How many of you have had an encounter like this with a man??

[RozHuntleysLeftHand]

Video in twitter thread linked.
It's a man being fucking EXTREMELY creepy to a 17 yr old girl who's just trying to shop in a thrift store.

I'm betting it's most of us, right?
My first one was when I was 10- FUCKING TEN!
Creepy ice cream man asking all sorts of inappropriate questions, leering at me and asking if I was alone and where my parents were.
Then basically just continued.

I can't even count the amount of interactions like this I had when I was younger.

This is so, so relatable it's painful.

It actually made me feel sick watching, all the fear, panic and not knowing how to get out of it, the fear that if you simply tell them to fuck off or something that they will get aggressive or worse, stalk you when you get out.

Serious serial killer vibes as well trying to get her to come work on his fucking remote property, someone get the sniffer dogs out there.

For fuck sake.

Video here

AIBU to think this is just normal life for so many girls and women?
And AIBU to think why the fuck can't we get this fucking sorted in 2022??

Yep. Was expecting him to whisper "sex" at her or "licking pussy", since that's happened to me in similar situations.

I'm showing that to my DD. She's the age I was when it started for me. Tween FFS.

And I talk to randoms all the time. It's extremely obvious when someone doesn't want you to... so you don't.

As for him having poor social skills. Why do these older men with poor social skills always pick on women, usually younger? They don't pick the bloke in his 40s with neck tattoos do they?

@DrSbaitso

Yep. Was expecting him to whisper "sex" at her or "licking pussy", since that's happened to me in similar situations.

One of the very few times I was assisted by a man was when one of these charmers did exactly that to me. I don't know what happened but something snapped after years of it and I shouted, "FUCK OFF" at him. Another bloke came over and checked I was OK and did I need help.

It was a crowded street though. He picked the wrong person in the wrong place. Mostly I did the whole nervous-smile-non-committal thing.

It's so bloody depressing that women and young girls are still having to deal with this shit. Why can't that poor girl just shop in peace without worrying about this type of thing?!

I saw a video on Tik Tok this week where a girl was walking past a skate park and had to go over to a bunch of young men and ask if she could stand with them as a man was following her. The only positive thing was they immediately understood her fear and all turned too stare at him until he eventually went away.

I honestly don't think I have had many. The only one I do remember is when I was about 14 and a man selling the Socilast Worker (does that still exist?) shouted "have you got a bit of Socialist Worker in you love, do you want some" and was roundly told off by his colleague.

@Socialcarenope

Yanbu.

(Some) men will say "how are we supposed to start a conversation with women if we aren't even allowed to talk to them" and I can, sort of, see their point BUT the answer is surely to wait until they talk to you, or they give that inviting smile. I believe most people can tell if someone is open to conversation.

Most men don't want a conversation though so they? Not with teenaged girls. They want to fuck them. Creeps.

Agree. The man in this video is either too stupid to realise that the woman is trying to get rid of him, or worse, he realises and doesn’t care.

Yup, @waterlego. Or even worse than worse - he is actively seeking her discomfort, because he gets a nasty thrill from it.

We all recognise the sick smirk of the man who knows damn well that he is "bothering you," but that you are too wary of an escalated reaction to tell him to piss off.

@dipdye

Dunno about NAMALT

I'd say AMALT instead

Nope. Too many are though.

@lljkk

I didn't find it outrageous situation. She easily handled it. He's really sad & lacks social skills.

Blimey @lljkk - wise up & buy yourself "the Gift of Fear", Gavin de Becker. Really - this is not a snark at you, it is genuine concern that you can't "see it".

Just because it happens so damn frequently that women get conditioned into dealing with it, doesn't mean it isn't downright predatory.
How many young women & girls do you think Mr Aaaaw-He'sJustLackingInSocialSkills has tried to pick up & take back to his 'place in the country'?

I can honestly say I met a lot of peadophiles when I was a kid. It's scary how many inappropriate and down right criminal interactions I had with older boys and fully grown men.

I have 2 daughters the eldest 14 and it scared the living daylights out of me letting her out of the door after experiencing what I have. I do let her out obviously! I just hope I have equipped her with the knowledge she needs to protect herself.

I was talking to my best friend whom I've known since being 12 and we estimated we were sexually assaulted, groomed and raped into the double figures by the time we were 15.

This world can be dangerous for women.

Yep.

This is why my daughter will be training in martial arts as soon as she's old enough.

I think every woman has experienced sexual harassment and I don’t know what the solution is.
My worst experience was being assaulted at 14 on way home from school. I was about a minute from my house & the only person I told for years was my best friend at the time. No-one else knew for years - I told dh, but only about 5 years ago. My late mum never knew.
Thankfully the boy (he was in school
Uniform so was only a teen), didn’t get far cos he heard people coming, but I so wish I reported it at the time - I could’ve easily identified him, but I didn’t want to bring worry on my parents (my dad prob would’ve gone out and beaten him up!) and I was ashamed.

Unfortunately this is very common behaviour. I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced the like.

I was around 12 when it first started, and even as a sixty something year old woman, this type of behaviour still happens. Whatever their intentions are, I get the impression they enjoy the discomfort it produces.

nOne of the things inO the video link you can hear the man asking the girl to look at his knees (apparently he was bitten by an insect on one of them and he wanted her to tell him if she could see which one it was). I don't think she did look but wonder if his conversation or actions would've changed had she done so.

Utter predatory creep.

My daughter is TEN and has begun to experience this already. Needless to say I'm teaching her very explicitly about her own boundaries and again will go to the relevant authorities whenever we need to. It makes me so upset as I would have hoped things would have changed for this next generation

I’m not suggesting that any girl or woman of any age should have to put up with this shit, but it APPALLS me how early it starts. I vividly remember my first encounter like this, aged 11. It was absolutely terrifying and it still makes my skin crawl thinking about it quarter of a century later. It’s paedophilia in plain sight and it’s just viewed as something girls have to tolerate.

@EishetChayil

Yep.

This is why my daughter will be training in martial arts as soon as she's old enough.

Unfortunately, martial arts won't cut it. It's not really about the ability to fight back, although that helps. It's boundaries, deescalation skills, conflict management, MH and addictions training, fighting socialisation a whole host of things.

I got self defence training as a teen from an ex Forces (there was a lot of nudge nudge it's the SAS type of chat) bloke. The most important thing he taught wasn't the fighting skills. It was the attitude. I remember him being asked 'what if someone tries to steal my musical instrument?' And him replying, 'your instrument is a weapon'. He also told us to just move if we felt uncomfortable, assume a man was a bad bloke if he sat next to us if there were empty seats, if we were touched without permission it was assault. He was great. Almost like he gave us permission to be rude and aggressive if we needed to.

He also gave us an extensive list of 'weapons' like steel combs, hairspray and hat pins we could carry without it being suspicious. Top bloke.

ergh, I definitely found it to be at its worst around 16-19. I feel bad that this is still happening, but I have no idea how to stop it. Once at about 19 a guy tried to reach/stick his hands between the window and my boob on the seat behind me on a coach. When I got up to get off his fucking wife was sitting next to him. I hate that I freeze. My partner was right next to me too but I was too scared to speak even with him there. I just ended up squished to one side instead. Disgusting.

I do tend to freeze less now if they're talking to me. I'm far less polite but I'm also 24. Maybe age helps? I think part of it is children being conditioned to be polite to adults and as we grow up particularly being women, we tend to not let go of that and men know it. That's why they pick 17-year-olds.

That is a creepy video. It reminds me of when I was 19 I did some volunteering in a charity shop. We’d had shoplifters so the manager was busy talking to a police officer at one end of the shop, and this bloke came up to me with a skirt and said “you’re the same shape and size as my wife and I need you to model this for me so I can decide if I want to buy it”. I said no that’s not what we do, you can return it with the receipt within so many days”. He then clocked the police officer as they were coming back up the shop, looked sheepish and ran out of the shop. The officer said that he was well known to them locally as a problem and he went around all the charity shops doing this. We had a panic alarm and the manager put the guy’s photo up from the CCTV so if he entered the shop we’d be hitting that button which meant any available colleague should try and get onto the shop floor. I didn’t encounter it again but it stayed with me and I have thought about how I could have been bolshier and shouted out “it’s a creepy man here” or whatever, but then what if he’d turned violent? You can’t win, because whether you do the polite way the person in the video did or get assertive, you can bet it will be criticised as being the wrong thing to do as a victim, because the world seems set on making it a woman’s fault that she suffered from shitty behaviour by a man.

One of the things inO the video link you can hear the man asking the girl to look at his knees (apparently he was bitten by an insect on one of them and he wanted her to tell him if she could see which one it was). I don't think she did look but wonder if his conversation or actions would've changed had she done so.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck, @UsernameNotAvailableHmm I couldn't hear well enough to pick that up.

Sure they would. "Forced Teaming" & Boundary Testing in one well-rehearsed sentence.

Scary AF. This link is called for, sure you'll already be aware of it UsernameNot, but I'm alarmed at the (thankfully few) PP responding "meh" to that video clip -
www.oomm.live/the-shark-cage-metaphor-spotting-potential-abusers/

Why should anyone have to 'handle' crap like this?

Yes, I so recognise this sort of situation.

I've been that girl (and that woman) who is polite and kind, and doesn't tell the creepy men to Fuck off to the far side of fuck and fuck off some more.

I wish so many many times, I had stopped, looked a creep in the eye and asked him; "What gives you - a complete stranger - the right to talk to me ? Why are you so entitled?"

We are all too kind, and too polite!

@Socialcarenope

Yanbu.

(Some) men will say "how are we supposed to start a conversation with women if we aren't even allowed to talk to them" and I can, sort of, see their point BUT the answer is surely to wait until they talk to you, or they give that inviting smile. I believe most people can tell if someone is open to conversation.

Also, definitely not with "I think you're one of the most beautiful girls I've ever met" (especially when you haven't met them) and offering to buy them stuff.

Additionally, if there's nothing natural to start a conversation about, maybe just take it as a sign that starting a conversation is a bad idea.

Hypothetically, if you are not a creep but you're in a thrift shop and you want to start a conversation with someone you think is attractive, you can say something like "Hey, have you seen any [item of clothing you're interested in] on those rails?" They'll say yes or no. You can make a conversational remark in reply. If they say something noncommittal that isn't clearly aimed at continuing the conversation, then back off and leave them alone. There you are. You've talked to them. You've opened the door to a conversation, if one was going to happen. You haven't been creepy. It's not difficult.

Yes. It still happens and I’m 44. I can’t count the times I’ve had my arse or tits felt by a bloke. I even had one wank on me when I was on a very busy train.

@dipdye

Dunno about NAMALT

I'd say AMALT instead

Don’t be ridiculous, of course they aren’t all like this. The problem is that some of them are. Yes, situations like the video are all too common. Happened to me countless times when I was younger and as a mother of a 14 year old dd I can see that times haven’t changed all that much. It makes me angry and sad in equal measure.

I have had numerous unwanted creepy persistent approaches like this, from aged about 20 onwards.

A BIG problem early on was that I had never been taught to be assertive with adults, and more importantly, thought I must always be polite and obliging to adults. Men take advantage of this.

Let's teach our daughters, and sons, that if someone makes you feel uncomfortable IT IS OK TO SAY SO.

Let's help them practice what to say:

"I am not comfortable talking with you and am stopping the conversation" (and walk to the till!)

"I do not wish to look at your leg, please do not ask me again"

"I am not prepared to talk to you about any of my personal details, and I would like to end this conversation, goodbye"

"This is not a conversation I wish to continue, good afternoon!"

We are so bad (due to socialisation) at communicating confidently and directly, and most people (we see it daily on MN) go straight from uncomfortable 'people pleasing' to "Fuck Off!"

Men creep all over women / young women, because the KNOW they will be too nervous to say very loudly "Could you leave me alone now please?"

I am not victim blaming, but emphasising how hard it is for women to tackle these men. Bit of practice....

YANBU.

I had a very recent series of incidents where a customer at my work (shop type place) started like this. 'Wow you're so beautiful, are you married (I am), you're amazing'. Started coming down every week, eventually reached the point he would come in and say 'I'm not even here to buy anything, just here to see you'. Turns out he lived over an hour away. I had remained polite at first but got to the point of being absolutely terrified, I would shake and cry when I saw him park up outside. He could clearly see how uncomfortable I was, and I had even told him that the attention was unwanted, but he was so persistent it absolutely terrified me. I have been in a DV relationship years ago and this man's behaviour triggered so many awful memories and feelings from that time, leading to mental health struggles again.

Eventually found the strength to report and glad I did, haven't seen him since, but honestly was having nightmares about him tracking me down and murdering me. I think the most worrying thing is when they can clearly see that they are causing discomfort, but they don't care. That feels psychopathic to me.