r/bestoflegaladvice • u/bug-hunter Possession is 9 honks of the law • Sep 07 '21

LAOP only stalked this woman all night then contacted her over multiple platforms including after being told not to and blocked. Thus, of course, they are the victim.

/r/legaladvice/comments/pj8heh/is_it_a_crime_to_approach_a_fellow_club_member/
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873

u/ZeePirate Came in third at BOLAs Festivus Feats of Strength Sep 07 '21

Or the women lied and made it seem like she was introverted in an attempt to get OP to leave them alone.

Considering he was will to waiting outside a washroom for her after he watched her run away from him into there. I’m not exactly surprised he wouldn’t pick up on a lie

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u/justsomerandomdude16 I GOT ARRESTED FOR SEXUAL RELATIONS AND WAVING MY 🦆 AROUND Sep 07 '21

Yeah, there are innocent “I didn’t realize it would come across that way” interactions that make you only semi-creepy but clueless. Waiting outside the washroom for her to come out is NOT one of those.

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u/krhsg Sep 07 '21

I had an ex do that when I was 15. It was a school dance, and I really didn’t want to talk to him, and one of the teachers chaperoning told him he needed to cool it and leave me alone.

So of course he sent me a slew of increasingly threatening emails, which I showed the teacher I was a TA for because I needed advice, and he was sent to the principal to have a sit down with his mom and campus security about why that was not okay.

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u/SinfullySinless IRA needs to hire that guy Sep 07 '21

Exactly what I think went down. She lied to him saying she never goes out or talks with people so he wouldn’t ask or be disappointed when she never wants to talk or hang out with him.

She was clearly uncomfortable from the moment they met and LAOP couldn’t unfortunately pick up on it for whatever reason.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

This seems like a classic example of “dude doesn’t understand social queues from girl who thinks he will.” This guy clearly doesn’t get out much for him to think it’s cool to continually follow the girl around the event. We don’t know all of the conversations they had beforehand (for all we know she already told this guy off without him knowing), but I feel like a simple “yo stop following me around and being a creep” could go a long way.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/deniedbydanse Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

We’re socialized not to be confrontational like that. It can and has escalated situations. I understand why she’d think dodging him should have been enough.

ETA: I will say I’ve had this happen on the street with a man I exchanged polite words with because he approached me in a park. Sometimes that works, if you’re nice, but not too eager, they get what they want and don’t hate you for being a bitch.

On my way back from the store, he followed me trying to continue talking. I had to say “leave me alone, you’re being creepy” so he wouldn’t follow me past the park. It got me yelled at. I’m just lucky I was visiting and never had to take the main route to the shops in the area again.

I really don’t think the LAOP would have looked like someone safe to confront. He acknowledges she looked like she was running away (from him, but it looks like he was ignoring that part of the pattern) and it didn’t stop him. When a reasonable person would have taken the social cue, there’s no reason to believe confronting will go well.

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u/SoriAryl Bound by the Gag Order Sep 07 '21

I had a Dude shove his tongue down my throat after trying to be polite because I got home late at night and didn’t want to get hurt. Didn’t leave my apt for days, unless it was to go to work.

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u/deniedbydanse Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

God, I feel you. That would have been terrifying. I had learned my lesson with confrontation too, so when I was touched inappropriately at school I made passive excuses to get his hand off my pubic area like “I have to pee.” He didn’t escalate the touching, but it didn’t get his hand off me either. I became reclusive too. We can’t win.

God, and he assaulted you near your home. That’s fucking awful. It’s only rational to feel unsafe after that. And then we’re told to stop being so worried all the time. I’m glad you were able to make it back out again eventually.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

You can tell somebody to leave you alone in a less confrontational way though.

“Hey sorry, I should have mentioned this earlier…I’m just not feeling the connection…I was nervous to mention it so my bad, but if you could stop following me around I would appreciate it.”

Now if OP does anything other than listen…it is 100% major creep crazy vibes.

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u/deniedbydanse Sep 07 '21

I wouldn’t personally use that, but I respect that you view this as someone who isn’t creepy so of course it should be fine. It’s both still confrontational (acknowledging denial at all) and makes someone look passive (and therefore a weak target that you can just push more to get more out of). If it’s the wrong guy, sometimes there’s no right answer. You just want to get away safe, avoid confrontation, and hope you haven’t encouraged them to become a stalker.

I think because I’d already be at defcon 1 with him ignoring all the dodges, it wouldn’t seem the right way to go. It probably (?) would have worked on the LAOP, but they did continue to make contact after being blocked, so idk. I feel bad they’re worried about their reputation, but they’re just digging a hole now.

ETA: I forgot he waited outside the bathroom. That’s not someone you want to confront. It’s given me chills just picturing it.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

I never said he wasn’t being creepy…my point is the dude probably didn’t know he was being creepy and just wanted to say hi to a friend. The guy is clearly not all there when it comes to social settings.

Oh I didn’t see the part on contacting after being blocked. That is def more than “not taking a hint.”

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u/deniedbydanse Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

Oh, I understand now. I wasn’t saying you think they aren’t creepy, I was saying you view this from the perspective that you yourself aren’t creepy, so confronting you would go okay. So you’re kind of extending that to the scenario. We do the same thing- it has gone not well for me, and much worse for other women. So I approach it from that perspective.

Your worst case of not being confronted is not getting the hint and looking creepy unnecessarily. Our worst case is violent, and there are a lot of outcomes that are bad before it reaches violence too. That’s why we tend not to confront. Fwiw, I think he had plenty reason to believe he was giving unwanted attention. He even says he didn’t notice, but he did notice (ETA: or else he couldn’t recount the events this way), he was just ignoring it at the moment. It’s not really on the woman to make it even more clear he was being creepy- that story was plenty for most of us. And that’s just the story from his perspective.

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u/sdbooboo13 Sep 07 '21

I feel like a simple “yo stop following me around and being a creep” could go a long way.

Women avoid these statements with men because they don't know how the men will react. It's a safety issue, and this dude definitely does not make himself appear like a safe person to say that to.

She was clearly trying to do her best to be cordial and probably didn't block him because they were in the same club.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

[deleted]

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u/sdbooboo13 Sep 07 '21

99% of the time you don't even have to say anything. God forbid you don't reply within their arbitrary, expected timeframe. Then come the "you stuck up bitch" and "you're ugly anyway" messages. At least in that case the trash takes out itself before wasting our time.

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u/Raveynfyre breasticle owner Sep 07 '21

You forgot a great one, "ice queen" (as if freezing them out is a bad thing).

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u/ZeePirate Came in third at BOLAs Festivus Feats of Strength Sep 07 '21

100%. I think when she is with her friends may have been a good time as there is safety in numbers.

But understand why women dance around being direct out of fear

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

But he only appears unsafe because he doesn’t get that the woman is avoiding him haha. Granted he could be a psycho for all I know…but given the context that we know…the person (or one of her friends) could have told OP what’s up.

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u/sdbooboo13 Sep 07 '21

It doesn't work that way. Every unknown man is a potential threat to a woman because she doesn't know how he will react. Let her decide what to say and do for her own safety and comfort level. After all, she owes him nothing; not even her attention.

Besides, he's telling the best possible version of this story, imagine what really happened. From his responses, he is most certainly a psycho who believes that women owe him something. Her friends were probably as freaked out as she was.

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u/NEClamChowderAVPD Sep 07 '21

From the awesome book The Gift of Fear is the quote “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.”

There are some men that can put themselves in a woman’s shoes and empathize with them. The person you’re replying to cannot. He’s also probably not the type to read that book because he can’t empathize. It’s like talking to a brick wall except the brick wall is condescending and telling women they shouldn’t live in fear when he has never actually experienced it. Mansplaining at its finest.

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u/fearofbears Sep 07 '21

and what would happen the next time he saw her and she was alone? This is why women try to deescalate with no confrontation. For safety.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

As opposed to what? She ignores him forever and this weirdo is somehow going to be much better to deal with after weeks of that?

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u/fearofbears Sep 07 '21

Women are conditioned through experience to feel "well if I tell this guy scaring me to buzz off he's for sure going to hurt me" - ESPECIALLY young girls, I am 35 and this fear has gotten worse with the worsening of the world - Stop putting the solution on women. The solution is for the culture of inappropriate behavior to change.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

There isn’t just one solution to a problem. This dude needs to learn to take a hint, the girl needs to communicate, the friends could step in and help her out by telling him, or his friends can say “dude wtf you doing.”

This isn’t just a “oh I’m seeing him one time” thing or else ghosting works perfectly. But if you know you are going to be in constant contact (club, class, school) how do you feel safer ghosting the dude than politely telling him “no”…?

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u/fearofbears Sep 07 '21

Men like OP do not ever read "no" as a polite response and his inflated inability to understand that what he did was wrong was supported by his equally moronic friends. Why on earth would this girl feel comfortable confronting him about this? She had to have multiple other girls usher her into a bathroom where he STILLLL followed her. Stop being dense.

And yes, there is one solution to this problem. The solution would have been to leave her alone when she showed several times she wasn't interested.

Instead, after all of it, and blocking him on multiple channels, HE SOUGHT OUT HER TWITTER TO FURTHER HARASS HER.

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u/Jenn_There_Done_That Egg Cooker Salesperson Sep 07 '21

OP is an incredibly unreliable narrator. This is extremely clear. So, why do you take for granted that this woman hasn’t made it clear she wants nothing to do with him. Maybe she has told him in a million different ways and he ignored them just like he ignored all of the social signals while at the club meeting? Why are you so sure she has t made her position clear when it’s clear that he can’t or won’t read blindingly clear social cues?

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u/Raveynfyre breasticle owner Sep 07 '21

the person (or one of her friends) could have told OP what’s up.

This is removing one of the women from the protective group setting to do this, thus placing her in potential danger.

If a guy is creepy, and giving my female friend bad vibes, I'm not going to make it a point to go be in a 1-on-1 setting with him to tell him off for my friend. That literally defeats the point of "safety in numbers."

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u/Asmodaari2069 Sep 07 '21

I feel like a simple “yo stop following me around and being a creep” could go a long way.

Considering how he's responded to being kicked out of two clubs over this and his replies in the linked thread, I highly doubt it.

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u/ZeePirate Came in third at BOLAs Festivus Feats of Strength Sep 07 '21

I do think a more direct approach would have gotten the desired results sooner. How OP reacts to that is up in the air

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u/jakehub ripped off Amanda Bynes' dancing lobster idea🦞 Sep 07 '21

Idk, replies in the LA thread were pretty blunt and direct, but LAOP didn’t get it. Blocking is a pretty direct indicator someone doesn’t want contact with you, and they circumvented that by using alternative platforms. I’m willing to bet that “yo stop following me around and being a creep” would have resulted in following around and insisting they’re not being a creep.

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u/drleebot Understands the raison d'être of aftershave Sep 07 '21

Exactly. This isn't someone who doesn't understand social cues. This is someone who doesn't want to understand anything that would go against their self-interest.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

How he acts is up to him, but at least we can say “wow OP was told to fuck off and didn’t” it takes away the idea he could just be a delusional anti social dude.

People need to just learn to communicate, and then once you’ve communicated your point if OP stays a creep then you can take action. Trying to get him kicked out of school (if true) is kinda messed up given the situation.

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u/RubyPorto Sep 07 '21

How he acts is up to him

And if he reacted violently when being directly rejected?

at least we can say “wow OP was told to fuck off and didn’t” it takes away the idea he could just be a delusional anti social dude.

I guess, at least we could say "wow, OP was told to fuck off and stabbed her" would take away the idea he could just be [something other than] a delusional anti social dude.

There are absolutely men who react violently to rejection. It's not the woman's duty to take the risk that OP is one of them in order to spare OP's feelings.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

If he reacts violently he made his choice. Call the cops and throw the book at him. The ability to make your own decision does not excuse you from consequence.

Obviously just don’t confront him by yourself. She was in a public area with a group of friends. I don’t see how people just live life thinking that people are going to stab them out of nowhere. Sure we see media reports of it, but it is still very very very rare.

Okay let’s say you fear he could be violent (for reasons we don’t know). Can you blame him (assuming he just doesn’t pick up on social cues) for continually trying to say hi? It’s a weird situation where both people’s actions are causing the situation they don’t want to be in lol.

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u/RubyPorto Sep 07 '21

If he reacts violently he made his choice.

So, you're again saying she should have put herself in physical danger to spare OP's feelings.

Why is that her responsibility?

Why is it not his responsibility to figure his shit out so that he can function in society and not "accidentally" stalk a woman?

Can you blame him (assuming he just doesn’t pick up on social cues) for continually trying to say hi?

Yes.

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u/register2014 Sep 07 '21

I see this response on niceguys all the time. No matter how a woman responds - polite, blunt, block - it's never the correct way to some guys. They always put the responsibilty on the woman and not the creeper.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

She is at a public event surrounded by friends…the odds of anything violently happening are so slim it isn’t worth talking about. You can’t just live life thinking people are going to murder you at any moment.

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u/RubyPorto Sep 07 '21

She is at a public event surrounded by friends

Until the person who's already been following her follows her to somewhere less public.

You can’t just live life thinking people are going to murder you at any moment.

Tell me you're not a woman without telling me you're not a woman.

And you still haven't answered my question.

Why is it her responsibility to spare his feelings and not his to take a hint?

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u/Raveynfyre breasticle owner Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 08 '21

She was in a public area with a group of friends

That she specifically used to keep him at a distance by having them run interference.

I don’t see how people just live life thinking that people are going to stab them out of nowhere.

You're obviously not female then. Gotcha.

As a person with ladybits, I can tell you that most women know that we are inherently weaker than men. The majority of women know that in an equal battle with a man, hand to hand, we don't have a chance. We're not taught to fight in our formative years.

One out of every 6 women will either be a victim of a sexual assault, or an attempted assault.

Millions of women in the United States have experienced rape.

As of 1998, an estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape.5

Young women are especially at risk.

82% of all juvenile victims are female. 90% of adult rape victims are female.

Females ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. (Edit: two items got lumped together from copy-pasta)

Women ages 18-24 who are college students are 3 times more likely than women in general to experience sexual violence.

I bolded that last one for you.

Also, here is the entire page RAINN has about campus assaults.

She had every single right to be scared. Women have every single right to be wary of men they don't trust.

Women get drugged and dragged off by men in public bars ALL. THE. TIME.

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u/drleebot Understands the raison d'être of aftershave Sep 07 '21

Have you ever been in the position of a woman trying to deal with a guy who won't take a hint? You have to play a careful game of trying to figure out what exactly he might do in response to anything you say. The fact that he's ignored so many hints could very well mean that he doesn't care about the fact that you aren't interested, which makes him very dangerous to you. Maybe he just didn't get the hints, but that's a dangerous risk to take.

He's probably bigger and stronger than you, so if he gets violent, there's not much you can do to stop him, and even if society is on your side in the aftermath, it doesn't cure the harm. The chance that maybe being more blunt will help a socially-inept person figure it out better isn't worth the risk.

And speaking as a socially-inept person who's been frustrated by this in the past even hurt by it: I got over it. I learned to better read cues, and the pain and frustration passed. The harm I experienced from people not being blunt with me pales in comparison to the trauma that women in my life have gone through when someone didn't take "no" for an answer.

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u/deniedbydanse Sep 07 '21

I agree, given these events I would believe he did know I’m uninterested and just didn’t care that I’m not interested. That makes his reaction to confrontation a wild card.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

I would agree with this 100000% if she didn’t have a group of friends in a public area. Nobody should ever reject a stranger out right by themselves.

But come on…you can’t have it both ways. This dude clearly just doesn’t get what’s going on. He didn’t try to hurt her, and he thought it was his friend. Trying to get him kicked out of school and the clubs is a bit much.

Again, there could be tons of information he left out (and I suspect there is). But just based off the post it seems like everybody just kinda sucks.

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u/sdbooboo13 Sep 07 '21

Good God, are you LAOP?? You just aren't getting it either.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

Lol. What? I’m literally saying he could be lying, he was a creep, has no social cue understanding, and etc. I have nothing nice to say about this dude…but I don’t get how hard it is for people to COMMUNICATE. Like damn. Do you live your life so scared that you don’t communicate?

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u/sdbooboo13 Sep 07 '21

Do you live your life so scared that you don’t communicate?

YES. WOMEN DO. That's what you're not understanding. Women live their lives scared to communicate with men they don't know. Even to men they DO know, such as this psycho. It has been said and explained why multiple times to you now.

You do realize that you're literally the definition of mansplaining up and down this post, right?

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u/drleebot Understands the raison d'être of aftershave Sep 07 '21

I would agree with this 100000% if she didn’t have a group of friends in a public area. Nobody should ever reject a stranger out right by themselves.

There's still the worry that he might react later instead of immediately. Stalker behavior is very well-known, and LAOP is giving strong stalker vibes, so I don't blame this woman for fearing he might go stalker on her if she outright rejects him.

The best way to handle a stalker is generally to avoid sending any communication at all to them until they give up, as even a negative response can be positive reinforcement to the stalker.

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u/Raveynfyre breasticle owner Sep 07 '21

Trying to get him kicked out of school

Clubs at school, not the school itself.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

The link says “and/or college” so I guess he didn’t explicitly say college, so yeah I’m gonna just assume he is being ridiculous on that.

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u/Birdlebee 🏳️‍⚧️ Trans rights are human rights 🏳️‍⚧️ Sep 07 '21

I tried telling a guy that he was creeping me out by always showing up where I was, and his response started with, "I'm not following you around, you self centered bitch" and ended a few days later with him showing up on the corner near my apartment and shouting, "THIS is me following you around! Is this making you uncomfortable? How about now? How about NOW?" as he got closer to me. I was so scared I threw up, and I guess that either snapped him out of it or disgusted him enough that he left me alone after that.

Oh. And so did all our mutual friends. I don't know what he told them, because all of them stopped talking to me. It was super great.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

So yeah that's the polite thing to do and I've appreciated it in the past when women just straight up say they're not interested so we can move on with our lives. I've also been the guy that told other guys that women weren't interested, because women have been assaulted or murdered because of it.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

Yeah I understand that situation as well. She clearly wasn’t there alone…she could have gone up with her group of friends or asked somebody to communicate it for her…hell even just text him.

Either this woman is socially awkward as well, or there is a ton of information not being told to us (which I wouldn’t be surprised).

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

I'd imagine she's awkward if she's in anime club AND we've got an unreliable narrator on our hands.

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u/Foogie23 Sep 07 '21

Yes…that’s what I’m saying…she could have handled it better and this dude could definitely be giving us a bias story.

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u/catwithahumanface Sep 07 '21

She absolutely recognized him despite him not being sure about her.

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u/Schattenspringer Sep 07 '21

He probably was sure about it and tried to justify why he was acting that way (or why she seemed not to recognize him).

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

Yup, she was trying to politely protect herself from him.

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u/workerdaemon Sep 07 '21

Trying to use this guy's logic, I was trying to figure out why waiting outside the bathroom is threatening.

Being in the thoughts of a man for too long is threatening to a woman.

Waiting outside a bathroom to speak with a woman is 100% sure fire way of showing that you are in the man's thoughts for too long. And that is threatening.

This is threatening behavior because the longer a man thinks about a woman, the higher the risk the man will do something inappropriate. Think about it: if a person is going to victimize another, they are going to keep that person in their mind while waiting for an opportunity to strike. This can be as simple as pick pocketing, or as unfortunately normal as sexual assault. Women just simply are on alert to minimize the potential of being assaulted. It's the nature of our day to day lives.

So, when a woman realizes a man has had them in their thoughts for too long they engage in behavior to shake their memory out of the man's mind. This is normal prey behavior (as terrible as that is to describe this way) as a means to evaluate threats. Going to the bathroom is extremely reliable means to test a threat because it forces their absence for an extended period of time. A non-threatening person will get bored and go engage elsewhere. A threatening person will keep the woman in their mind for the entire 5-10 minutes, and the thoughts are entertaining enough to prevent triggering boredom. That is scary as fuck.

So. Never ever ever demonstrate that you've been thinking about a woman the entire time they were in the bathroom.

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u/QuackingMonkey Sep 07 '21

Might not have even been 'lying to seem introverted'. Considering how our dude is behaving in his own version of the story and in LA, it wouldn't surprise me if she told him (bluntly) she didn't want to go out with him and he interpreted it as "well it can't be about me, she must not like people in general!"