he asked if I wanted a life home. I declined (twice) and he then drove off. Again I spent the walk home looking over my shoulder.

This sort of thing has happened to me lots in the past few years since moving to the city. AIBU to be scared of these men? Do they honestly think I would be stupid enough to get into thier car? What would happen if someone was too drunk to see the danger and got in? Am I overreacting and they just wanted to offer a girl a lift home with the possibilty of getting her number?

Feel very uneasy about the fact it happens so often.

Find it odd that people would go out with money for drinks but not for a cab home wether male or female. As others have said its dangerous for anyone whatever their sex.

I really feel for you poppyswill.Is there no-one you can talk to about this in RL, maybe a professional? You're carrying a huge burden and it must be heartbreaking.

I also knew a girl who was abducted and raped over the course of several days after getting into what she thought was a cab outside a pub. She had booked a cab, but when she got outside just assumed the driver was waiting for her. Sadly the story had a tragic ending.

OP, my preference would be to book a taxi from a reputable company and ask the driver who has booked him before you get in. Our local cabs are very distinctive White and gold so they are easier to spot than some random vehicle.

Getting cabs in london was much more dangerous than walking home in the end though, wasn't it.

When I was 16-22 I was spending all my spare money on drinks thanks! A cab home in london was (racks memory) £20 or £30 ie totally unaffordable for the average 16yo. Snakebite and black was about £1.10 a pint, 20 marlboro about a quid? A cab home was about 2 nights out worth of money!

Re the analogy of being at risk from people you know, that may be true, but you'd still expect or advise someone facing such risk to take precautions against being a victim. Ie leave them, seek an injection etc. You'd never say " it's your house, get back in there and reclaim it".

Same applies to the streets. Reasonable precautions should be taken. Wondering around in a vulnerable state isn't heroic in my book. It's pretty daft really.

Unduly restrictive it may be Sardine, but it's the reality in the world as it is today.

Are you saying the perception of it being dangerous for women to go out alone at certain times of the day is deliberately peddled by men in an attempt to keep women under some sort of control?

Where do the individual men who commit these crimes come into that deliberate misperception?

I don't see how you can take precautions against someone you know.

The first sign you get that they are not all they seem is the point at which it is too late to do anything about it. Unfortunately.

I think the idea that women and girls are at great and permanent risk is very prevalent in our media. I don't know why.

Anyway I can't be arsed to get into another big row on here, I have just lost 2 days to a different one! And some of you were involved

So I am going to say that I agree with anything SGB might say and leave it at that

"The first sign you get that they are not all they seem is the point at which it is too late to do anything about it. Unfortunately."

Not necessarily. If your partner raises a hand in threat you can leave before the threat is enacted.

Ah yes, that'll be the matrix-style slow motion that enables you to sprint out of the kitchen, grab your keys, exit house with kids, passports and money in hand, before the wallop actually is delivered.

Madame I was referring to "warning signs" type behaviour.

It's still got to be a damn sight harder getting a "second chance" when you're being dragged off the streets into a car in the dead of night

:o Cabs are cheap here. Didnt realise the op was from london?

"I only question the significance in a way that I almost can't believe someone would be that brazen and or opportunistic and nasty. I wonder if they drive around at that time of night for precisely that reason becasue there may be vulnerable girls out."

Do you ever actually read the news?! Taking into account that for every murder/rape/assault that makes the news there are many, many more attacks and attempted attacks that aren't reported you are running a stupid risk - nobody thinks it will happen to them until it does. If you can't afford to get home safely you don't go out/drink as much - your principles will be little comfort to you when trying to recover from physically and psychologically from an attack - or little comfort to your loved ones at your funeral.

glitter, you clearly said if your partner....not random perv/mugger.

Abusive partners don't always give you fair warning...

that's all I'm saying.

I accept that Madame but my post still stands. If you knew someone was at risk of DV in their own homes you would never suggest they get back in and reclaim their home. My gripe is with those that suggest that despite the undeniable risk, you should get out here onto the streets and reclaim them.

There is maybe a little misunderstandng of how statistics work on this thread.
Women are more likely to be hurt by people they know than a stranger
That doesn't automatically mean that THIS woman (OP) is more likely to be hurt by someone she knows than by a stranger.
If you looked at only women who walked home drunk and alone along the same route by a red light district every saturday night but have a loving and gentle husband who has never hurt a fly - in this group of women, are they more likely to be hurt by a stranger or their husband?

The general population of the UK is more likely to die of heart disease than of being run over on the M6 on a Tuesday at 11pm. However, if I spend every Tuesday at 11pm running back and forth across the M6 dressed all in black and blindfolded, I am probably more likely to die of being run over on the M6 on a Tuesday at 11pm than I am of heart disease.

You can't apply a statistic to one person like that, it doesn't work...

OP, I haven't read all the posts but I just want to say that if I'd got a taxi to the coach station early one summer morning at age 16, it would have been the best few quid I'd ever spent. I would have saved myself a kicking and punching, followed by having a huge skinhead shoving his penis in my mouth and forcing me to swallow while he held his hands around my neck and threatened to kill me. I had the invincibility of youth, or so I thought.

People can say women have the right to walk alone whenever and wherever they want, but that isn't much consolation when something bad happens.

Skip the last few drinks and spend the money on a taxi.

Still not sure why everyone thinks I'm from London, I live in the NORTH :o

I even said so upthread.

And to wade in on the debate here, wrt warning signs from patentially abusive partners: Most of them are easy to ignore or miss because they are often subtle. I would also rather enjoy my relationships with partners and with friends than be constantly suspicious of every sign of anger they ever show. Sometimes people get angry. I have also been hit by a boyfriend with no red flags before hand, at least I certainly can't recall any.

If a man shouted at me to look at him he'd have been looking at the sole of my shoe. Don't do as your frigging told by a stranger! And if you must walk home, do it with a bit of guts....don't look frigtened and do as some random odball tells you.

You know they pick victims based on who they don't think will put up a fight a lot of the time?

Mumbling On the contrary, I think looking at my feet would have looked wimpier. I stared him full in the face not looking scared and said a polite and loud "No Thankyou" when he offered the lift. I am a big scary goth with big scary goth boots and actually feel quite confident in that getup, I was perfectly happy to stare him straight in the face.

She means she would have kicked him - that's when he'd have seen the shoe.

That's exactly what I meant sneaky.

Ah, sorry I misunderstood.

Would that not just have unecessarily inflamed the situation though?

Not necessarily. Generally men who start on random women they see in the street are chancers, opportunists, the type who will fuck off if met with resistance. Of course, anyone can be unlucky at any time, but the thing is, a truly psychotic, beyond-all-bounds attacker might jump in through your bedroom window and harm you. It's just not that likely that you will encounter a really dangerous unstoppable individual at random. Certainly not likely enough for you to curtail your fun on the offchance.
It's moderately likely that if you get into a car to go home from a club, the car will be involved in an accident and you will be hurt or even killed. Not that likely, but possible. Even if you are sober, and the driver is sober - and a nice, upstanding, non-rapist individual as well. Car accidents are very common, and they can happen to you no matter how virtuous and compliant you are - yet most people who drive and own cars do not think that they might be involved in an accident every time they turn the ignition key. Domestic violence, being beaten or raped or killed by your partner is a very high risk for women, yet women are not routinely warned every time they start dating a man, or move in with him, or marry him, that he might be dangerous to them.
So there has to be something other than concern for women's safety behind all this insistence that women are MOST at risk from men unknown to them if they walk about alone at night, and that women should stay indoors or make sure that, if they go out, they have a male keeper/owner with them.
There are no guarantees. None. No matter how 'good' and obedient you are, bad shit might still happen. But living your life in fear of myths and misinformation is a terrible thing.

You make good points solid.

However I wear a seatbelt in a car. Isn't that risk minimisation?

I don't have a violent partner, so other than my comments earlier I'm not qualified to say much on that.

I suppose my point is that minimisation of risk is only sensible?