TIFU: By Smiling at a Girl on the Bus • /r/tifu (np): Front page story about a man who was ashamed, frightened, and yelled at because he made eye contact on the bus and walked home. Demonstrates how some men spend a lot of time and effort being frightened of offending women.

Homard80 · 2014-08-30T12:33:16+00:00

Not surprised at all.

I'm Site Super for a Construction project on a large University Campus. My crew has direct instructions to not look at, acknowledge, smile, wave or have ANY interaction with any female on the entire campus. Even if the girls come over to talk with them (which happens... some of the boys are pretty good looking) they are instructed to politely talk and say as little as possible while still not looking at them. Any violation from this and they are dismissed and fired.

I don't even know what to do about it, but we just focus on our work because it is actually good work and nobody wants to leave.

So yeah. The fear is real.

rob_t_paulson · 2014-08-30T15:10:47+00:00

Yeah I made a comment on there pointing out that this is why many men are uncomfortable with the recent rise anti street-attention social justice movement and got a bunch of down votes. It seems the male experience just doesn't compare and so it doesn't matter if some men get assaulted because all of this hype convinced a young woman that someone walking down the street a few paces behind you is definitely a rapist.

TsarKartoshka · 2014-08-30T13:15:15+00:00

I'm sure the SJWs will say its always worse to fear being raped than to fear being feared, but it really does get old spending so much time making sure you don't do anything to fuel paranoia.

matrix2002 · 2014-08-30T15:39:53+00:00

The crazy thing is that this girl will chalk this up as yet another "stalker" story to tell her friends, then they will all relish in the fact that all average looking men are creeps and weirdos that want to rape them because they are so hot and desirable.

The irony about all the rape talk by the SJWs is that the people who have been raped don't talk about it and the people who haven't been raped won't stop talking about it.

SupremeAuthority · 2014-08-30T17:39:02+00:00

Tomorrow you get off the bus first. Then you tell her to stop following you and go fuck herself.

modern_rabbit · 2014-09-02T21:08:16+00:00

Definitely had this happen to me several times in my life. Last time I tried to address the girl to explain I was going the same direction by coincidence and she was obviously startled, she just took off as soon as I opened my mouth lol.

I'm now the one making fake turns or slowing down and waiting for them to gain some distance. /maleprivilege

thehumungus · 2014-08-30T21:03:33+00:00

His story is an unfortunate circumstance, and far beyond "making eye contact". If the same thing had happened to me, as a male, I would have felt extremely uncomfortable too.

Karma9999 · 2014-08-30T15:53:08+00:00

Pretty sure that was only a humorous story and nothing else. Nobody got hurt, nothing happened, she yelled at him the same way any of us would confront someone following us home from the bus. They know where you live now, that would at least somewhat bother me.

HugeSaladFork · 2014-08-30T22:45:16+00:00

I like the way this story brings to light this particularly male problem, but I think he could have handled it better.

I think I would have talked to her to try and dispel her fright. I probably would have talked to her if we were the only two left on the bus. It's reasonable for her to be a little fearful in that situation when walking home, I mean what are the odds of him being her neighbor?

It sucks because the onus really shouldn't be on either of them to do anything about this. It's just unlucky, but with a little finesse it could have been lucky.

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