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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Creepy commuting

241 replies

Shoxfordian · 03/04/2019 12:09

Is it just me who keeps meeting creepy men on her commute to work?!

Today the checkout assistant in my regular sandwich shop told me he'd seen me somewhere before.

Yes I said, here, where I buy my lunch before work.

No, somewhere else he says and proceeds to ask where I work, he says he lives near there and how do I get there from the shop?! Then says he might see me later. I said he might not and scarpered. Asking all those questions made me wonder if he was planning to stalk me.

A few weeks ago, a bus driver in a parked bus shouted at me. I stopped and he said you look beautiful. Thanks. I really wanted a random man to validate me. Ugh.

There's another creepy man who gets my usual bus who used to talk to me all the time until I blanked him enough for him to get the message. Plus a creepy security guard at work, who has now left.

I must have a creepy man magnet somewhere on my person. I wish I could turn it off. Argh.

OP posts:
HumptyNumptyNooNoo · 05/04/2019 06:00

I think there's a fine line between some trying to be friendly and it being misread as creepy and actual being creepy .

My friend for example, has the mindset that she is sooooo attractive that everyone wants her in a creepy way - so she often misinterprets general friendliness when we are out and about.

SaltSpoon · 05/04/2019 06:03

Asking all those questions made me wonder if he was planning to stalk me.

😂

Lol! It's called conversation. You would hate Ireland, Scotland, Wales or the North.

SaltSpoon · 05/04/2019 06:11

OK, some of you have read a book called The Gift of Fear. This tells us everything we need to know about your mindset. Howling! 😂

WhiteDust · 05/04/2019 06:12

This thread has brought back memories of being young.
I love being middle aged and fat. I am completely invisible to random men. Thank God.

WhiteDust · 05/04/2019 06:21

I've just remembered the random man (20is maybe?) who started chatting to one of my DDs (I was with her in cafe). He asked her out for a drink later 🙄
I told him that she was 13. He scuttled away very quickly.

goodfornothinggnome · 05/04/2019 06:30

Yep, creeps, the lot of em. Funnily as I've got really fat, I no longer get this sort of shit,

Vulpine · 05/04/2019 06:44

A random stranger telling me I look beautiful would make my day!

MsTSwift · 05/04/2019 07:07

Thing is it starts with saying you’re beautiful then ime often then becomes abusive if you don’t simper or just sexually disgusting (will you sit on my face) 🙄 would you find that adorable and flattering vulpine?

Another one mystified at how the conversation staring so common when one is 24 and size 8 dries up entirely when one is 44 and size 12/14

LadyOfTheCanyon · 05/04/2019 07:53

I live in London, so the odds of getting hit on are going to be higher. I've commuted for the 30 odd years of my working life.

I've been flashed at numerous times ( first time aged 7)

I've had many men grope me, push against me on the tube. One guy tried to grab my hand under cover of a broadsheet and put it on his cock.

Had my boobs randomly grabbed whilst going up an escalator

Had a man stop on his car and ask for directions - on leaning in found he was wanking.

Two separate experiences of being in an empty carriage with a wanking man

One man in rush hour managed to actually cum over the back of my PVC coat

One guy used to follow me home when I was about 14

Had other fandoms follow me into buses, tubes etc forcing their unwanted conversation on me

Add to this the catcalls, whistles, cheer up loves,

Not a single one of those incidents was by a woman.

Thank FUCK I'm fat and 50 now and it hasn't happened for a while - I feel very sorry for anyone it happens to and I now intervene if I see it happening to other women.

MsTSwift · 05/04/2019 07:57

So flattering though Lady didn’t those incidents just make your day?

I have a similar litany of grimness growing up in idyllic village so not limited to London sadly. St Malo the worst I got flashed and wanked at was only there 3 days (aged 14 and a geeky 14 at that)

ciderhouserules · 05/04/2019 08:48

Like swift says, telling you 'you're beautiful' normally means 'if i give her a quick, meaningless compliment, she might sleep with me'. Then if you don't fall into bed with them there and then, you are 'frigid, lesbian, ugly, unlovable and will never have sex again'.

Great compliment - one to make your day, yes?

Some of these tales are revolting. I wonder if the 'man' amongst us is reading and is as horrified as I am? If not, why not? If he is, why is he defending 'men'?

buzzbobbly · 05/04/2019 09:22

SaltSpoon Lol! It's called conversation. You would hate Ireland, Scotland, Wales or the North

You think being asked if you will suck off/fuck/give a grope of your breasts to a random stranger is "conversation"? Riiiiight.

Also, you strangely seem to think no other person on this thread lives or has been to " Ireland, Scotland, Wales or the North"?

Piss off with your supercilious patronising comments.

Vulpine · 05/04/2019 09:26

Some times a compliment can just be a compliment witbout any nefarious intentions. Not everything is about sex - in my long experience of life!

buzzbobbly · 05/04/2019 09:36

Some times a compliment can just be a compliment without any nefarious intentions. Not everything is about sex - in my long experience of life!

Sometimes they can. I have been known to tell a random woman that she looked lovely. And this week I told a colleague that his new beard really suited him.

But the comments being discussed here aren't those. We can tell the difference even if they sound innocuous on paper, from the context and delivery, and the reception if the comment is even politely rebuffed.

They are the things that these men would not dream of saying to another man. They would always fail The Rock test.

medium.com/@annevictoriaclark/the-rock-test-a-hack-for-men-who-dont-want-to-be-accused-of-sexual-harassment-73c45e0b49af

MsTSwift · 05/04/2019 09:51

Getting a positive comment from a stranger is lovely but only if no sexual agenda which frankly from men is super rare. One elderly man said how beautifully behaved my toddlers were on a bus once and have lots of posit interaction with women asking me where I got stuff. That’s nice. Leery cliches and porno talk not so much

BlingLoving · 05/04/2019 10:03

I'm more than willing to concede that the OP's coffee shop guy chat and a lot of these examples are completely different (which a lot of the "it's just conversation" brigade are thinking), but that doesn't make it okay. Just because he's not asking if she can sit on his face or attempting to grope her, doesn't mean that it's okay to a) not pick up on the cues a woman is giving out and b) ask highly personal questions of a woman you don't know.

TildaKauskumholm · 05/04/2019 10:21

I am happy to chat in shops etc but now too old for the creepy guys. I used to live in a non Christian country (don't want to be called racist etc by being more specific). I was youngish, blonde, dressed appropriately etc but my god, the men groping me in public, following me, pressing against me... it was relentless. Eventually I learned two things - to shout loudly in the native language 'You pervert! Why are you touching /following me?' which often resulted in others coming to my aid, and the second was to keep a large hatpin in the lining of my bag, to be used on public transport etc. It was quite satisfying to discreetly pull out my pin, stick it in the creepy guy, who could not say anything but rapidly moved away...

LadyOfTheCanyon · 05/04/2019 11:01

Where I work there is a guy who calls quite regularly to send flowers to women who he has had in his cab.

He sends them to their place of work having got ( I assume) their business card or similar. The messages are creepy as fuck ( although not explicit in any way, but include a phone number.)

When the women don't respond he calls me several times a day to check that they have been delivered ( clearly his brand of charm isn't working for these women.) He then accuses me of keeping the money and not sending the flowers, because who wouldn't immediately want to go out with a random cab driver who sends you flowers to your work along with an essay detailing the clothes you were wearing and describing your "tender smile"?

He isn't breaking any laws and I can't realistically refuse to take his orders on the grounds that he is overstepping boundaries, but I am furious with him for using his position as a cabbie to prey on women.

I had a cabbie once lock the doors on me in central London because he insisted that we were "having a nice chat" which he wanted to continue at his leisure. I told him to unlock the doors before I started screaming.

Male entitlement is very very real.

RosaWaiting · 05/04/2019 11:12

Lady can your company send him a letter re suing for harassment or something similar? That's horrendous.

LadyOfTheCanyon · 05/04/2019 11:14

We've had similar happen before ( several times over the years, it's sadly not unusual Angry) and the advice from the police has been that the recipient has to be the one to instigate any kind of harassment charge.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 05/04/2019 11:44

As a young graduate in my first job in London many years ago. I once had a company director stand at the doorway of my office, covertly watching me filing for a few minutes before announcing politely, “not meaning to be at all creepy Tink, but I was just admiring how glorious your hair looks in the sunshine coming through the window.” (I had mad Merida type hair at the time and was too vain to tie it up for work).

How I wished I could have said, “Well yes, Tim from accounts’ blonde quiff is looking equally fetching this morning. Why don’t you go and bestow your oh so non creepy, unwanted, admiring comments on him too?”

RosaWaiting · 05/04/2019 14:59

Lady yes, I was just wondering if it could be a company thing as he's sending the stuff there and other company staff are having to deal with it.

LadyOfTheCanyon · 05/04/2019 15:31

Ah, good call. I'll look into that. Thanks.

RosaWaiting · 05/04/2019 15:40

Lady I was thinking you wouldn't even have to name names

just that he could get a letter saying "stop sending items to this company" sort of thing. Though I suppose HR would check with the victims first.

so depressing isn't it. Stronger harassment laws? or is it the case that the law doesn't go ahead with what we already have?

RosaWaiting · 05/04/2019 15:41

Also, are they giving him their business cards? I frequently see people on the Tube who have forgotten to take their company ID lanyard off etc.

Or is it that they were collected from there etc...