this happens in a public park.
first time this happens to me afaik. I was just stretching with black leggings and a t-shirt. I noticed him 100 yards away walking around but always looking at me. Upon making eye contact he would look away but as soon as I turned to stretching, he’d look at me.
He started slowly approaching me and at one point stood at like 15 yards from me, but still separated by a fence. At that point I decided to cut my work out short and left avoiding eye contact.
I consider myself lucky because he didn’t follow me.
What scared me the most is he was bigger and taller than me.
If this ever happened to you, how did you react? How do I react next time this happens?
I’m not sure there’s any other good reaction than the one you had.
Maybe he was just “checking you out” and being very untactful and impolite about it (i.e. he’s just awkward).
Maybe he was looking at something else near you … but probably not.
But also maybe, he’s not right in the head and was thinking about doing more than just looking…
My advice (as a guy) is either:
I’m also going to add, that “look for help thing” includes looking for random guys that weren’t creeping you out that might be walking by. I know there’s the whole stranger danger thing that most of us were raised with, but … most guys are not rapists. If you just look for a normal looking dude (or someone that really looks like they’ve got their shit together) and ask them… I’d say 9/10 they’d be more than happy to get you out of that situation.
We need to (as a society) normalize women letting guys know about problematic men.
I want to absolutely support this advice, especially the last sentence. It’s quite hard for a guy that is aware of how they can be seen as threatening to offer help or stop a situation where someone is feeling threatened without making it worse. But asked to help? I’d drop what I was doing and offer some support if someone is feeling threatened right away. Most men are not creepy assholes that would rape you given the chance. On the contrary we hate those assholes too.
I really love your advice and how you interact with the world.
My one piece of advice to you would be to keep sharing it and encouraging others down your path of being willing to help.
Unfortunately too many women have run into these situations, asked for help and were told they were over reacting and making problems. Next time it happens they hesitate to ask or dont bother. That’s not your fault, or anyone’s fault that is willing to help. Just trying point out why some women might not go for that option right away. Especially if they are unsure if the guy in question is threat or not.
Your attitude and willingness to help is refreshing though, and its a good reminder that there are people in the world willing to help so thanks for reminding me of that. Keep being awesome and a force of positivity in the world.
A bit of a weird but I think true add-on to this in 2024: look for the one dude (or lady) with arms full of ink (tattoos). A person who spends countless hours in a chair and thousands of dollars on their work is highly recognizable and identifiable, things a would-be creeper does not want. Even if maybe their work looks a little gang or biker, people know who they are and are not the scary ones in this park at this moment. $0.02
I would phrase that as “don’t count out people with tattoos.” There are definitely some people with tattoos that you still don’t want to talk to (100% agree in 2024 though, tattoos themselves do not mean someone’s a bad person and some of those folks are lovely) haha