How am I supposed to know the motive? I’m a single woman in my late fifties. I go to the gym and have random conversations with both men and women younger than I. Forget, if you can, that mowing the lawn is a nice gesture. Finding out my full name and accessing property registers to find out where I live and showing up there sets off all sorts of alarms.
No, I don’t think every man is out to harm me. But all you have to do is crack open a newspaper and read about how many nice helpful young men turn out to be dangerous little psychopaths. You can’t sort them out by looking for the mark of Cain on the forehead. I don’t live in fear, but I pay attention to my Spidey sense.
For those of you who still think it’s over reacting, let’s say you go visit your mother one day. She lives alone and you usually cut her grass. You’ve been out of town and sick and its been awhile. You go see Mom and it’s been done. Well, that’s nice. Did one of the neighborhood kids…? No, a guy from the gym. Did you ask him to come over? Well, how did he know where you live? He WHAT?? Mother, what do you know about this guy? He seems nice? So did Ted Bundy.
I havent been following this thread too closely but nowhere have I seen you answer the simple question of why you started this thread? What were you hoping to get from it?
OP: I’ve been told that I have trouble with social interactions and respecting boundaries. Did it happen again? Here’s what I did.
SDMB: It happened again.
OP: No it didn’t, shut up!
Isn’t awesome how both men and women are saying “dude, that’s creepy” but there are those in this thread that are telling us “No, it’s not! It’s not stalking if you want to do something nice, and it’s not trespassing if you are doing an unasked favor!”
And then some people don’t believe that some men react to a polite “no thanks” with anger and insults.
I guess to see if I screwed up or not. I’ve taken in what some people have said.
I don’t minimize the fears of women, and haven’t here. Regarding me, there isn’t a woman in the world that needs to fear me. Anyone that knows me, knows that.
Society nowadays IS scary. Ya, you have to be careful out there (man or woman).
If only the really scary guys wore a name tag or something, instead of saying things very similar to “Regarding me, there isn’t a woman in the world that needs to fear me.”
That’s an odd combination of things to say. If you’ve actually learned the lesson, and are willing to be more mindful of other people, why are you then in a later post claiming that objections are comical?
Or did you actually mean exacerbate, and not exaggerate? In which case, I don’t know what you mean by that.
LiveFree, you should just let the thread die down, a quiet death. Your posting isn’t winning over or convincing posters in this thread. Just lay it to rest, nice and gentle.
So why did you ask our opinion? What were you going to gain? Accolades? Didn’t happen. Constructive criticism? You’re laughing that off. Rather defensively, I might add.
ultavires, Mr. Lawyer, sir: if a client said “I’m going to surprise an acquaintance by mowing her lawn for her. She didn’t tell me her last name off where she lives, but I eavesdropped on her conversations and checked the property tax registers. She has no idea I’m going to do this!” what would your advice be?
And if her door is unlocked I’ll really surprise her with an extra nice gesture and do her laundry for her too! Being sure to fold her panties real neat.
This is an anecdote and doesn’t prove a thing, but I can’t help sharing: My grandmother was murdered by the guy who cut her grass!
No, really, I’m not joking. No one will ever be 100% sure, but she died suddenly under quite suspicious circumstances: the younger man who gardened for her (and who had insinuated himself into her good graces to the tune of several loans and gifts) found her sprawled out on her floor. Phone records show a call from my grandmother’s house to the UK (where the gardener’s girlfriend lived) right around the time he supposedly found her and called an ambulance.
I posted this story on the SDMB a number of years ago, so doubters can verify I’m not making the story up for this thread.
I think what many here may not understand is the difference between a helpful man and an overly helpful man.
Women know from experience that a man that insists on helping is often up to no good. What “no good” consists of varies widely. Could be that he’s trying to get sex. Could be that he’s trying to make himself feel big by making the woman feel small. (Have no fear, damsel! The white knight is here to save your helpless ass!) Could be a lot if things, and it could be nothing, but it’s definitely a red flag.
So the the fact that the OP didn’t even give the woman the option of saying no set off a lot of warning bells. Again, this is based on experience with men who have done comparable things.
It doesn’y seem that the OP had any nefarious motives, but the red flags were flying high nevertheless.
One can only assume that many of these folks haven’t read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker.
He starts with a horrifying story that illustrates how a man used “helping” as a way to maneuver a woman into a situation where he could rape and murder her. She got away while he was rummaging around for a butcher knife.
It is an extreme example, but it really makes the point.