Bizarre incident on train...

[Redqueenheart]

I had a rather unpleasant experience on my way home today on the London tube and I wonder how other people would have reacted.

I was sitting in a tube carriage and looking at images and videos I had taken from an art exhibition I visited earlier. Was really tired and just wanted to mine my own business.

A man comes in and seats next to me, fidgeting and getting a bit too close for comfort. I ignore him.

He then asks me ''What is that?''. I realise he is now looking at my phone and expects me to tell him what the picture I am looking at is.

I snap back ''That is my phone and there is something called privacy''.

To my surprise two young women who were sitting on the other said of me get involved and say ''that was rude, he was only asking you a question''.

At that point I had enough and said something in the line of ''My pictures are private and none of your business'' and moved to a different seat on the other side of the train. Heard the girls snigger but there was no more interaction after that.

I really don't get why on earth the guy thought it was OK to barge into my space and then start staring at my phone and demand my attention and why these two women actually thought it appropriate to defend him...

Afterwards I did ask myself if this was an attempt to distract me while one them would try to get something from my bag but even as it stands I was absolutely furious about these people's behaviour.

I am quite curious to hear how other people would have reacted.

i think it’s definately good to be cautious, but this thread is painting every single man who approaches a woman in a public place to be some kind of sex crazied lunatic warewolf who, once they pick the scent of a fertile female will stop at nothing till they have either murdered or raped?

That’s quite minimising of women’s genuine concerns and actually feels like you’re laughing at women for being cautious when it could keep them out of dangerous situations.

this guy on the tube clearly was lacking social skills, maybe he had LD? But they don’t sound like a terror?

Again, this isn’t helpful. I don’t want to rewrite out my experience again as every time I do I relive it, but the man who assaulted me just asked a ‘genuine question’ and then proceeded to follow me harrass me and assault me (all in front of a packed train where people did nothing). So excuse women for being wary.

Experience has made me cautious and yes not every man is a danger but when your experience is that men who strike up conversation on public transport either end up getting aggressive if you reject them or worse then that is your reaction. And yes being rude or overreacting I’d always better than the alternative.

Of course I, and others who agree with me, don’t want women walking around scared of every man that approaches them but to gaslight them that they’re just being silly if they listen to their instincts or that they need to prioritise mens feelings over their own safety is irresponsible and dangerous.

If I hadn’t acted when I did and pretended to exit the train when he followed me getting off then worse could’ve happened to me.

I suggest you and anyone else who sees this reads The Gift of Fear

I'm a northern lass. The London tube intimidates me! Simply because I don't understand the etiquette!
Yep "up north", we talk to random strangers, we smile, we strike up conversations and can hear people's life stories in the shortest of time frames! That said! If someone invades your private space and makes you feel uncomfortable, even "up north", you should feel comfortable and confident enough to tell someone to go away!
What the poster didn't say was the accent of the women! Now if they weren't from London or weren't watching the posters obvious discomfort and just heard the comment she made as she stood up, maybe it did seem rude! Maybe after a long day and a tiring one it did come across as a bit abrupt! BUT the poster did state she felt uncomfortable therefore she had every right to tell the man to back off! Regardless if anyone else thought she was rude or not! Surely we don't live in societies were we need to consider people's opinions who are making us feel threatened in any way!
Hope the poster is OK!

You need to be able to make your own decision based on how you feel at a particular time. The girls shouldn't have got involved. Do you feel you were rude? Or you being talked into feeling like you were. You may have been but it is a non question. Equally you may have been freaked out. Is anyone on the thread, who seems to know exactly what what was going on, asked if you have had any past experiences?

@CallTheMobWife brilliant. Thanks for putting it so well. Yes we are worth having boundaries, we should not have to smile or be kind or chat to men (or women) we dont know and dont want to get to know. And if that's called rude, well I'm ok with being called rude and worse (let's face it weve all been called names before) so long as men especially leave me the fuck alone.

Quite! The point is if a woman is uncomfortable then the priority is to move out of that instinctively sense discomfort/potential danger. Why would one hang around worrying about not being rude!! Ofcourse this bloke may be not neuro typical, he may just be friendly ...but on the other hand ...! Why on earth would anyone think that the OP should consider these when her instincts are "uncomfortable!"

Read ‘The Gift of Fear’ we should never ignore our instincts

Absolutely! The priority is one's instincts, NOT whether some bloke "meant well" or avoiding "upsetting him"! ! if he did mean well then, he needs awareness raising on the potential impact of his behaviour on women!!

I'm all for the gift of fear. I just wonder if it's morphed into the gift of antisocial sarkiness for the sake of it sometimes.

@Charlize43
Having read through the whole thread now and all the OP's responses, I've concluded that it's a perception thing as the OP finds men 'creepy'.''

The OP does not find men in general ''creepy''.

But the OP does find men who behave in a creepy manner, well, creepy.

I think your powers of deduction might be a bit rusty.

Strange thing is, it's women telling other women they're
paranoid, impolite, misandrist, and live their lives in terror of every man

Well I reckon its men on here "pretending" to be women. Who wins if we convince a lot of women to always be kind, always smile, screw your boundaries? Men win as always.

Honestly, how patronising can one get about a woman (the OP) whose instincts about the behaviour of some bloke told her something wasn't right and gave her the creeps. How the hell does that turn into "concluded that it's a perception thing as the OP finds men 'creepy'.''

Redqueenheart as I have said previously, rude or not isn't the point ..the point is your instincts told you something and that is absolutely the priority. NEVER
ignore instincts, too many women have suffered because they didn't!

Well if that's what you take from this thread then you're not all for the gift of fear at all.

I haven't heard anyone say be a gentleman. Ladies first is always said by men to women. Boys don't hit girls might be said to small children but not to grown men and as for the comment about romcoms they're almost always written by men. I've never slapped a bloke round the face, have never seen it happen and have never heard of a woman doing it. It's just a misogynistic trope that women can't control their feelings or win an argument in any other way. But if you're basing your opinion on how men/women behave on romcoms then maybe that explains your lack of understanding of the real world.

The man who wrote the gift of fear, gavin de Becker? Actually says (multiple times) you should be rude, the alternative is much worse <<<<paraphrasing.

Difficult being private in a public space, with care in the community there are many wandering around us with all sorts of mental problems

The rules are fairly simple: 1. don't look anyone in the eye, and 2. don't show any expression on your face no matter what happens.

Welcome. And thanks for the other posts.

We HAVE to defend our boundaries, and it's hard enough without other women trying to convince us to ignore our instincts.

We all know, really, when a man is being creepy or not. We must not ever ignore that for fear of being seen as rude or nasty. Safety is always more important than politeness!

Yes, we all know when men are being creepy. It's fairly obvious.

Man asks, "Excuse men, where is platform 3?" "It's over there. "Thank you." Not creepy. Perfectly civil encounter.

Man sits too close, even when other seats are available? That's a red flag, right there. And if he then goes and sits too close and fidgets, rubbing up against you - No.

That's not learning difficulties or social difficulties - that's a perve or a crook.

You did the right thing and I am teaching my daughters the same. If a strange man makes you uncomfortable be LOUD because politeness is a killer.

Northern lasses are perfectly capable of spotting a creep who sits too close and noses into their phone, though. And more than capable of telling them to fuck off or of cheering on another woman who’d done the same.

I would have shut tbe conversation down but not used the language of the OP. Which, yes, I think is unnecessarily rude. And which, having taken the tube for tbe last x40 years, could readily see escalating a situation

I've been harassed a lot when younger, like most women. As an older woman, I still get harassed, but it is more aggressive, than sexual.

One time stands out distinctly to me. I was on a train to London, returning to Uni from the north. This middle age man came up to me and sat next to me. I was in one of those 2 seaters. He plonked down and said "I don't know if you prefer coffee, or coke, so I got both". So, he had walked past me, spotted me, gone to the restaurant car, and come back. How calculating is that.

I remember telling myself things like; it's rude if you don't take the drink, rude if you don't speak to him, be polite etc. I drank the coffee. I felt I owed him convo for the drink. The journey was 3 hours. The conversation was asking all about me and my studies etc. I noticed his wedding ring. I reckon he was mid 40's. As few got closer to London he upped it and said "I can see that you have walls and I want to smash those walls down". He then asked me to go to a hotel for a drink. I said no, my brother is waiting for me at the station to take me home. He got really aggressive with me saying things like "you think you are too good for me" and that I was a ''tease".

I don't know how I got away from him TBH, but I still think about this now, 30 years later.

As a 50 year old woman, I can recount many more incidents like this one in my life. Once when working as a Tour Rep in Spain, I lived with 4 other girls. They all went out and a young local guy knocked on my door and pulled his jogging bottoms down and exposed himself to me and said something. I pushed past him and he grabbed my T shirt collar so forcefully that it ripped down the back. I ran down the stairs into the street and started screaming and he ran off. I went to the police and they did nothing, saying I had met him in a bar.

It is only as an adult, in my 30's then 40's and now 50's that I have woken up to the fact that many, many men are just awful. I now go about my day interacting with the ones I love, and having as little to do with the others as possible.

Even as a 50-year old, I still get comments and PA snide remarks from complete male strangers and I am f*cking sick of it.

Wow, the misogyny is coming from inside the house loud on this one!

Perfect! For all you ladies in the back saying #benice - ZERO TOLERANCE!

I agree. My DH has been telling me just to ignore aggressive men but I am not going to.

ZERO TOLERANCE