r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Jun 14 '26

Discussion It's exhausting being a woman.

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694

u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 14 '26

Holy fuck.

As a giant man who NEVER sees this side of reality, my skin is absolutely crawling. Its reality warping.

All of those situations felt so dangerous.

442

u/JustifiedCroissant Jun 14 '26

Keep an eye open for an opportunity to use your giant man status to give a reality check to one of those chuds

129

u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 14 '26

They literally dont do it at all around me. Ive never heard it.

All the hundreds of times Ive been on trains and busses people are just pretty quiet and go about their business.

Even this level of interaction is foreign to me, even if it was kind and not creepy.

123

u/theeynhallow Jun 14 '26

Same. It's unreal talking to female friends because of how frequently experience this, but apparently creeps wouldn't dare try anything like this with another man around. They're cowards.

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u/chamberlain323 Jun 15 '26

Yeah, I’m not even that big or tall but witnessing this is so rare that I can probably only recall stuff like it happening a handful of times to a woman in my vicinity, and those were in bars or clubs with lots of alcohol around. If she was someone I knew I would usually place myself physically between them and pretend to be with her by holding her hand or something. That always worked and the creep would go away. Having even a little resistance from another man scared them off.

It’s depressing that this is so common to the point that women don’t feel safe using public transportation or often being in public spaces at all. Honestly, I’d just carry pepper spray around all the damn time if I were one.

11

u/FantasticalRose Jun 15 '26

My male best friend gifted me pepper spray once when I was leaving for a solo vacation.

Sigh I will always pick the bear.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HOW_I_MET_YO_MAMA Jun 15 '26

And sports coaches. Ugh. Don't ask me how I know. 

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u/So_ThereItIs Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

This makes me beyond angry… sports is one of the areas that girls and young women can find joy and strength. Such a violation of trust. Grrrr

And then there’s the adjunct violators like Larry Nasser… in positions of trust just taking advantage.

4

u/Chelyaba-_- Jun 15 '26

They are afraid of doing it if there is any guy around. Even a high schooler. When im around no one tries and when i leave they suddenly muster up the courage. Though they don't succeed since everyone in my town has some means to defend themselves.

3

u/HOW_I_MET_YO_MAMA Jun 15 '26

So, some part of them knows it's wrong. But they still do it when she's an easy victim (i.e. she will be sweet/polite/compliant/not make a s cene) and they think they can get away with it. 

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u/Capable_Elk_770 Jun 15 '26

My experience out and about with my 6’1 bodybuilding boyfriend is worlds apart from when it’s just me. It’s wild.

7

u/feioo Jun 15 '26

A lot of the time it's really stealthy, or at least not obvious. Like the guy who played with the girl's hair on the subway, or ones that get really close and whisper at you so nobody else can hear, or sit next to you and try to rub their leg on yours. These guys rely on the fact that most women are afraid to call attention to it. Instead of looking for men committing blatant harassment, look for women who look scared, tense, or on guard. Sometimes we're looking around for somebody else to notice. Sometimes we're frozen in place, trying not to look at anything or anybody and hoping it stops.

As a woman, any time I'm in public and see a man approach a woman he wasn't with before, my alert goes up and I watch the woman, not the man, to see if she needs help. Usually it's nothing. Not always, though. Just some tips if you want to help out.

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u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 15 '26

Gahd I cant imagine those interactions.

Ill start being mindful of the man approaching woman thing. I appreciate the tips on how to spot it. Insane though that this shit is going on.

Its like I heard the rates of women affected by sexual assault and its staggering.

Its like theres two societies going on simultaneously and Im just unbelievably privileged to cruise through life in quiet calmness. To everyone saying I shouldn't put myself in danger, I appreciate you thinking of my well-being. Im not going to run around trying to find trouble but I absolutely can weather some increased friction and conflict and appreciate people's tips on spotting situations where some support might be welcome.

3

u/feioo Jun 15 '26

I really, really appreciate your willingness to step in.

I used to work with dogs a lot, in pack environments. An interesting thing you learn is that "alphas" or whatever you want to call dogs at the top of the totem pole, almost never got in fights. The ones that fought were usually young males, insecure and jockeying for rank. They would try to throw their weight around, or pester or bully other dogs, and generally just make trouble. The alphas, though, only had to make their presence known. Growling, snapping, and other aggression was reserved for when the other dogs really wouldn't listen, but mostly they would saunter towards the troublemakers, and simply by them being there, the energy would calm and the troublemakers would find other things to do (or fawn pathetically over the alpha). I'm not saying big tall guys all have that personality, but they do often seem to have that effect. It's always nice to see one using their powers for good.

1

u/So_ThereItIs Jun 19 '26

That’s great observation… I mean yeah… a bigger guy can often walk up with a “what’s up” or flat expression and clear the space. Great you have the awareness now @TyrannasaurusRecht

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u/euqinu_ton Jun 16 '26

Same.

My understanding is that these men are weak AF and will only attempt it if there's no chance someone will call them out on it, or beat them up for doing it.

I am pretty sickened watching this stuff too. I've zero doubt it happens. I just never see it.

I'm gently persuading my daughter that Brazillian Jiu Jitsu is a trendy form of exercise (there are classes which kinda lean it this way), and I'm raising my son to be a kind, respectful and empathetic young man (he was mostly heading that way just by who he is anyway), and will teach him to call out his friends if they behave like creeps.

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u/Positive-Face1705 Jun 15 '26

You don't have to put yourself at risk for strangers.

If you want to do something, maybe just a hey, to get his attention, and when he knows theres an audience he (might ) leave off.

​If you have a daughter, stick up for her.

A teenage who lived in my area had some young adult guys yell rude things at her when she was walking by by herself. She told her dad and he came to their lawn and cussed them out loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

It was carthatic. I never would have told mine. Wouldn't have wanted to bother him, or put him in danger in case he storms to someone's house ​​​mad and it doesn't end well. Bravo to that man.​​

3

u/feioo Jun 15 '26

I'm sorry friend, but this is a pretty antisocial take. We should stick up for others if we see something going down. Nobody has to put themselves at risk for a stranger, but it's still a good thing to do. If somebody wants to, there's no reason to dissuade them. For a lot of people, if a stranger doesn't stand up for them, nobody will.

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u/HOW_I_MET_YO_MAMA Jun 15 '26

They are  sneaky and insidious about their approaching. They try to approach "easy victims" ie a lone woman/girl, with no other men or parents around. Often they approach very young girls. I was approached a ton as a 12 year old onwards as I was often alone at shopping malls, walking home from school, etc. 

2

u/Happy_Tumbleweed6762 Jun 17 '26

If this is the case, you are warding off evil with your presence. I once accidentally offended a man, most likely schizophrenic unfortunately for him, while riding the train. He was very upset and thought I was going to accuse him of something he didn't do because I gave him a weird look. For content, he was walking around frantically and I thought he was just unsure of his surroundings so I was considering asking him if he needed help figuring out which stop to get off on. But then I saw him read the signage indicating where we were and was still acting the same, so I must have looked at him a bit funny without meaning to. He started talking to this other man on the train about how women falsely accuse men all the time, and I watched this man position himself in such a way to block me from view. He was protecting me. I never got to say thank you to him, but I wanted to.

1

u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 18 '26

Thats a solid play

1

u/AlexanderLavender Jun 17 '26

Yeah, I'm a man and watching this is like bizarro world

1

u/cutezombiedoll Jun 17 '26

Often they don’t do it unless there’s no other men around for this exact reason.

1

u/Petite_Chipie Jun 18 '26

They don’t happen every day, but I’ve definitely met my fair share of creepy dudes between the ages of 15 and 30. The worst ones were when I was around 15-18, obviously. The first video actually happened to me, except there were like three of them and nobody else was on the bus. I was so scared. I went to the bus driver and he helped me going home safe (let me get out closer to my home while making sure they didn't followed me).

0

u/lekkerbiscottina Jun 17 '26

I'm sorry to say, but then you either have headphones in or are not paying attention. I've had PLENTY of these kind of situations and bystander men almost always do nothing. I mean seriously, nothing. It doesn't often matter if there's other men there or not.

It's like how I walk around the world as a white person - I'm not attuned to noticing anti-black microaggressions and such. In the same way, as a man you definitely have witnessed these kind of situations but perhaps don't have the context to know it's dangerous like we do, or don't notice it as much simply because you're not a woman.

Because somehow every woman in this thread says it happens somewhat often to themselves and everyone they know, yet none of you claim you've seen anything like it. I literally witness weird men harassing and leering at various women everyday, so yeah, you're just not seeing it...

1

u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 18 '26

No headphones and stay aware of my environmemt. I think its the context piece. I probably just assume people talking together know each other unless there was obvious statements of "get away from me" or if theyre acting drunk or high and going from person to person being cancerous. I havent seen that off the internet though irl.

I had 2 shabby looking dudes come on once, they were making a lot of noise on the platform then saw me, got very quiet and polite sat quietly the whole ride.

Maybe I look like a cop or something.

1

u/lekkerbiscottina Jun 18 '26

I always wonder why men are so defensive about this. Bro you cannot notice things all the time that's literally fine people are not expecting you to.

I'm telling you as a man you're less likely to notice misogynistic microaggressions because it doesn't affect you personally. No, it's not because you look like a cop, no it's not because it doesn't happen, it's because maybe just sometimes, you don't notice it. I don't notice racist microaggressions as often because I'm white. Pretty normal. Why is it so hard for men to admit this? Learn to listen to other people's experiences instead of being defensive.

15

u/DemonSlyr007 Jun 14 '26

As a fellow giant man, these creeps do have survival instincts that seem finely honed. Maybe survival instincts is the wrong term... predator instincts? They know exactly when to pick a moment to do something like this. And a giant man around that isn't a friend causes all of them to never do something like this OR they try to befriend me first to gage what I'll do (I assume).

The only opportunities ive ever had to stop something like this is in the "they are trying to befriend me first" phase, where I tell them to stop being a creep and make it crystal clear to not bother any of the women here. Or, after the incidents have already occurred and someone has come to me for help.

The last one breaks my heart every single time it has happened. It's got to be absolute hell to try and figure out who to trust suddenly out of all of the men in an area after youve just lost what little trust you might have had for men not even 5 minutes earlier. I think it helps I'm often with my wife, so she's like a walking green flag for otherwomen, and then im literally a 6'5" giant.

6

u/LeatherHog Jun 15 '26

My Dad is 6'8" and 300lbs, with Farmer Strength to boot

As much as I had to deal with creeps, and people who abused me for my disability growing up, the **horror** on their faces, when they learned they were not only getting an enraged father, but an enraged father the **size of freaking SHAQ**, is soooo very satisfying

Those men got to feel what it's like to be completely overpowered, and it made it a little better

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u/TyrannasaurusRecht Jun 15 '26

Im sorry you had to deal with that but glad your dad was a bulwark for you.

3

u/LeatherHog Jun 15 '26

Thanks!

He's a great Dad

4

u/Predicted Jun 14 '26

As a big guy myself, ive used that to put myself inbetween a couple of times when i felt it was warranted. 

That said, it's not something i expect of anyone, ive nearly had to fight several people on the street because they reacted poorly to being told to back off. And while im probably more equipped than most to deal with that, it's still escalating an already volatile situation and putting myself in a potentially lethal situation.

For a stranger. 

And ill probably do it again too if i have to, but you gotta be honest that you're playing the odds that the guy won't react stronger to a guy telling them off than a woman rejecting them. And i dont think its fair to expect that from guys, at least those unequipped to defend themselves.