predator

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The other day I was going for a swim so I left my phone at home. It was 9pm so not very late and as I was walking down a residential street a man was dressed fully in black, a black hoodie and long black pants, which stuck out in the summer heat. He was masturbating and exposing himself. I walked over to the other side of the street and hurried towards a group of people smoking at the end of the block to ask them to call the police. I have regularly seen men masturbating in public in central Stockholm every since I was a child and it is traumatic, threatening and horrible. I was lucky I wasn’t attacked, this man was clearly a sexual predator. He was looking in the windows of the apartments while masturbating and seemed like he was stalking the street for a victim but was spooked when I had such a strong reaction and stared intently at him. When he saw me approach the group he calmly walked down the street as if it was just a normal day like any other.

Kyra

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I was at a party during my first year at college – it was only a small thing, with maybe around 15 people. A handful I already knew, and had been close to one of the guys there in particular (he used to date my friend, and I dated his best friend at the same time, so we’d all often hang out together). I’ll call him L. I ended up drinking way more than I could handle (this was a couple of years ago now, I now know my limits and the dangers of going over it as I’ll describe), and I needed L to help me down the stairs every time I needed the toilet. Which he offered to do and did with no problem, he looked after me and waited outside of the bathroom until I was done and then helped me back up once again. It was much later into the night and I was still the worst for wear, and I reached out to L, or at least the person who I thought was L, and asked if he could help me back down to the toilet again. I wasn’t really concentrating on his face to know it wasn’t L, but he said okay and helped me down any way. I only knew something was wrong when I stepped into the cubicle and he followed behind me. I turned around and he locked the door, standing in the way of me and the exit, and he was groping me and trying to kiss me despite me trying to frantically get him off. I kept saying ‘No, no, no’, ‘I don’t like you’, ‘I don’t want to do this’, ‘let me out’ and he wouldn’t let me go. It was only when I was near tears and hysterically struggling, because I genuinely thought he was going to carry on and rape me considering he’d gone this far without my consent, that he let me go and told me he’d only let me out of the cubicle if I promised him I’d give him my number when we got out. Just to reiterate, this guy was not my type at all and even if I had been attracted, the fact that he thought he was entitled to my body when I only asked him to help me down the stairs, the fact he thought it was perfectly okay to take advantage of me, would have cut all attraction completely. Even in that state, I was baffled that he thought I’d genuinely be interested enough to give him my details and communicate with him after what he did. I told him yeah whatever, because I just wanted him to let me go, which he did, and I ran back up to the party, found L and told him what happened while crying. I was so upset. Luckily the creep didn’t successfully talk to me again as I kept my distance, but he had the audacity to tell everyone in the room that he had had his way with me while we were down there. I bet he never lost a wink of sleep at night about it either.

Lynne

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I sent my 17 year old daughter to the store to buy a few things for the family and herself. While near the deli a man started checking her out. It made her uncomfortable so she moved on to find the other items. The man started following her around the aisles. She started to get upset and she just kept moving until she found a male customer and pretended that she knew him. Under her breath she told him that she had a creeper following her around the store and could he help her. She got through the register but the creep followed her out to the parking lot. The next day I called the store to talk to a manager about a possible predator pursuing customers in the store. He acted like it was no big deal and blew me off. Because this is a store where my family shops, I went there in person the next day to reinforce my concern about the problem. I spoke with a woman in customer service who was horrified that this had happened and said that she would review the store tapes to see if they could identify the predator.

Alyssa

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I was out with my friend at a restaurant. We had just finished eating and were hanging out (loitering, I suppose) out on the sidewalk, just making idle conversation. This man standing about 20 feet away is clearly intoxicated. He is on his phone and having the loudest conversation that my friend and I were oblivious to until we hear him say “You would not BELIEVE the women here right now.” Whatever conversation we were having dissipated as we turned to him, and this gut feeling washed over me. Oh no, here we go. He get’s louder. “OH man, this girl is just so sexy!” I drop my jaw and worked up the nerve to call him out. “EXCUSE ME.” I said. He looked to me like a predator, and I felt adrenaline pumping through my veins. “Are you talking about my friend here?” I asked with every bit of venom I could muster. I felt white hot rage and not even for myself, but for my friend who was standing there, completely shocked. “No sweetie, I’m talking about you,” he coos. He goes on with some bullshit but my friend speaks up saying, I shit you not, the best part. Because to this 40 year old, publicly intoxicated man, she shouts out “SHE’S SIXTEEN YEARS OLD.” A moment of silence, and then my dad, who we were waiting on, finally exited the restaurant. Hook about 3 seconds to assess the situation, went from white to purple, and lost it. Followed by my mom. Oh man, that guy got fucking shredded. I’m just so thankful I had a friend and she had me and we had my bad ass parents. That’s one of my many stories of men making a fool of themselves.

Kim

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In order to get away from her abusive husband, my 61 yr old mother recently moved into a small studio cabin among a group of other studio cabins. At dusk a few days ago, she was having a cigarette outside and chatting with neighbors when one neighbor said out of nowhere, “so, I’ll come over at nine.” She was confused and said “Wait, do you mean nine in the morning or nine at night?” (He clearly meant that same night.) He responded, “Tell you what, leave your shades open when you want company and closed when you don’t.” Now she’s keeping her shades closed all the time because her neighbor thinks he’s welcome to dictate what her open/closed shades *mean.*