As does the person who is harassing you, driving you away.
I don’t see how walking away without acknowledging him is doing anything of the sort. You don’t flee or otherwise act as if he’s spooked you, because that is exactly what he WANTS; guys like that LOVE knowing that they have enough power over you to scare you. You just calmly walk away as if you’re going about your business and haven’t noticed him. (And, as other people have said, of course you don’t walk down a deserted alleyway when you leave; you either go into a shop or cafe and let yourself be seen talking to someone who works there, or you walk in a direction where there are plenty of potential witnesses if he tries anything.)
Trust me, anyone who has ever been female in public has dealt with this. Responding to this behavior in any way only escalates it. It’s like dealing with a toddler throwing a tantrum: people who do this are trying to get attention (they don’t particularly care whether it is positive or negative attention), and they will give up a lot sooner if they don’t get it.
And the relevance of that is what?
And just walking away has worked out so well for us, hasn’t it?
I would say “You leave me alone right now or I will call the police and file a complaint.” If he said anything else, I would do just that (and I have done it). If he made one physical move towards me, I would use self defense and get away with it (and I have done it).
Seeing as how all the women who have posted in this thread are amazingly still alive and un-dismembered, I’d say yes.
“Us” is a strange pronoun to use. The OP is clearly not addressed to you.
Right? Skald went above and beyond to make it clear who his question was aimed at, yet here we are. Again. And I agree with all the previous statements. You can only control yourself and I it’s necessary to leave, then you do so. I have either from annoyance, anger, fear or boredom. No one has escalated as for as I remember and apparently, I’m here to tell the tale.
I guess sometimes a man just has to mansplain things to us girls :rolleyes:
Are you all always prone to baseless assumptions, or do you all just accept male as the norm? There couldn’t possibly be any other reason for me to use the pronoun, could there?
It was my recollection that you were a woman, but your post was so mansplain-y that I too was wondering if my memory was wrong and you were actually a man.
I’ll admit I am curious about how this taking photos and posting them on Facebook thing has been working out for you. What sort of reaction do you get when you do this?
Anyone remember the last poster we had who used an ambiguous name to, apparently, purposely hide behind it so they could always coyly throw out there that we’d made erroneous assumptions? Yeah, I thought that silliness had gone out with chat rooms in the 90s. #dontcare #mansplainingwoman #maybe #maybenot
OK, you’re a woman. I apologize for making an incorrect assumption.
But this doesn’t the fact that your posts in this thread have been…bizarre. How would you have advised a woman to handle an insistent pursuer in the days before camera phones and Facebook? A Polaroid camera and a homing pigeon?
So you only assume people who disagree with you are men?
Don’t apologize. Just don’t assume.
Do you assume everyone who disagrees with you is “bizarre”? That’s not the best way to fight ignorance, is it?
The question was not what women did in the past, when people were taking polaroid shots of carrier pigeons, but about now, and women have more options than they did when they were wearing corsets to Tupperware Parties.
But your post was bizarre. I disagree with lots of posts on this board. But not all of those posts (or people) make me go “WTF!!” Yours did.
The OP asked individual women what they would do. Of course, we are free to do all kinds of crazy things–including screaming"GET THEE BEHIND ME, RAPIST!!" at the top of our lungs–but that’s neither here or nor there. The OP asked how we’d react, not how some theoretical woman should react.
I’d have to be mighty afraid to whip out my phone and put my friends on “serial killer” alert. Since random guys hitting on me in public don’t elicit this kind of fear in me (and apparently most of the women who has participated in this thread) but rather mere annoyance, walking away makes the most sense. Indulging in an irrational fear does not make any sense, IMHO.
What a strange response to my question.
Have you in fact ever taken a photo of a man who made repeated, unwanted romantic advances towards you in public and posted this photo on Facebook with a message saying that you were concerned he was going to harm you? If so, what was the result of this? If not, why did you suggest that others should do so?
Don’t know about the others, but I got sexually assaulted twice - one was a date rape the other was by a stranger that came up behind me and grabbed me and knocked me out first. I woke up being raped.
Is this really the same thing as a guy who repeatedly asks for your digits in public in broad daylight? And most importantly, doesn’t lay a finger on you?
More to the point (and forgive me if I’m mansplaining):
If the man in question truly intends violence against you, he is as likely to react to the attempt to photograph him by escalation as by retreat. That is, if the two of you are in view of others, he’ll skedaddle. If nobody else is around – a lonesome bus stop, say – he’ll slap the phone out of the woman’s hand, if nothing else.
If this man had violent intentions then I wouldn’t trust that he wouldn’t try to grab my phone even in view of others.
But in the scenario you described in the OP, I think it’s more likely that if I took a photo of my unwanted suitor then he’d take this as a sign that I really was interested in him. Like I wanted his picture because I thought he was so dreamy. That’s only going to encourage him. Unless we happen to have mutual friends he’s never going to know what I said about him on Facebook, and even if we do then it could be hours or days before he finds out. If my goal is to get him to buzz off now, that’s not doing me any good.
At least, that’s how I would expect things to happen. I have never tried j666’s method, nor have I heard of anyone else doing this.* If this is something that’s been working out well for j666, better than just walking away, then I’d be interested to hear about it. I’m not holding my breath, though.
*I have heard of women taking cellphone photos of men who were actually breaking the law, like subway flashers, to show to security/the police, but that’s a different situation than your OP.
Not, if he is persists in bothering me when I have told him to get lost. “Get the fcuk away from me, you worthless little rodent. You patheticness disgusst me” or something similar is very clear message that a woman doesn’t want any social contact with a man and any creep that continues to bother her after that should be considered dangerous.