To find this man in park suspicious

[HammerTimeNC]

NC but long time regular, since Pom Bear days.

Packing up my car whilst leaving a park today, I was aware of a man, aged around 30, sitting nearby with what I think were walking poles, looking in our direction.

After I said goodbye to my sister who was in a car in front, the man said to me he had an odd request...he asked that I drive him to his car which we could see, less than a 20-second walk away, because he was limping. I had my teenage daughter with me so I asked her to move to the back seat and he sat in the front passenger seat.

He mentioned this was the first time he had been to this park and his girlfriend had taken the dog for a walk and was annoyed with him as he couldn't walk.

He then struggled out of my car and sat in the driver seat of his own car.

I am now wondering why he didn't wait for his gf to drive him, and how he was going to drive with poor mobility. And I feel very irresponsible for putting my daughter at risk (so please be gentle with me).

Yeah very insulting

I know everyone should be able to trust everyone but sadly, the world isn't like that.
There is no way I'd have let a male stranger into my car and I can't believe some people think it's fine! Yes, he might have been completely legitimate but you didn't know that.
Also very odd for a male to put a female stranger in that position.

He should have asked a man. I wouldn't do anything like that again.

But don't dwell on it, all's well that ends well.

Why the sob story about his girlfriend too

Why not ask a man for help

We do things because we are nice and as woman and girls are conditioned this way it allows predatory men to take advantage, maybe he wasn’t but he certainly added some manipulation into his reasoning

I probably would have done the same op but would think later I shouldn’t have

Did you know you can drive without using your legs? You can have hand controls.
Dd's driving instructor drove like that.
She has one hand and has a small adaption on the steering wheel.

Also why wait until the sister is in the car ready to drive off?

Why not sit down on a bench/wall/rock/whatever and wait for the girlfriend? Didn't they have phones?

Regardless of whether he had any ill intent it's an odd way to behave. I'm really confident my DH or adult son would not have asked to get in a car with a woman and teenage girl and I would be suspicious of any man who would.

I'm glad you were safe and I'm glad you are a nice person who helps out others - they're in short enough supply. But...Any man with half a brain should know it is entirely inappropriate to ask a lone woman with a child to give a lift to a male stranger.

Next time, please don't feel you have to be nice and compliant to a strange man whose request for help could potentially put you in jeopardy. It's okay to say, 'No.'

Yea weirdo alert. Men need to understand it’s never appropriate to ask women they don’t known to help them. Also his GF was in the park so why didn’t he just wait or call her?

Once I was walking past a house and a man was carrying stuff in - bookshelves etc. He asked me, a lone 20-something to help him carry something into the house! I said no.

He almost certainly wasn't a murderer, most people aren't. But, he was someone with either bad intent or strikingly poor judgement, to ask a woman to drive him to his car. As others have said, why not ask a man?

I am not a 'log it with 101' type. But most police forces have an online incident reporting form, and this is exactly what it's for.

Ideally you would have said no and offered to phone someone for him instead if he needed.

Yes, he would have seen and heard me say goodbye to my sister, and I was lucky to catch her. She got out of her car to watch and noticed he didn't really say much and he wasn't particularly grateful.

I do know of people who have difficulty walking but can drive. I mentioned it because I did wonder it, albeit perhaps wrongly.

He would have seen me take off my walking boots and socks at my car boot which now makes me feel uncomfortable.

He was parked just 2 aisles over, and then I had to drive round a one way system to get out...when I waved as I passed him he gave a slight acknowledgement.

It was all so odd and I have told my daughter I made a big mistake.

This!

This.

I can see how these things take you by surprise. Sadly though, I think it would probably be better to say, "Sorry I'm not comfortable giving a stranger a lift in my car." And let him wait for a man to come along.

@HammerTimeNC Don't beat yourself up about it. Nothing bad actually happened but it's given you an opportunity to think through the potential risks and opened a conversation about it with your DD. That's a good thing.

Hang on was hi sister there too?

My understanding is that OP and her DD were with OP's sister at the park. The man was watching them for a while but did not request the OP's help until the sister had said goodbye and got into her car to leave As it happened Dsis hadn't actually driven away so was able to watch it all. I may have misunderstood though.

I would be immediately suspicious and not let him in my car.

That's correct. Some of it was captured on my dash cam and watching it back today he does seem sincere although the situation is odd.

Having said that I should not have let him in and won't do so in future. I recently had an injury myself and so was empathetic to his lack of mobility and that clouded my judgement.

Just so you know op, seeming sincere is no evidence of anything. Lots of predators have personalities and acting skills that they employ when trying to get women to leave safe public places.
Just no. Always no.

It would absolutely not have been unreasonable if you'd said no to his request.

However, I also think your sister (and a lot of the people answering on this thread) are being very disproportionate in their risk assessments. It's a very different situation to Ted Bundy, for example - Ted Bundy lured women, alone, to his car which was parked in a quiet spot where there was not going to be anyone else around. That's a very, very different situation to a man asking two people in a their car to drive him a few yards across an open car park of a busy public park.

I do agree that he would have been better not to choose a woman to ask, but I suspect that he asked you seeing that your daughter was in the car with you and thinking it would be OK to ask because there was two of you.

The ability to drive is neither here nor there. Walking and driving are completely different types of movement and you don't know what his actual condition was. For example some neurological conditions, things like Parkinson's, can make some things almost impossible while other things are very easy. My dad could drive perfectly well when he couldn't walk more than a few steps. And for people with other types of condition, it's worth remembering that driving isn't weight-bearing like walking. And there are also adaptations that can be made to cars.

And for some predators doing it in a more public place makes them feel like god. It's also a well known fact that serial killers escalate and escalate how sloppy their behaviour is, taunting to get caught. One of the most recent cases of abduction was on a busy London street in public.

Fact is you can't properly risk assess the bad actors from the men in a jam. Most men know this and it doesn't help the situation by normalising that women put their own safety to one side to be support human. No.

There were two of you, And would have been more cautious if You were alone most probably. He was probably cold, fed up waiting for his GF, and thought he would rather sit in the car and listen to a podcast, the radio or read his book. I know I would.

Some of the replies here are comedy gold. Check your car for air tags? Ted Bundy?

Probably replies from the very same people who would be the first to report and rant at any disablist comments.

I wonder how many posters who think this is OK have sisters and haven't been brought up with brothers?

I would not let a man that I didn't know into my car under any circumstances. Why put yourself at risk? Any decent man would realise that asking a women to do this is wrong.

If necessary I would have stopped the next passing man and asked them to help and would walk away.