To be fair, unless a woman has a physical barrier between herself and a guy like Mandolin Dick (such as a door she can slam shut), I think they sometimes feel that if they let him use the john, then he may just leave peacefully, whereas a refusal may piss him off and he may get physical. I think it’s like very subtle intimidation, and IMHO, sometimes is inadvertent. (Inadvertent in the way like: one time I got off a bus late at night and a woman got off at the same stop. We just happened to be walking in the same direction, but I had to cross the street because I could tell by her body language that she was nervous with me “following” her.)
I believe it will. One of the anecdotes in the book was about a woman who felt bad about hurting a man’s feelings, who was offering to help her with her groceries, but she also felt very nervous about him and his intentions. He implied that she might be a mean person for not graciously accepting help; she caved in, and let him up to her apartment to bring in her groceries. And he didn’t get out of her life quickly, and it ended badly.
The problem with your decision path is you were worried about him getting aggressive and hurting you, but you left a public place (outside) and went with him to a private place (your apartment), where you limited your options for escape and gave him more options for getting physical. If he’d had bad intentions in mind and lied about the favor, you accidentally opened up an opportunity for him. The fear in you actually made your situation worse because you were desperate to make everything better, to not make him mad. (I’m not being accusatory; this is a very natural way to be.) The idea behind the title is that the little fearful feeling about something not being quite right is a good thing, but we react in the wrong way to it, and we need to change our handling of those perceptions.
The book talks about how we’re practically engineered to please people, to not be mean or rude, and often the desire to help can override that little voice that is saying ‘maybe this isn’t a good idea.’ I think if you take the book’s lessons to heart, you’ll understand more about reading situations and making good choices.
Certainly a possibility, tho in my opinion, what you fear is often a far greater possibility if you say yes!
I think I read that book (or one similar to it) many years ago when I was studying/teaching fighting/self defense. IIRC, the main premises are to develop a sense of awareness of your surroundings, and to avoid certain situations that increase risk.
Arguably you did a couple of things that increased your chances of unpleasantness: you allowed yourself to be in a car alone with a guy - especially a guy you did not know well; and then you alowed him into your apratment. If nothing else, both situations decrease your chances of escape.
Like niblet says, it is perfectly fine for people to get pissed at you for doing what you feel is right for you.
The problem is that the “man who is already being inappropriately aggressive” and “who hurts me” is NOT a “man who will get out of my life hopefully quickly”. If he was going to throw you down and rape you because you wouldn’t let him in to use the bathroom, he was going to throw you down and rape you no matter what you did. All letting him in does is give him a more private and softer place to do so.
Well, it’s all about exactly that sort of thing; what predators do in order to pick out victims, how violence works, real warning signs as opposed to showboating, how to deal with threats, and most especially how to trust yourself and your intuition. The message is that when you are suddenly afraid ‘for no reason,’ there is a reason–and instead of trying to talk yourself out of it, you should pay attention, because you have subconsciously noticed something wrong and your feelings are sending you a real message. “Irrational fear” of some person is quite often very rational; you just haven’t consciously analyzed the reasoning yet, your mind worked faster than that.
Listening to your intuition and your mind’s gift of fear allows you to relax most of the time. No walking through parking garages, telling yourself that a rapist might be hiding behind every car and you have to be on high alert.
Also, it’s about making decisions and acting in such a way that you don’t look like a good victim. For example, a guy looking for a girl to dominate will first see if he can get her to accept something she doesn’t really want, because she doesn’t want to ‘be rude’ by saying no. It will be something really minor, like ‘Can I get you a drink? Come on, what are you having? Let me get you something.’ And he’ll keep pushing until you either give in (dingdingding! New victim!) or tell him to go away. Give in, and he’ll push you into accepting a date, and a relationship, and you won’t even like him but you’ll be afraid to say no.
So yes, I think it will help you make these sorts of decisions. I don’t want to overhype the book or anything, but I seriously think it’s one of the most important books a person–a woman especially–can read. The other day I found out that a cop friend of mine recommends it all the time, and he’s one of the sharpest people I know, so listen to him.
And again, you’re adding the same assumptions of your own : that the girl is attracted, doesn’t react in the same way, and that the ugly guy ignores her reaction. Which is NOT what I’ve been talking about.
What I’ve been saying all along is that if the ugly guy makes the same move to hit on the girl than the attractive guy, he shouldn’t be considered a stalker just because he’s ugly when the attractive guy isn’t considered so. For instance if asking a woman out isn’t stalking when done by attractive guy, it isn’t stalking either when done by ugly guy.
I said NOTHING about an ugly guy who wouldn’t take the clue that his move was unwelcome after being told no. You keep adding that, and assuming that the guy is not only ugly, but keep insisting after being told no, while the attractive guy has been told maybe.
I used “ugly” and “attractive” to simplify by convenience. Actually, originally, the question was about young vs old.
To simplify to the extreme (caricature, not an accurate summary of the thread) :
OP : I’m stalked. A guy hit on me.
Me : Are you nutty? How is that stalking?
OP : He was old.
Me : Since when being old is the same as stalking? ***This is my point, here ***
OP : I forgot to mention he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I can back you up on this. With my first scan of the OP I sort of had a similar conclusion (initially). It sounded like a mostly harmless scenario in which the the guy was undeservedly being seen as “creepy stalker” due to nothing more than being “twice my age” as if “he should have known better” (not said by the OP but inferred).
Happened to me too. And she entered my building, presumably at random, because she left when I opened the inner door and asked her if she wanted to go in (meanwhile, she was using, or pretending to use, the entry phone).
I didn’t make the effort of crossing the street, though, despite having noticed she was glancing at me over her shoulder (People are going to tell me it’s understandable, and it is, but it still pissed me off). I just told her “I live here” when I entered the building besides her (which meant that she was trapped in a closed hallway with the creepy guy who was following her) and proceeded to pick up my mail.
Yes, possibly, but that’s not what my fight-or-flight instinct was telling me to do!
I would like to reiterate that I did not know he would be dropping me off last until the only other person in the car got out.
dangermom, that’s quite a good recommendation. I am very aware of
I think I’m all right with people disliking me. That same night, actually (gosh, it wasn’t a good one for personal space), I had to shout at a flower vendor who was following me down the street. He was trying to step in front of me and stop me to talk to me. I said “No!” firmly three or four times, and when he continued to block my way, I shouted “LEAVE ME ALONE” at the top of my voice, and he finally stepped off. That might have been different because it was a stranger, though.
Yes, I’m sorry again about expressing myself so poorly. In the OP, I was still too much in the middle of my “AUGH CREEPY DANGER” reflex to think critically about what caused it, and in a subsequent post I misidentified his age as what had pinged my creep-dar.
I had to talk it through with some friends to be able to come back and give more accurate details, which was obviously a bit too late for critically-thinking Dopers. If I could do it again, I would have had the hashing-it-over chat first and then posted a clear OP.
I wish the “women react differently to men they find attractive, don’t try to say they don’t” hijack would go back to the “Ladies, let’s be honest” thread from which it came, but that’s my fault for not being accurate in my first few posts. (Although I suppose I do think that it’s weird for 48- to 50-year-old to hit on a 22-year-old he expects to remain in social contact with, so maybe it is appropriate to keep that discussion here.)
Either you are confusing concepts here or I am confused, because your acquiesence impresses me as neither fight nor flight.
I got that. But you did have earlier opportunities to prevent it by asking what order he would drop people off, asking to be let off first, or by getting out with either of the other 2 riders and making other arrangements to get home.
Yes, both may have been more inconvenient than just sitting back and enjoying the ride, but IMO you do yourself a disservice by acting as tho the opportunities did not exist. In many social situations, the only thing you are completely able to control is your own actions. Sometimes there is no perfect alternative - but IMO&E it is an exceedingly rare situation in which you have absolutely no choice.
I dated a guy for a YEAR under a similar scenario. He just kept assuming and I didn’t say no. And he assumed, and assumed and assumed. And the whole time I was feeling really put out.
When I did start saying no, I wasn’t clear about it. I used the “we should see other people” and the “I don’t really want to date anyone right now.” Instead of saying “I don’t want to see YOU any longer - and frankly - I never really DID.”
So I understand. But even if you didn’t ask him up, you didn’t say NO. You need to be very clear because he reads your consent at his suggestion as - well - consent.
If you have a problem after you say no (YearBoy showed up at my house, hung on my porch until the cops came, came to my job, showed up at places I would frequent, tried to convince my friends and family that I was mentally ill (or else, why else would I have dumped him) - after I said “get the fuck out of my life” - then he is a stalker. And YearBoy lived in a different city - it took dedication to stalk me.
YearBoy was, of course, shocked at my ‘sudden’ dumping of him - because he hadn’t been able to take anything other than a 2x4 to the side of the head as anything other than enthusiasm over the prospect of a relationship with him. And I was too “nice” to push the issue and come right out and say “this has no future and I’m done.”
Learn from my mistakes…say no. If necessary, say “fuck, no.” (In my defense, I was young and was recovering from sexual abuse - this relationship was actually a godsend in that it was the cure.)
Sorry, I was using “fight-or-flight” as shorthand for whatever it is that shouts “THERE IS A DANGER MAKE IT GO AWAY” until you can’t think clearly.
Well, yeah, there’s obviously about fifty fucking things I should have done differently. I’m not convinced that accepting the ride in the first place was one of them, though. Do you think it would have been a better decision, knowing what I knew at the time, to have waited for the bus? Or gotten out in a part of town I didn’t know at all with two extremely intoxicated people and no phone?
Sorry, I was drafting posts in Notepad at work and forgot to go back and read through before posting. I assume it was something about how much I appreciate the pro recommendation.
Are you feeling any better, Tracy? It’s been a couple days, and (I’m assuming) he hasn’t contacted you again. And he’d have to be pretty oblivious to not get the message after you don’t show up to that event he invited you to tonight.
Fine, you LET him in. That doesn’t change the point that he took that as a possible green light. Which – here’s a shocker – a lot of men would, and they are not creepy pigs to hope that getting in your house is a step towards getting in your bed. That’s the chief reason you don’t let guys you’re not interested in, into your flat at 3 in the morning, alone: Because it can be so awkward to get them back out.
Lame excuse. You do not have to have a particular physical layout to your flat to be able to say, effectively and forcefully, “I’m sorry, you need to leave. Now.” You did not have the ability to do this. A bigger doorway would not have helped you.
The best proof for the fact the guy was not some mad raping attacker is the fact that he did not attack you when he had the chance. I don’t know what difference it would make if he was/is trying to get in your heart or only was trying to get in your pants; you’re not interested in him anyway.
ANYONE who is acting so aggressively that you are afraid they will hurt you in ANY circumstance – that is a person you need to run away from immediately. Seriously, this sounds like the rationale of a battered wife. And this doesn’t make sense even from the POV of a frightened woman. He is outside demanding you let him upstairs to use your toilet. You are so afraid this person will hurt you that you . . . take him upstairs to your flat, where the two of you will be alone? I’m sorry: It makes no sense. If you were in fact in that degree of fear of this man due to his “aggressiveness” standing on the sidewalk, then you were a fool – not just a fool, a complete and utter idiot – to let him come upstairs, and you are lucky you were not raped. Not by this man, but by the man you thought he was.
I think it would have been a better decision to know how you were getting home on your own in the first place – in a way that was safe – and to have stuck to that plan as your means to get home. So, yeah, if waitng for the bus was your original plan then, yes, you should have waited for the bus. If that was an unsafe choice, you should not have left your flat without knowing how you were going to get safely home.
I don’t mean to bust your chops over this excessively. I think you made some poor decisions in the moment that you now (rightly) regret, and I agree that the fact they were “in-the-moment” largely excuses them. (You’re young; you haven’t dealt with a pushy guy before (apparently); you were in a situation for the first time that you didn’t know how to handle; you didn’t want to seem ungrateful, or like a bitch.) You seem pretty smart; I assume you’ll make different choices next time.
BUT . . . I don’t think any of that makes this guy some evil stalker/attacker. I think he was (a) a jerk who (b) pressed you a little hard. BUT – and this is a key “but” – he didn’t attack you. Didn’t try to touch you or kiss you, didn’t make an explicit suggestion of the “c’mon; it’s late and cold, you know you’ll like it” variety. He just sat on your bed – no other seating available – and stayed after you wanted him to go. Considering that you let him up and then didn’t throw him out, do I think he might have gotten his signals crossed after a long night of drinking? Hell, yes.
Jodi, I think you’re being way too harsh. I don’t see it as difficult to understand why someone who feels threatened would decide, “if I acquiesce in small request A, he won’t escalate this into larger situation B.” Or more specifically, to think, “If I let him up to use the toilet, maybe he’ll stay calm and just leave, but if I say no, then maybe he’ll hit me and drag me up there, and then he’ll be so angry that he’ll really hurt me.” Maybe it’s not the best analysis, and maybe it’s not what you would have done, but it seems easy enough to understand how someone might think that.
Further, and maybe I’m reading too much into this, I’m getting the sense that Tracy Lord has had to deal with some abusive people in her past (i.e., people that she couldn’t just run away from), and that her way of dealing with danger may have evolved therefrom.
Tracy, you’ve got good instincts, that’s a big plus that a lot of people don’t have. A little experience (hopefully none too bad!) and education (insert another plug for the “thread sponsor” here) will teach you more awareness of those early signals and what action to take. The most important thing to know is that you can take action to minimize the risks at every step along the way. (I’d recommend taking Dinsdale’s posts more as friendly “here’s a teaching point in this story” advice than blaming you for bringing this on yourself.)
The telling moment for me in your more detailed version is when the creep told you you were wrong about your purse being stolen. Right there, he’s sizing you up - can he get in your head and make you doubt your own instincts? He’s a manipulator, possibly a predator, looking for his next victim.
Most women operate from this assumption most of the time, consciously or un-, even in situations where physical threat is non-existent. When you feel helpless, your fear is all you have to protect yourself. But you’re not helpless, Tracy, and you can learn some skills that will help you recognize the strength you already possess. Good luck.
Call me a cynic, but after the way this thread has gone so far, is anyone else waiting for the OP to come in and say, “well, actually, he did, I just forgot to mention that in the first 20 replies”?
