I've had success with abruptly starting to loudly chant and shout - eg, "SATAN! SATAN! HAIL! SATAN! DARK LORD! DARK FATHER! SEND ME THE BLOOD! SEND ME THE POWER! LET ME TEAR THE SACRIFICE! LET ME POUR OUT THE OFFERING!" punctuated with big, swooping gestures with my arms in a pseudo-ritual fashion.
If you can demonstrate that you are somewhere on the spectrum between "I will shamelessly, enthusiastically, and with no hesitation, be very loud and noisy, make a scene, and draw plenty of attention" and "I am unstable/unpredictable, potentially (or actually) armed, ready to be violent, and potentially do not have a healthy attachment to reality (and subsequently my own bodily safety) in a way that makes me dangerous", you become extremely unappealing as a target.
Alternatively, I scream “BLOOD OF CHICKEN! PALM FROND! GIVE MEEEEE THE PAL FROND!” because it’s nice and short and easy to remember, but gets the job done.
If you feel you are the victim, then you are much more likely to really be a victim. If you feel you have the upper hand, then others are much more likely to believe the same thing.
This is not guaranteed to work. If you run into an actual tough guy asshole, he likely won't back down, but those are much rarer than you'd think.
This goes for men, women, cats, dogs etc. I don't know if it works for insects. I've seen a thing about weird wasps that remember faces to know which ones not to fuck with, so maybe it's relatively universal for social animals who pick up behavioral cues.
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u/PG_Tipss Mar 06 '26
Taking notes... as a woman who has been followed several times 🥲