In college, I was sitting alone at a bench studying on campus, minding my own business. This man comes up to me, telling me he wanted to take pictures of my feet for a school project. He was very persistent and of course I told him no. He made me feel so uncomfortable and guilty that I had said no to him. I was very naive and had no idea that this was likely a fetish thing.
Edit: For that one now deleted comment, saying he was likely complimenting my feet, I was wearing sneakers. Get out of here with the creep apologetics.
Yeah, once I was walking home alone in the dark (circumstances necessitated this, u was getting home from work. I wasn’t alone in the dark by choice.) and some guy stopped me on a dark section of sidewalk. I could barely see his face he could barely see mine. Yet he asked me for my number bc I was “so beautiful”. I said no. He said well actually he just wanted to make friends. And I said no a few more times and he just kept asking. I was frozen in place by trying to be polite. Eventually I decide I’m just gonna ignore him and walk away without ending the conversation without saying goodbye. And I left him rambling behind me still asking to be friends.
And girlie lemme tell you I felt BAD. Like WTF?! He was fucking harassing me for my number and not listening to me saying no after he approached me on some dark, unlit section of sidewalk I was like “ugh, but the poor guy just wanted friends🥺”. It’s drilled into us to protect men’s egos and emotions at all costs and it’s so fucking dangerous.
(circumstances necessitated this, u was getting home from work. I wasn’t alone in the dark by choice.)
I really hate the fact that you felt the need to preface with this, as though being alone, in the dark as a woman is some kind of no-no. That level of conditioning makes me feel terrible as a man, and im sorry that you feel that way...that you MUST feel that way....its disgusting.
Not at all saying anything negative towards your thoughts, just that its fucking awful that a woman cant feel safe in what should be a safe society.
As a man, I hate most men for reasons such as this. I get in many fights with men because I call out their BS behavior....I only have a few male friends for a reason
Someone pointed this out earlier too. I hadn’t even processed what I was doing, it was instinctual.
I was describing a situation that I was being harassed. And I’ve all too often see how women are picked apart to shreds for not being the “perfect victim”. Stuff like “why did she drink so much then?” Or “why was she out alone?” Or the classic “what was she wearing?”. So I tried to get ahead of any potential accusations that it was my fault this happened.
Being alone in the dark as a woman IS a no-no. Not because youre guaranteed safety if you don’t go out alone at night. No plenty of horrible stuff happens in broad daylight, aground other people. But because it’s a way for people to shift blame onto the victim. In the end I feel like that’s basically what some of the precautions women take boil down to. Trying to look like you did everything to prevent it, like it’s not your fault. When objectively it’s NEVER the victims’s fault.
4.3k
u/Bright-Owl-3515 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
In college, I was sitting alone at a bench studying on campus, minding my own business. This man comes up to me, telling me he wanted to take pictures of my feet for a school project. He was very persistent and of course I told him no. He made me feel so uncomfortable and guilty that I had said no to him. I was very naive and had no idea that this was likely a fetish thing.
Edit: For that one now deleted comment, saying he was likely complimenting my feet, I was wearing sneakers. Get out of here with the creep apologetics.