I am referencing this post, made to me after I described a man who I had not seen or had contact with since I was 15 years old (was now 40) showing up at my place of business to "look for me" after I had told him over email i was not interested in taking him as a client. He later showed up at my political org's public meeting, hovered in the back near me while not disclosing himself and then introduced himself to me after the meeting was over. I was granted an anti-harassment order by the court less than 3 weeks after the public meeting incident.
So derp, let me tell you what happens when women "take responsibility" for their own safety. First, many times, the people who are not right in the head brush aside words of "I'm not interested" and keep on keeping on.
And then there are also assholes who tell women to "adult more" and that they shouldn't risk hurting a man with a misunderstanding about what his intent was. That his side of the story should be just as important.
Note that you said this to me days after this incident occured when I was still freaked out.
Ask any woman who has had to report a man's problematic behavior. Or who feels unsafe. They are many times going to get a reaction like yours. Oh, dear, won't you think of his side of the story too? Maybe your emotions made you not see clearly!
It's this kind of shit why many women react so strongly to being told "take responsibility for yourself!" Bevause we do, and are also expected to take responsibility for HIM too.
@derp said in RL Anger:
@Coin said in RL Anger:
Did he show up specifically to find you?
Yes, actually. I had where I worked on Facebook. He went to Facebook, saw that, and showed up. Specifically to find me.
@Kanye-Qwest said:
If a guy randomly tried to book you to show off a Kirby vacuum at his apartment and then, when you canceled, showed up and only THEN admitted he'd been in love with you and your perfect white skin since high school and stalked you and tried to trick you into meeting him without admitting the prior acquaintance first, THEN your reaction to him showing up would be relevant.
Yes, well, forgive me if my first reaction to your statement isn't 'oh, of course, it's so obvious now! How did I not see Kanye's point all along', given your rather pronounced tendency to take anything that's even a bit off and turn it into something extremely inflammatory. At the end of the day, as much as I sympathize with @Mietze's point, it's still only one side of the story, and is skewed by her perception of events as somewhat creepy/off. (NOTE: I am -not- calling Mietze a liar, or saying she is wrong -- just that it is only one side of the story, there, and there exists a -possibility- that the intentions are more innocent than they may appear. I fully understand her hesitation in this matter.)
Sure, it's a bit suspicious, but as has been noted elsewhere, it's not necessarily serial-killer level suspicious, either. As has been noted, lots of people are trained to believe that this is a fairly straightforward gesture from many media sources. Rather than sending an e-mail to a person who might be a complete stranger, the other person set up a meeting with a person in a place that the person being met has a great deal of control -- their place of work, which is in theory a public place where they are surrounded by other people, rather than asking to, say, meet in a restaurant or something, or worse, a bar. Misguided, sure, but not necessarily sinister.
There are people to this day that I think of from high school and occasionally look up. But I also work in a university town that's fairly small for what it is, so it's not exactly hard to find someone, especially if they're still around. It's as easy as asking a friend about them.
So, as noted, while Mietze is perfectly justified in her suspicion and actions, there is potentially another side of the story, here. One in which the man is not The Devil. And I was merely trying to make the point that, sometimes, people can show up and want to get in touch with no moustache-twirling involved.
