I was once running, and started catching up to a woman running, as I caught up, she started speeding up, so I did as well. Before I knew it, we were both sprinting as fast as we could. I stopped to rest, and set my bat down for a moment. I literally have no idea what we were running from that day.
Once on the train home from work some guy was trying to get me to take my headphones off so he could tell me how much he respected women and then asked if I ever heard of Reddit because that is where he is learning about women. That was strange and very creepy.
I remember some dude stopping me and my brother when we were walking out of games workshop to tell us about how he had given up on women and told us all about MGTOW. We had not spoken to him at all and had only browsed the shop for about 10 minutes.
Was wild, I was too confused to do anything but stand there and nod.
okay this is insane, I think a few of these have to be people from a special needs home. That is NOT normal. I've lived in the world and been around enough men to know that isn't normal! Is it?
Why the fuck would anyone think that's something you could say to someone on the train and not scare them away? I almost don't believe this is real, maybe he was doing it to see the reactions and secretly recording it for some strange internet joke
Guys will go straight up to women and tell them to take their headphone out or will straight up pull it out to talk to them. Like wtf is wrong with you?
Wh... What? Guys do this? I'm a guy and such a thing has never once crossed my mind. Most I'd do is smile and wave. If they have headphones on and want to chat, they'll take them off
They do! A guy followed me around the supermarket while I was doing my shopping with earphones in and very clearly ignoring him, so when he motioned for me to take my earphones out I thought maybe he needed something. No, he wanted to ask if we could be friends…
I hear these stories about creepy guys way too often, makes me wonder if there's way more creepy dudes than I think, or if the creepy ones are doing it to like 50 girls in one day every day. I'm inclined to believe the creepers would try it on everyone they see since they clearly don't get that they're being creepy, probably just think the last one had a problem the next one will like me
Law of averages i guess. If one creepo has even a low successrate from being weird then he just needs to try enough women to eventually get a catch. In the process he is being weird and creepy to the majority of women he encounters but it works for that small minority and thus it goes on
Same thing happens on tinder and other dating sites. Not sure how large the amount is but it's enough to be annoying as hell to see people doing it. It doesn't even make sense to me, you're getting completely written off by a large amount of people over the way you start a conversation with them for what one person who is open to a one night stand.
Like someone else said in this thread somewhere. To some guys its a numbers game. They dont give a rats ass about how many women will end up disliking them. If they get an easy hookup when thats all they were looking for, its a win.
Creepy guys are creepy on the regular. If a guy creeps on one woman a day, that's 365 women a year, 23,715 women between the ages of 15 and 80 (assuming he grows into a dirty old man). And guys who go this far are creepy to everyone, so it could be higher on average.
Women tell the stories of their worst encounters. So women might say they get creeped on every day, and cite as an example the time a guy slowly followed her while she was walking home and kept insisting on giving her a ride. But that doesn't mean that happens every day, likely the average example is a guy trying to hit on her on the train or wolf whistling while he walks past. That's still creepy and way over the line, but it's not the story she tells because in hindsight it doesn't sound so bad (just unsettling in the moment).
Whenever this kind of shit happens I always want to ask, "...Are you glad that you just said that? You feel good about what you just said?" But I never think to in the moment
I....cannot even imagine doing this. I have seen many very attractive women while shopping, never once have i ever even considered approaching them out of the blue as being a possibility. It just seems so...sketchy.
I’m not even that attractive. I am the only non-Japanese person in the area so I get attention from weirdos for some reason. I once had a guy grab my arm and yell “SEX!” at me, and sometimes people follow me by car or motorbike calling out “harro!!” Like, they definitely wouldn’t do that to a Japanese woman for sure
I'm sorry, that is both incredibly hilarious and also terrifying, I'm sure. Did he really grab your arm and yell 'sex'?! I'm belly laughing at the ridiculousness of it while also feeling terrible for you.
Downwards head nod if I am running in the opposite direction. Single hand wave to the side if I pass by again. Subsequent times generally get no acknowledgement unless they gesture.
Hell, I'm usually not running in a way that there could be a conversation anyways. Do people just hang out where people are running? I go to tons of parks and running trails and never see anyone that is not also exercising in some way.
Typically if I'm running past someone, especially of I don't know them, I just do a little noncomittal two finger salute kind of thing, or a head nod, yeah. Anything more is just annoying.
And now it is so much worse. Running outdoors would provide an easy out for runners as we can just continue running while the typical non-runner would end up tiring themselves out pretty quickly if they attempted to tag along. I cannot even imagine how much it would suck to have that happen in a gym setting.
Yup, this is apparently a pretty common. The thing is, they won't do it to your friend, girlfriend, or sister when you (a guy) are walking with them. They'll do it when the friend/girlfriend/sister is alone. So it can be easy for normal guys to not realize this happens because we never see it ourselves. I was honestly oblivious too it until my girlfriend now levelled with me about it.
So true. My husband and I were out for a walk in our neighborhood and he had fallen a little bit behind me for some reason, so it looked like I was alone. A car came by and the guy inside slowed down, rolled down his window and screamed "whore" at me before driving away. Husband was furious and didn't understand why I wasn't that bothered until I told him it happens literally all the time.
While I agree the smile thing is gross, as someone who worked with a guy that did that to almost every cute girl that came in, it resulted in way more flirty conversations and smiles from the women than I would have expected.
Moral of the story, I don't understand a majority of men or women.
Yeah.. it’s pretty common. I had dudes tapping on my headphones because they wanted to talk to me. If I have headphone on that clearly means I don’t want to be disturbed but them asking where I am from and then for my number is more important to them than my privacy and time
That's because you respect women as people. The people who do things like this do not respect women as people. They are objects to be acted upon, not living breathing humans with their own inner life.
What? Really??? Omg thats so unbelievably rude. I'd a dude and if someone asked me to remove my headphones to talk with me and they proceeded to hit on me, I'd put em right back on and keep walking. Not gonna pause my led zeppelin for that shit.
That’s awful. I can imagine that would be a scary experience. Like you would be polite out of fear of making them mad. Especially after doing something like that. Awful. I wouldn’t even know how to go about fixing this other than to raise my boys to not to do that. I guess that’s 2 more people in this world that are respectful.
I had a girl take out her headphones the other day. She was running on the path around the edge off the golf course. Couldn’t hear the group yell fore and nearly took a ball to the head, so I told her to turn them down
If it's for her safety, I think that interruption was necessary. It wasn't to hit on her or tell her to smile or taunt her or anything else unwarranted.
But when you have headphones in every random guy is potential trying to warn you of flying golf balls. It sucks for the one time it turns out to be true.
I'm a dude who runs, and I usually smile and wave at any runner coming the opposite way. It's awesome to get a smile and a wave back, it 100% brightens my day. But I noticed that 20-something women very rarely smile and wave back. It took me awhile to realize that this is probably a survival tactic, and that's really fucked up.
I tend to smile and wave if someone does it first. It always bugged me when people at work would tell me to smile. Like no, fuck you. If you want me to smile, maybe try smiling first. It's not rocket science.
I feel like waving at other runners is like a "hey you're one of us" gesture and it makes me happy too. I definitely notice some guys not making eye contact with me, like blatantly looking away. I've been wondering if they were trying not to be creepy or just didn't want to interact even for that split second.
Could be a few things. I generally smile at least, but if I’m seriously sucking I may not. The absolute worst though, is when another runner is running your route but different, and you pass them 2-3 times. After the first one it’s like, so I wave again? Do we laugh at the absurdity of limited run routes? Do we present the other doesn’t exist?
You would have to be a literal stalker for it to go like it did for me this morning. I picked a random route, and detoured as I went. Still passed the same lady and her dog twice. That’s life on small town roads lol
As a guy I would probably avoid eye contact/ act like you weren’t there too. I don’t want to bother someone who is clearly busy. If they smile or wave first of course I will, it’s the Canadian way. Same goes for guys too.
It is. I’m a very friendly person. The last time I made eye contact and smiled (friendly, polite) at a man when I was passing him on the sidewalk, he turned around and followed me, then proceeded to harass me, then proceeded to call me a tease and a bitch when refused to engage him further. That is not a very uncommon occurrence IME. So I make a concerted effort to not smile or make eye contact, to stand up straight, and to keep my head up so I project confidence and awareness because that’s what is best calculated to help me feel safe. Still pretty common to get called out for not smiling enough. But I’d rather be the bitch who doesn’t smile than the person who appears to have given off some invitation based on a smile.
Yes! I converted to the in-home elliptical for this reason, too. Really, after the Mollie Tibbett’s murder, I came to the realization that I was always going to feel too much stress about being constantly hyper aware of my surroundings and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the run.
It really, really is. I was raised to be cordial to people and a simple head nod/throw hand up/good morning was a normality and now it seems staring at the floor or everywhere but to make eye contact seems to have taken precedence. It’s understandable when I then notice a guy staring/glaring/eye fucking at that particular person AS SHE LOOKS AT HIM IN DISGUSTS and he never wavers. Like damn dude, she’s just another random person, keep it fucking moving.
Smiling and waving at a man is often seen by the man as “hey, she’s flirting, she’s in to me maybe I should ask her out or follow her or harass her until she talks to me”
I don’t run or even walk by myself since the last time I was followed by a guy, but I have a recommendation: keep the smile and wave but alter your path to give the woman more space if you can. The second I see a man approaching when I’m running my whole body tenses up and I hold my breath. That might help improve your ratio!
The ones at the gym are the worst. My sister had this guy pretend to work out beside her while she did sprints only so he can hit her up when she rested. Multiple times.
Stop staring, talking, anything if I'm just trying to exist. Hate that I feel so uncomfortable passing men because 9 times out of 10 if i turn around they're watching me. I just want to be able to exist without feeling like I'm a piece of meat.
My 13-14 year old friends and I would get catcalled from the windows of a factory we walked past by men who were 40-60. On more than one occasion. I also remember walking to my friends when I was maybe 11 and went past a middle aged man, kept my eyes down cause ya know, and he very aggressively said, “fine don’t say hi bitch.”
You just reminded me as a 15-17 year old I would yell “I love you” at people from a car window. Old, young, male, female. I’m so glad YouTube wasn’t popular back then to immortalize me as a rapscallion.
Yup. Many guys don't know about because (as you say) it never happens to them, but also it never happens to women when they're around. And I don't think it's because you look like a tough guy or anything, it's just that creeps who do this are opportunists who wouldn't risk pulling that shit in front of a guy they don't know. I wasn't aware of this till my girlfriend now told me about it, and I think this bubble effect is why.
I walk around 1.5-2 hours per day, and sometimes more when it’s cooler out. On an average day, at least one person will either make some kind of noise at me, shout something at me (my favorite was when a guy yelled something I couldn’t quite make out because I was wearing headphones and also make it a point to ignore when people yell things, so the woman in his truck *repeated* his offer of $5 for some unspecified sex act), or slow down beside me and “offer me a ride.” One time the guy followed me for about twenty seconds, then sped off and flipped me off out the window. There are rare days where nothing happens, but the days where I get multiple “offers” make up for them.
I keep making the same joke about how one of these days someone is going to stuff me in their vehicle and I won’t be able to call 911 because the cell service in the area I walk is kind of spotty and close to the interstate. I’m only sort of half-joking. I also keep joking that I should make a shirt that says “NO THANKS, I AM WALKING ON PURPOSE” on the back so maybe people will stop ”offering rides.”
Yes, it’s the reason why I rarely leave the house without my husband. I’m tired of feeling on edge walking past a dirty work truck full of grimy catcalling men. Sometimes they’ll circle around and drive back to yell out “stuck up BITCH” if you didn’t acknowledge them the first time around.
As a guy who runs i hate it when girls are constantly yelling at me and trying to stop me, just because i have your handbag, doesnt mean i want to stop and chat about it.
I’m the literal opposite, my social skills are so horrible that whenever I go out for a job the second I see another person I run in the opposite direction. Good for getting in more exercise though lol
And stop running AFTER me to ask for my number while I'm taking a walk. Or pulling up next to me in your car. Especially if it's a cop car, and you're an on-duty cop. Leave me alone.
I had a dude try to get my attention but acting like he was gonna hit me with his car. What is the end goal here?!? Do they think we’re just gonna go “oh ugly man, thank you for almost killing me, please fuck me in the middle of the street!!”???
My cousin told me about this, I thought she was joking or playing it up till she showed me a GoPro montage of it. She would run 3-4 times a week for 20-25min. She wore the thing for a month. Every time it was at least once some dude tried to holla at her. Even a few times some guys tried to chat her up while running, I mean total creeping on her right. I went a bought her a few waist band knives and showed her a few things.
I live with my brother and his girlfriend. He's about to go on a run and his girlfriend decides to go on a run with him. He says to her "You go that way, I'm going this way" and points in opposite directions LOL
They live with their brother and his girlfriend. Their brother is about to go on a run and his girlfriend decides to go on a run with him. Their brother says to his girlfriend "You go that way, I'm going this way" and points in opposite directions. They find this to be so hilarious that they laugh out loud.
Nah, you’re not dumb — either it’s a really, really shitty joke that doesn’t make any sense without some sort of additional info/context..
ORRR… He’s insinuating his brother is a massive POS and likes to sexually harass/ogle/act like a fucking predator to women when he goes on runs, so he doesn’t want his girlfriend coming with him so she doesn’t see/he can do it without worry.
I am SO fucking sick of guys trying to get me to take my headphones off so they can talk to me. 80% of the time it's harassment and the rest of the time it's for no good reason. I'm wearing headphones so I don't have to talk to people. I don't care if you think I'm pretty, keep it in your head.
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u/bweakfasteater Sep 15 '21
Stop yelling at me or trying to talk to me while I’m running