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 still feel grateful for being in the right place to help out some people many years ago.
I was headed to meet some friends down at the shore and right when I got to town , I stopped by McDonald’s to grab something to eat. It was pretty empty, just the employees and 2 groups of kids.
There were 4 young teen girls and 3 or 4 older teen boys, and from the second I walked in, I saw the girls were very uncomfortable and the guys kept trying to get them to leave with them. They were trying to call someone to pick them up but nobody could come get them from what I could tell.
It was very dark out and the town was deserted, so I assumed they were not locals either so they didn’t have many options.
I asked them if they wanted a ride and they quickly said yes and literally jumped in my car as fast as they could. They were a decent number of blocks away, and they were very happy to be back at their rental.
I assume nothing serious would have happened, but it probably would have made the rest of their trip shitty if they had to worry if those guys knew where they were staying. I couldn’t have just ignored them without offering to help though, they all seemed on the verge of tears.
It was a little mind blowing how they’d just jump in a stranger’s car, but I was at least a neutral party when the other guys were already verified creeps. I wasn’t much older, about 20, so not in creepy old man territory yet, so that probably helped. As I said, I still think about how I got to be someone’s champion that day, and it makes me feel good to know I helped out.
I imagine you’re an adult, so you should have a decent radar for picking out some non-creep stranger. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t have much time to process the situation until after the girls had left, but seeing someone desperate for help I’d think would have most people willing to accommodate getting you to your car or a better public place. Most people are good and would help out if asked.
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