Bollywood has repeatedly taught men that if you want to get acquainted with a girl, then you should go after her. If she seems visibly repulsed, you should follow her some more. And if she seems borderline annoyed, you should torment her till she gives in.
However, this behaviour is still considered stalking everywhere else. And that’s where today’s story that has arrived fresh from Ireland starts.
Reddit user TwoXChromosomes posted a letter addressing the girl that he was following, but wasn’t able to talk to. Yes, I know how creepy that sounds but it does get interesting.
“We were walking in OPPOSITE directions near the new student ACCOMMODATIONS, you briefly looked at me and kept walking and a couple of seconds later I turned around and started following you, I notice the moment you realised that I was following you by how your pace changed, your shoulders squared and you grabbed your phone.”
“That didn’t stopped me, you just kept walking and I maintained the distance (some 50 feet behind you) pretending to talk on my phone, I thought a couple of times on closing the distance and introduce myself, talk to you, but I didn’t, so you kept walking, throwing glances to check where I was.”
The man further explained that,
Now, that sounds like stalking and going by the aforementioned girl’s reaction, she also felt the same way. However, the reality wasn’t exactly how it looked (or sounded) like.
“What you probably never noticed was the other two guys, the ones in the other sidewalk, the ones that pointed at you and started to follow you before we crossed the first time, you didn’t notice how they looked at you or the fact that they seemed to be on drugs, or a bit drunk, or maybe both.”
“You also didn’t notice when you passed me in your car that they were in the corner of the dead end street, looking at you in your car passing by and then at me.”
“You also missed the next ten minutes while I waited in my car for the police to arrive (that I called while you were getting into your car), the 15 minutes of questions that followed and me showing them the picture of the two guys that I took while I was following you.”
Considering how it might’ve looked from the girl’s perspective, the Redditor offered up an apology as well.
Given how the entire story seemed a little light on details, the Redditor provided some more explanation.
Edited to clarify a couple of things:
1 I shared this because the situation scared me, and if a similar situation happened somewhere else I wish that the situation is not ignored or shrugged off. Do I have any advice? Dunno, probably just this: if you think that you are being followed or that something is wrong, don’t wait to see what happen, call the police, call a friend, a family member, knock on a door or get into a shop, worst case scenario you’ll look a bit paranoid.
2 She was carrying some sort of briefcase alongside her purse and was well dressed, I think that the briefcase was what called those guys attention.
3 They seemed to be waiting for an opportunity, that was the main reason why I didn’t approached, I was afraid that I would sort of trigger them and offer a second target (still, probably wrong on my side, but in the moment that’s what I thought).
4 I called the police because if those guys were trying to assault her, more than likely it wasn’t the first time and / or they would go for another victim, if it was a mistake worst case scenario they spent 10 mins talking to the police (no idea if they caught them).
5 I parked my car in the dead end street and was walking towards the city centre, she was coming from the city centre, obviously I didn’t know where she was heading, if instead of turning to the dead end street she had continued walking I would had probably approach her, or she would had reach another street that has more traffic and there are more people walking around.
For the ones wanting to know where this happened: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/54.5978716,-5.9353879/54.5969477,-5.9409572/@54.5973025,-5.9393942,17.75z?hl=en
A lot of netizens were impressed by this man’s deed and lauded him for what he did for an unknown woman.
However, others weren’t as sold on the whole story and thought the Redditor was saying all this to portray himself as a white knight.
That said, TwoXChromosomes had replies for everyone, both positive and negative.
Final EDIT:
1 For some reason I can’t see any new replies from the last 8 or 9 hours, I have seen some of them in the notification’s bar in my phone but not all the text is showed and I can’t reply from there (and I wanted to reply to some of them) and this is the reason for a final edit.
2 To the people that think this is BS: I wish it was, you don’t have to believe me and in fact I don mind, just do yourself a favor and be safe out there (regardless of your gender)
3 I think that someone asked for the police report: REALLY??? Do you expect from me to upload a document with my personal information just so you can “believe me”?
4 To clarify what happened: I saw the two guys gesturing only a couple of seconds before I crossed the girl and I kept walking a bit trying to decide what to do (turn around?, keep walking?, shout at her?, shout at them?) I decided to follow her just in case, I didn’t know what the guys intentions were (if any) or even if they knew her, but the constant glances at her and finally the fact that they stayed in the corner (entrance) to the dead end street and the way they looked at her when she passed by in her car was what made me call the police (also, don’t forget that I was in that same f**** street and to go back to the city centre I would have had to walk by them).
4.1 Addendum: Northern Ireland is part of the UK, not ROI (Republic Of Ireland) and here we call the police “the police”
5 Was my decision the best one? most likely not, but it’s what I did and no one was hurt (beyond being scared, that is). Now that it passed and reviewing the situation (alongside with some of the comments here) if anything similar happens again I would try to approach the person and explain the situation, or even maybe call the cops straight away.
Thank you all for your advices, skepticism, humor and good wishes, be safe out there and never be afraid of looking foolish if that will keep you safe (asking someone else for help, knocking on a house, going into a shop or even stop a passing car)
So, what’s your takeaway from the story? Do you think this is a true story? And if so, do you think this is the correct way to look after one another.