I think the situation called for a “knee-jerk” reaction.
As in jerking up your knee directly into his jaw.
Stay strong girl! I was assaulted at work and I know it’s hell… you did what you needed to before it got to that point. Good work!
Spelling police. You mispelled “jaw”. It’s spelled “jewels”.
The op figured out what to look for next time. She caught it on the 3rd encounter. The guy didn’t have any shopping cart and was just wandering around the store.
Get the manager. He/she is highly motivated to remove someone who is chasing customers away.
This is just like me! I cheered when you got tough (well, silently, I’m at work). Go, tesseract!
What an awful experience! I’m so sorry this sick man treated you so disrespectfully. If you are balking at the idea of “getting him into trouble” please consider the possibility that by turning him in, you could allow the system to help/stop him before he escalates. Guys who get into this thrill seeking cycle tend to escalate until caught, and “letting it go” can allow him to get worse and worse until he does serious harm.
I can totally relate to that instinct to question your own actions. Every time I left the house as a child my Mother reminded me to “be sweet”. It is very difficult for some of us to find our inner b!tc# even when her presence is truly called for.
Please don’t take this as a “blame the victim” thing, I just want to assure you that your initial feeling was correct, and that you had the right to act on your feeling before he did anything overt. I strongly recommend the book “The Gift of Fear.” You have a baby to protect now, and it’s time for “Mama Bear” to surface.
If we don’t get comfortable with trusting our protective instincts, then we are open to making truly bad decisions.
Well done! I’m very glad you let him have it, and hope you will decide to take further action.
He was a perv. He has no business feeling up your legs. If anything, you could have raised more fuss; don’t feel bad about smacking him in the face. He was wrong, not you!
Dunno if it is that.
I’m a guy, and I have no trouble being assertive and all that, but I can easily relate to her reaction - being grabbed by the legs in public while shopping with the kid is just so bizzare that, I imagine, at first I would be wondering (after instinctively decking the guy) if it had a “normal” explaination; my mind would not want to make a scene, even though obviously one was warranted, because I would have trouble (for the initial split second) of believing that the perv was really doing what he was doing. I’d worry that I had over-reacted until I had a second to think it over and realize that his “explaination” was utterly lame and unbelievable.
Freaking awesome.
I do. Not typically plastic, but cash. Makes it easy to whip out $12 for a cab ride or some such.
Jewels? no, aim for the eye. Nice frozen box corner should do nicely.
The fact that he was able to maintain such a ruse after getting socked in the face suggests to me that this is not the first time he pulled such a stunt. He just strikes me as much more predatory and likely to escalate to violence than if he just copped a quick feel and made a dash for it.
Holy crap, that is one seriously ballsy pervert. What in the world did he expect would happen?
That’s the thing. If he’d grabbed your butt or arm or shoulder, that would be bad enough. But unless he’s 3 feet tall or built like a chimp, he’d have to bend over significantly to grab your shins. That’s such bizarre behavior that I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it.
Awesome… a cleaving Steamer.
Tesseract, I don’t remember th last time I was so proud of someone. I concur with others too that this should be reported to store management and see if they have video of the incident. We don’t want it to happen to you OR anyone else again in the future.
He’s got a lot of nerve, telling you “Don’t ever do that again” when you didn’t do anything wrong and he did.
From what I’ve read, it is actually pretty typical of a certain type of pervert. Some lack the ability to empathize with their victims, so whatever they do to their victims is okay, and any attempts by their victims to fight back or shame them just makes them angry.
I sometimes wonder if that’s just human nature. It reminds me of the time when someone almost hit me with his truck because he was looking elsewhere. He ended up yelling at me to look where I was going. Projection at its finest.
A classic reaction. Turn it around, both for his own peace of mind and for any third party eyes.
I doubt he had much of an ironclad and reasonable plan. I’m starting to feel like a broken record around here but … If he was in a mindset where it seemed like a good idea to grope a total stranger, why would you think he was anyplace but in the world where she turns around hugs his face with her thighs? Seriously. If someone isn’t acting in a way that you believe to be rational then it is a mistake to expect ANY of their behavior to mirror what you believe to be rational.
That said … Awesome reflexes, OP. And I’m glad you smelled a rat before he made his move. But yeah, now you gotta finish the job and get the store/police involved so that he doesn’t end up perfecting his strategy.
You know, the one where he hovers over a target and gets his fantasy all arranged and himself all worked up and then carries it out in the parking lot or in his van.
That pretty much describes every criminal I’ve ever known.
I thought the punchline was going to be that it was your baby who was touching your legs.