“When I shared this incident with a female friend the next day, she reflected that I was just being “fragile” and shouldn’t worry about it. I’m not sure who I find more disturbing.”
New submission from Milla
I was walking home around 10:30pm on Thursday 28 June 2012 when, about five minutes from my house I heard a male voice call out “hello darling” from across the street. Sadly, this is pretty normal where I live, so I just carried on walking.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man cross the road to my side of the pavement and could hear his footsteps behind me. He called out again- “Excuse me, darling, where are you going?”, I decided to go with firm but polite response- “I’m on my way to meet a friend”, without turning round and quickened my pace.
He then said “Don’t be shy, I think you’re pretty”. I carried on walking trying not to look nervous, willing myself to get to my door without any more hassle.
Unfortunately I lost my cool when he said “I’m behind you” and ended up breaking out into a jog/run. I’m aware this probably wasn’t the most sensible move, but I just panicked.
Afterwards I felt shaken up and regretted not challenging him directly. When I shared this incident with a female friend the next day, she reflected that I was just being “fragile” and shouldn’t worry about it. I’m not sure who I find more disturbing.
4 Responses
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That is so profoundly disturbing! Especially the “I’m behind you”, no wonder the first instinct is to run!
As for your friend, she is simply repeating what she has been told or has heard, participating in the collective victim blaming. Had you not run and (God forbid) had anything happened to you, they’d probably say you should’ve been more on your guard and ran when you felt you weren’t safe.
so always, always, always remember your own safety and only confront someone if you fee safe!
That’s awful – you did right to run away. I think that getting into a confrontation would have put you at risk.
Re. your friend – she’s being ridiculous.
“I’m behind you”? That’s terrifying. Good on you for getting out of there when you did.
You’re not “fragile”. There isn’t even one reasonable excuse to his behaviour (what on earth was he thinking?)
Your reaction was spot on. You didn’t accept and ignore it – that has proven not to work as he kept following you. And if you’d challenge him directly he might’ve seen it as an advancement towards him (he doesn’t think right, obviously). You did the RIGHT THING – you escaped, and you showed him that “no” means “no”.
Kind of like how when a girl is physically attacked and she screams the attacker sometimes (…) goes away. You weren’t physically attacked, but running away was the right thing to do. They don’t think like normal people do.
I’m sorry to hear it happened to you :/ You should feel safe on the street, not run into scum like him.