I have noticed while walking with certain men that they greet male strangers in a way I never would (and would never want to be greeted, at least not at night in a semi-secluded area). Sometimes I assume they know one another until I ask. I sort of envy them that. Then again, asking a woman for directions or the time is a classic ‘come close enough for me to grab you’ tactic by male sexual predators. Also, women ‘get’ to talk to female strangers more intimately and more quickly, IMHO.
“What I should have said, is nothing. What I did say was, ‘you’d be surprised.’”
So, your being true to yourself is more important than saving young women from distress and alarm?
Good to know.
How does it take time out of my travel to say, “Hello. I hope you have a good evening.” Or to ask, “What breed of dog is that you have?” We’ll exchange a few words, and go on with our business.
I’m not talking a full conversation, just a few phrases in passing.
Of course, I find that if I don’t greet people, my experience is that people cross the street to avoid coming close to me.
By talking to them, I thought I was going out of my way to prevent them from becoming increasingly distressed and alarmed. If you wish to continue this tone of conversation further, you know where to go.
I think the biggest problem was what you chose to say to the women. “Hello” is fine. Checking out their clothes and then letting them know you know where they’re headed isn’t such a great idea. It could sound like you’re planning on following them. If a guy bounces out of the bushes, checks me out, and then tries to ascertain where I’m headed, I think I might call the cops too. Weird, nasty shit happens to women all the time, and we ignore it at our own peril. You didn’t mean to be creepy, but you kind of were anyway. Live and learn.
Stay in the bushes. Talk to self. Got it.
So, their being afraid of strangers at night is more important than saving a friendly young man from being harassed by a wannabe cop?
Good to know.
Yeah, let’s learn to be afraid of communicating with the opposite sex…that’ll make the world a better place to live in.
This is bullshit, and I would have been tempted to challenge him on it. If you do what again? A police officer has no business telling you where you can and cannot walk, unless you are breaking some law.
In fact, I would have challenged him, but I am considerably older than you, and pretty much don’t give a shit. Not saying you should have.
See cbawlmer’s post.
Fact of life: women are way more likely to be assaulted, raped, or harrassed by men are than vice versa. It isn’t a sign of fear, idiocy, or a fucked-up society to be alert and concerned about some guy appearing out of the blue and commenting on their attire and behavior – it’s a sign of reasonable caution and concern.
I’m not saying don’t be friendly, or don’t talk to strangers – I’m saying that in some circumstances (late at night in an isolated area), it may be badly received, and it’s not inappropriate for it to be badly received.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t have called the cops on you. I happily talk to people of all stripes on the street all the time, though, so perhaps I’m just not paranoid enough to be a modern woman. On the other hand, the comment on the dancing may have crossed a line for some. I can’t entirely fault them for following their instincts, even if I think their instincts were misfiring.
Can’t tell if someone is a sexual predator or not by the face, I’m sorry to say. On the bright side, cute picture!
They were BC cops, you’re a BC student, and you were on a non-restricted part of the BC campus? If all that’s true, I’d go to the BC campus police headquarters and complain about the “in the system” and “you have a problem” bullshit.
I think they reported you to the cops because you continued past “hello” honestly. If all you had done was nod and say hi it wouldn’t have been so weird, but to have someone you don’t know go beyond acknowledgement in a secluded area sets of the girly intuition alarms in my head. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing anything wrong, but if you follow too closely behind me for too long or if you stand too close in an elevator or start asking me unnecessary questions when there isn’t a crowd around I will immediately become suspicious. It has nothing to do with what you look like or the way you are dressed. If I have any reason to think that the situation feels wrong I will not hesitate to call the police or put some distance between myself and the person in question no matter how upset or offended they may get. After all, if they are doing nothing wrong all it will do is hurt their pride, but if they are truly a predator I may have saved my life or the life of someone else. Your pride is a small price to pay in situations like that. Not that every weird situation deserves to be reported, but with something like this late at night without anyone else around I think they did the right thing. Not that you would have done anything to them of course, but they have no way of knowing that.
Women are taught from an early age to be very cautious when walking at night. When I was in college, we had women attacked on campus and were warned never to go anywhere alone at night, and to report any suspicious people. I also took a self defense-class where I was taught these same things, and to trust your gut when you feel like you are threatened or someone is “not acting right.”
The problem is I am sure some guys are not trying to be threatening, but may come across that way. Most women, especially after having things drilled into our heads about being vigilant against danger all the time, are not going to take a chance when they feel like a guy might be creepy. I bet this would have gone very differently during the day, when a woman is less likely to have her guard up.
I was talking about this kind of thing with my women friends the other day, and how we don’t think most guys understand how much we are aware of dangerous situations all the time, and how vulnerable we can feel. A friend of mine was recently walking at dusk near her house, and a man passing by in a car slowed down to talk to her, asking if she lived nearby, etc. She told him “Are you aware how you are coming across right now? You are approaching a single woman alone and asking where I live.” He quickly apologized and said “wow, you are right. I didn’t think about that.” and drove away. Now this guy was the epitome of clueless but this kind of thing happens.
Another example - there has been a man going door to door in our neighborhood trying to drum up business, handing out his card and stuff for financial planning services. Now the card looks legit and it is for a well known business and all that, and my husband took his card a while ago and told him if we needed his services, he would call him. The guy came by again, when I was home alone with my 3 year old son and asked for my husband. When I told him he wasn’t there, he said, “yeah…he works second shift doesn’t he? So you are by yourself in the evenings?” Now that could have been a legit question for him to try to contact my husband, but I immediately had alarm bells ringing and got rid of him, and told my husband not to deal with this guy anymore and ask him not to come by anymore. The fact is that I don’t feel right about this guy coming over when he knows my husband is not home (since my husband is the one he had contact with) and asking if I was alone. When I repeated this story to a group of girlfriends, they all agreed that this guy should be gotten rid of ASAP. It’s all about perception. It could have been a perfectly innocent question, and I am sorry if a guy feels like he is just being friendly or whatever, but I value my own safety over a guy’s feelings and I think most women have this in the back of their minds all the time.
It’s hard to say without being there, but it sounds like the girls just got a bad vibe from the OP and decided to be cautious about it. It sucks that he got questioned, but from the girls’ point of view, it sucks to have to think about all this stuff every time you walk around at night too.
You have a strange idea of what harassment is.
Because it’s mostly on topic, and I learned it recently, apparently most rapes by strangers occur in broad daylight. I’m not sure of the dynamics of that - women don’t feel afraid in the day, and let their guard down? I don’t know. Anyway, lots of women are scared to be out at night, when if you’re going to get raped by a stranger, it’s more likely to happen in the day. Just thought I’d throw that into the mix.
The OP - it sounds like you got caught walking while male, auto. That isn’t fair, but life often isn’t fair.
I just realized, I hadn’t made it clear that I can see why the OP’s comments about the girl’s destination would worry and bother them. Especially when he just came out of some bushes.
It’s the extrapolation that a male should never greet, nor approach, a woman, (nor walk through fields) at night that sticks in my craw; as exemplified by the post that dangermom made. That goes beyond simple courtesy, or respect for caution, into behavior that seems insane.
Remember, we’re talking about a hugely over-inflated risk, to begin with. The vast majority of male on female crimes are between people who know each other - not strangers. Mind you, I admit that stranger on stranger crimes are far more visceral than the more common crimes, but does that mean that it’s reasonable to expect everyone to stay outside of a ten foot bubble around women at night? That really does seem to be taking precaution to the level of insanity.
On preview: featherlou, do you have a cite for that?
I’m wondering about that too.
If a violent crime (or a credible threat of such) happens in that neighborhood, flyers go up in my building, and probably most of the buildings in that area. Overwhelmingly they take place at night.
I heard it on the news, from a spokesperson from CCASA (Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse). I’ll see if I can find some corroboration for it.
From this site:
From this site:
(Note that this statistic doesn’t differentiate between stranger and non-stranger rapes.)
From this site:
So, yeah, I’d call that corroborated enough for me. 
I’m not saying no rapes take place at night, just that women have a false sense of security that no rapes take place during the day, which is just not accurate.
That’s not what I said. No, you should not approach a woman if she’s going to be feeling vulnerable (if it’s an isolated area, for example). I agree with the poster above that a simple “Evening” is fine, but I would not be happy if some random stranger made comments on my clothing and where I’m going–that crosses a line right into creepy territory. I never said that men should never walk through fields either.
I would say that it’s best to let the woman initiate any conversation in this scenario. A greeting is fine and all, but if she really wants to talk with you, she’ll let you know, don’t worry.
It’s entirely true that more assaults happen to women from guys they know, but the warning signs are a bit different in that case: a refusal to ever take no for an answer (even for something simple like “can I get you a drink?”), for example. And I would agree that daylight vs. nighttime makes no difference, but it’s natural for human beings to be more nervous in the dark.