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??

@MrsTerryPratchett

‘Schrödinger's rapist.’

😭😭😭 That’s too good, it should be a band or song name!

@OhWhyNot

Yeah yeah not all men . But it will be a number of men that you think wouldn’t behave like this

You know I think it would be fascinating/ horrifying to be able to watch hidden cameras on men when they think they are alone or only in male groups.

I once was accidentally hidden somewhere (not as weird as it sounds - think me in loft sort of situation)
I heard a lovely man in my life say to his friends 'Right I've got to go, I'm going to go and hang out of the back of Laura' (name of his wife changed)

This man would be described as lovely/ gentle/ respectful/ one of the good guys etc etc
I've never forgotten it - or let on that I heard

When I was about 11/12 I went on a school trip that was a few nights away to one of those adventure group activity places. One of the instructors there was extremely creepy. Wouldn't leave me alone and would ask people to get in to pairs knowing we were an odd number and would immediately grab my hand and just stare at me strangely. He made me feel
so uneasy but I was painfully shy and didn't say anything to a teacher. 3 years later he was arrested for being a pedophile. Still makes me feel sick to this day.

@crochetmonkey74

I think anyone who doubts this or apologises for this man etc etc should spend a day as the teacher of a group of teenage girls on a school trip, helps if you are a short fat middle aged one like me (therefore invisible)

Men are UNASHAMED - it is prolific, it is in all types of men and it is shocking.

Some men are ashamed to the point of losing friendships at the sheer scummy behaviour of some men

Taking to young women at work I think they are having to deal with a lot more aggression than I or my friends did growing up. I really feel sorry for them. One colleague took a guys number to humour him (was told they call it straight away so can’t pretend to take it) then blocked it later. She bumped into him a few weeks later and he was really nasty and she felt threatened wtf and this seems quite normal now

I was harassed at work by a very strange man. My job means I was often there later than others and often when it was dark- when I reported it
My male boss told me that what I had to understand about the harasser was that he had never had a girlfriend and still lived with his mum and I should feel sorry for him....

mummykel16
What I meant was the men who were harassing/ touching my girls were not even being sneaky- they were unashamed at doing it- out in the open- smirking or grinning when shouted at or slapped

@crochetmonkey74 ‘I've never been bitten by a dog but I know that some are nasty and crucially, that all of them can and will bite in given circumstances’

Perfectly put! Would you mind if I steal this and use liberally as a stock response to NAMALT?

@lljkk

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

Agree and I would not describe it as “terrifying”

@crochetmonkey74 I don’t know about those men but there is a ‘fetish’ or ‘kink’ for being publicly humiliated... men sometimes pay for having this done but I guess some are even more vile and prefer to do this to unwilling participants 😞

@OhWhyNot

Taking to young women at work I think they are having to deal with a lot more aggression than I or my friends did growing up. I really feel sorry for them. One colleague took a guys number to humour him (was told they call it straight away so can’t pretend to take it) then blocked it later. She bumped into him a few weeks later and he was really nasty and she felt threatened wtf and this seems quite normal now

This is something to really ponder. Why gave things gotten worse rather than better given that there’s more awareness, education and the march of feminism.

I don’t have the answer but your observation is worth pondering.

@crochetmonkey74 Same with my sexually harassing coworker, manager said it’s because he’s deaf 🙄 All the more offensive as this is a manager at a care home for deaf people. So to say that all deaf people are like that is disgusting.

[quote AutomaticMoon]@crochetmonkey74 ‘I've never been bitten by a dog but I know that some are nasty and crucially, that all of them can and will bite in given circumstances’

Perfectly put! Would you mind if I steal this and use liberally as a stock response to NAMALT?[/quote]
Please do!

I must remember to use it instead of sarcastically rolling my eyes or shouting fuck off

A few days ago my SIL was driving home in the evening. Shes 40 and drives a small brightly coloured car. She also lives in a very rural area. A man pulled up in a big van behind her and she was blinded by his full beam headlights she flashed her lights to let him know she couldnt see, but he kept on going. Inthe end she pulled over to let him past and off he went. About 3 mins later she saw him in a layby and he started to follow her. She changed direction multiple times but he kept on behind her Bear in mind these are unlit, single lane deserted country roads . Eventually she saw a petrol station and pulled in and he pulled in behind her. She got out the car and told this man who wad in his late 50s that she had phoned the police and had a picture of his number plate and he better not leave. When the police arrived the man admitted to following her and said " I live alone in the countryside, how else am I supposed to meet women? I was going to wait for her to stop and then talk to her !" The police asked if he had done this before and guy says" Yeah loads of times!" By this point SIL is beyond horrified and asks the police what they are going to do about it. Police state" Nothing. Hes not done anything illegal !" and let him go!!!! Then they wonder why we have no faith in the police to keep us safe !

[quote AutomaticMoon]@HighlandPony I was taught as a child to do as adults said. When I was sexually harassed and abused, I just froze. There was nowhere to escape to and I didn’t even know what was happening. I just knew it was really scary.[/quote]
This sort of makes my point. I was never raised like that. I was never raised to do what others said blindly and I was raised firmly in the knowledge that I had back up. Whether at age five or 35. Im sorry for what happened to you I really am but we were raised tough and even though it was borderline poverty it’s stood us in better stead in life

@AutomaticMoon I wish I could claim that phrase but it was a better woman than I am who coined it.

I forgot something that happened recently at DD's school. I got called because a teacher (not her class teacher) had grabbed DD's shoulder (she wasn't listening natch) and DD turned and said, 'don't touch me' and her class teacher called me, concerned.

I said, 'I've taught her that her body belongs to her, no one gets to touch her without permission and she doesn't have to be polite if they do'. Great female teacher said, 'good for you' and that was that.

@Mommabear20

Never had an experience like this!

While it's bad that it happens, it's awful that all men are tagged in the same way! Not all men are like this!

Seriously, just fuck off with comments like that.

What percentage of women compared to men act like this? A seriously higher number of men without doubt.

I have never heard of men complaining that throughout their life they have had to deal this shit from women; unwanted leering through to rape or murder.

It is men that are the highest offenders.

Trotting out the old 'Not all men are like this', of course they aren't.

But it's not just the men you think you aren't capable; it's the nice guy at work who goes home and hits his wife.

The community leader who abuses his daughter.

The 26 year old who 'dated' me at 14, such a nice guy apparently according to his family.

I obviously couldn't legally consent, but led him astray as I must have lied about my age according to them. I didn't, and I looked about 12. I don't know of one of my female friends that would have even contemplated the situation in reverse.

And the odd time a man does experience being approached by someone bigger and sexually interested, in a gay club for example, they behave as if it's the most horrifying experience anyone could ever have.

Yes dude, we fucking know. We live with it IN CHILDHOOD.

@crochetmonkey74

mummykel16 What I meant was the men who were harassing/ touching my girls were not even being sneaky- they were unashamed at doing it- out in the open- smirking or grinning when shouted at or slapped

I know, I just meant some men stand against this behaviour.

While it's bad that it happens, it's awful that all men are tagged in the same way! Not all men are like this!

Interesting choice of words. You think it’s ‘bad’ that women are routinely harassed, sexually assaulted and worse. But you think it’s ‘awful’ that all men are tagged in the same way (which they aren’t, but whatever).

Male feelings are more important than female lives.

It's the fact that women have to think about things that would never enter the head of a man.If I am on a train on my own I don't sit on an inside seat. It traps you with the man who pretends to be asleep and rubs his foot up and down your ankle. You don't take the quickest way back to your car because it's the dark, quiet bit where someone could hide. You don't park in the multi storey when you go to a concert alone, even though that's the closest parking, because it looks a bit grotty and when you get back it may not be lit. You wait for a lift in your hotel. When it arrives there is a man/men in it. You wait for the next one. A group of young men are approaching you so you walk right on the outside of the pavement/in the road rather than risk being hemmed in by the fence on the other side.
I am not paranoid, I don't expect to be attacked everytime I go out but , subconsciously I adapt where I am and what I am doing to keep myself away from situations I don't want to be in. I do it automatically after years of stuff happening. My husband would never even think of adapting any part of his plan for the day.

@MrsTerryPratchett

And the odd time a man does experience being approached by someone bigger and sexually interested, in a gay club for example, they behave as if it's the most horrifying experience anyone could ever have.

Yes dude, we fucking know. We live with it IN CHILDHOOD.

God yes!!!

You know I never thought of this!

@DrSbaitso Yep, had that too, when I was 7-8, man on the street said that he wants to ‘lick my pussy’ I was terrified but had NO idea what it meant. I wonder if these men could sense that I was abused and a good target. I’ve seen pedophiles describe their favourite targets having ‘sad eyes’ and that’s how they know you’re vulnerable 😞

@phishy

That was definitely creepy. I had the creepy men approach me when I was younger and now in my late 30s I get the aggressive men, who are angry that I exist in what they see as their space.

Ggggggrrrrrrrrr I hear you @phishy.

So glad the catcall & constant harrassment days are decades behind me ... but the personal affront men display for this harmless little grandma just existing in public space is dispiriting & enraging.

Ye Dogs this has made me remember the sexually predatory behaviour hasn't fully stopped even now. Sat at a bar stool in m'local a couple of years back, random man I've never seen in there before gives chummy fellow-pub-person greeting, I respond in kind, & he sidles his bar stool closer to inform me how proud he is to be able to "still get it up" at 60.

Why he felt his hydraulics functionality was of any interest to me I can only speculate, but couldn't be arsed to do more than take the piss so dryly he was unable to quite fathom it (as per PP upthread - when a man's already broken the social contract, you don't know what he's gonna do next ...)
So I replied that that must be gratifying to any bed partner he has, but am unsure why he feels a random bird in a pub needs to know.

As a younger woman, I would have just wanted to scuttle away.
Unless I was pissed so less scared - at 16 I felled a big twat in a pub with an upper cut. Not wise. Suppose I'd misjudged, & got the worst of it?
It takes practice, & it shouldn't have to. By the time women get used to handling this fucking shit, they've been exposed to far to much of it already. Pun intended.

Male feelings are more important than female lives

As always