It took one minute for a strange man that I did not know to approach me as soon as I stepped out of the door.

I came outside to collect a food delivery and there he was, stout and wobbly and mouth-breathing and when he first saw me, he paused. And I just knew that he was registering in his mind that I was a female. I could just feel it because many other people passed by, many men, and there was no reaction from him. But once he realised I was a woman, there he was, chatting me up with some rude and vulgar nonsense. I was wearing boots, a fuzzy jumper and sunglasses. I’m so short and barefaced, I could have passed as a child. And he still invaded my space.

This moment reminded me of many others where I either just stepped outside or entered a place and within a minute some creep was approaching me.

I don’t understand it. What possesses someone to want to approach and bother women they don’t know? I never feel the need to do this to any woman or man. Yet it is quite literally a daily occurrence. Is it that they think somebody wants to listen to them? That somebody would be flattered? Do they think they are doing a favour? Do they not realise how fucking annoying it is?

I stepped outside for barely a minute and some sweating twat with a beer gut flocked to me.

I recall being eighteen or so and meeting my friends at an ice cream parlour. We had just come from the beach so we were all in shorts and tanks and swimsuits. I sat down at the table and it took a minute for an old man on death’s door to stand outside the window and just stare at me. He had to have been seventy if not a decade older and just ogled me, when I was still in every way that matters a child.

Another instance is when I walked into the library to study back in my college days. I found a table to sit and as soon as I sat down, a man bothered me. He wasn’t vulgar but the fact that all he talked about was how he was a junior doctor, as if that was bait to a fish, was just as revolting and exhausting. I had to literally leave the library and call on two friends to come to me so that he would leave me.

I feel like I can’t exist in the outside world for one short moment without being bothered. Whether it’s someone leering at me or someone physically approaching me to tell me something that I couldn’t give two fucks about. I hate it so much. Whether I am dressed down or up, covered or not, looking busy or otherwise. Why can’t male strangers just leave me ALONE.

Not only is it bothersome but with each interaction comes the effort from me to think about doing or saying the right things so that I don’t get stalked, attacked or killed. If I walk away, what if he yanks me back my hair. If I laugh it off, what if he takes that as an invitation. If I’m blunt, what if he punches me for it.

What the hell is with these men constantly wanting to infiltrate women’s personal spaces??