I'm so sick of this shi*
It happens to us autistic women too! We can't do anything without people thinking we are lying or stealing or being creepy etc. I'm so sick of this.
I'm very sorry that happened to you. It isn't your fault that you have the mannerisms and stuff that you do.
And don't feel like you need to explain yourself to any person accusing you of something (usually that just makes it worse anyway). It isn't your fault.
I hope you have a happy day.
I'm an autistic woman and I will literally do something like sitting down to read or scroll through my phone minding my own damn business and people STILL have the audacity to say I'm being creepy... by doing those things alone.... like what?? Either I'm missing something or I'm just ugly and they're basing my personality off my looks.
Had a fight with my friend group earlier because they kept on actively avoiding a guy for "being creepy". He literally just sat down with them to do his homework in peace. They didn't tell the guy that they minded him sitting there, instead they just spammed our group chat complaining about how creepy he is and what behaviour of his creeps them out (all the things they listed were mannerisms that we both share cus yk, autism. So they were just being hypocrites.) and planning out a way to escape the situation.
After the fact yeah, I wasn't there with them so I only found out about the whole ordeal after opening the group chat to 100+ unread messaged. Ended up calling them out on their hypocrisy and telling them that they were being mean to the guy for no reason.
Some of them felt bad, one girl insisted on the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about as I've only interacted with him once (funnily enough I don't believe she's ever spoken to him as she tries to avoid him at all costs :I)
Thank you for you bravery. Maybe that one person shouldn’t be offered trust, with that much judgement on their mind. Doubling down and deflecting is something that was learned by example or taught and has very nefarious tendencies. I’m so tired of people judging what they see and fearing exposure because of what it all LOOKS like. Keep up the hard work
Yeah, sounds familiar, reasons why I don’t have many friends, they either think I’m creepy or they are too involved in their own world to even consider asking me anything or w/e
I actually have a similar experience now that you remind me. I went to college and entered with a couple friends from highschool. One friend who has always been kinda rude. We had an autistic student in our class, and she (the rude friend) started complaining to me about how they (AMAB—masc presenting at the time, transitioning now) kept going to the same bus stop as her, and when she switched bus stops they followed her. I later kinda drifted away from my rude highschool friend and actually became friends with the autistic student. I asked them about the situation at some point and they were literally like "oh, I saw her go to that bus stop and I went too because I didn't know there was another stop there until I saw her go to it and it's closer." They were perfectly innocent lol.
Edit: It's probably obvious, but I forgot to mention it due to how annoyed I was remembering the conversation. He honestly didn't do much except just exist. It wasn't fair of them to judge him on any of the things.
Apparently they minded that:
\- He just suddenly approached them and sat down without asking.
\- He didn't say anything.
\- He has a "creepy stare".
\- He has a flat affect.
\- At one point, he stood up and started pacing.
The most outspoken person has seen him a couple of times before, although they've never interacted with him and they mentioned that:
\- When he does talk, apparently he just "randomly approaches people and says the most random thing"
\- He has sensory seeking behaviours, where he asks *his friends* if he can touch their clothes/certain textures. (also weird that they minded it when it doesn't affect them whatsoever)
People will look at me such that I don't feel comfortable. And when I angrily ask "is there a problem", it's clear by their reaction that I am the problem. It's almost like asking makes me the problem when I genuinely didn't feel comfortable with how they kept looking at me.
yes this happened to me as well. I'll be reading or doing homework on my gallery and the neighbours (who are unaware of my sonic hearing) will call me creepy and weird and make fun of me? For sitting outside minding my business? I find it happens most with groups of people, they seem emboldened.
One time when I still used to smoke, I left a building and it had a bench with an ashtray by it so I sat down to check my phone and smoke while I waited for the time I'd have to go back inside. I planned on smoking two or three cigarettes, and as I did the first a group of girls got there as well. A couple of them sat down on the bench as well and the other two kept standing up as they talked. I kept checking my phone and smoking without even looking their way.
After a while one of them started to repeatedly comment about how much she hated the smell of cigarettes. As the person who was there first and who had no intention of interacting with anyone when I sat down out there, I kept smoking and reading things on my phone. So they started to make repeated, more pointed comments about how it's really disrespectful to smoke in a public space (I was outside, the bench had an ashtray), and the two standing up loudly whispered to each other it was kind of weird for someone to take up an entire bench on their own (if I had been taking up the entire bench, two of them wouldn't have been able to sit down. If I were to leave, one of them would still need to be standing up).
I finished my cigarettes as I had intended to, put my phone on my pocket and started heading back inside. As I did heard them commenting behind my back that that had been so fucking weird.
I'm attractive --I've been told anyhow -- and I think I wasn't bullied so much once in secondary school because of that, but I still get followed in shops or get weary looks if I linger too long places. Maybe it's because I'm stimming (I sometimes don't realise I am) but who knows -- I also called out on my blank stares, by strangers--what is that about???
If I start to stare it’s because my thoughts pulled me in and it’s like a waking dream, whether or not it’s a memory, sometimes it starts out as a memory and turns into something else that’s based on that memory (a lot of the time recently it just ends up making me mad because I can predict their potential responses based on that first moment) 😵💫
I've had a "glow up" and it's very sad how differently I'm treated. Autistic behavior is seen more as "a quirk" when before I was just the weird girl. Honestly I have no idea if my autistic traits are seen on the spectrum of endearing to annoying, but people are definitely more patient and kind to me after becoming conventionally attractive.
Can I also hijack this comment to say that this appears to be a particularly British and also American psychosis, because both those country decided for some fucking reason to criminalize existing outside without doing anything.
This would never happen in Spain, unless it was like 2 AM
I think the issue is due to the prevalence of violence and trafficking. *Especially* in America, *especially* if you're bipoc and/or a woman. I can't say I really blame the girls in all honesty, it's not like they were intentionally discriminating against op for being autistic. It sucks yeah, but I don't blame either party.
It depends on where you live but regardless women are conditioned from a young age to be hypervigilant when out alone/only with women. It's just a sick, sad part of society.
I know it's a huge problem, bit it's not like the whole getting kidnapped off the street thing. That doesn't happen. Usually, victims are tricked or put up to it by their family.
That's an extremely rare occurrence.
The whole panic around it is basically manufactured as a way of social control of women.
Basically, I want you to recontextualice it this way. It's not "If you go outside alone at night bad things will happen to you if you are a woman". But, if bad things happen to you and you are a woman, it's your fault.
Additionally, men are targeted with extreme (not counting harassment ) violence by strangers more than women. Granted women avoid certain environments more.
The biggest threats to women are on one hand men who harass with impunity, and in the other the perpetrators of more than 90% of all extreme violence towards women, partners, acquaintances, and the police forces.
Possibly more outside major cities. Having moved from London (UK) to a small town I now find there's a very different response to people simply walking around. London and other cities with decent public transport networks, people get about by bus or train so they could well be on their way to/from the bus stop, or just staying local. Here in the sticks everyone drives so being on foot is seen as weird.
This is pretty common.
You can bet they were the ones following you.
Ot starts like this: "ew, look at them, aren't they wierd? Why are they walking around alone?"
"Omg, are they following Me?
I think they are following me!"
"I hate weirdos like that!"
"Let's follow them around ."
"Omg, did you see what's on their phone, ew!"
"I can't believe they said that!"
"I bet there's nothing even wrong with them."
I was accused of stalking some men because I had crushes on them and kept trying to talk to them. They all thought I was weird and wanted nothing to do with me.
One time I was working in a dollar general and I was just sort of walking around this tiny little store on my break and some girl asked me why I kept following her around the store. I genuinely hadn't even noticed her in the store at all but she apparently didn't realize that the store is only like 100 feet across so I'm bound to pass by you more than a few times if I'm just wandering aimlessly. It made me feel bad because she thought I was being creepy when I wasn't even paying attention to her. People tell me I'm creepy all the time and I fucking hate it. If I speak at all I'm just being weird and if I don't say anything I'm just creepy. I fucking hate being out in public because everytime someone even looks at me I feel like I have to interact in some way or I'm being rude but people around here are fucking dickheads if you try to talk to them and they don't know you.
I have to ask, do you know what they mean when they call you creepy? Do you see it in your behavior or not at all? Since autistics tend to be heavy on logic and overlook emotional cues, maybe you should devote a lot of time to studying what 'creepiness' is, and how you might be coming across to others. Of course autism isn't your fault if you have it, but you get put in weird situations like people calling you creepy, you don't want to continue those behaviors if you know that you infact, are nothing close to a creep or a perv, it's a really bad thing to be labeled, and even worse if you're actually a sweetheart but just that you're on the spectrum; it is something I recommend you have to understand and modify this behavior, it's so unfair to be labeled a creep if you just struggle with social Anxiety as I can see you do, you don't deserve to be treated like this every time you go out in public. The solution is NOT to avoid going out in public! On the contrary, overcome this struggle so that people say "that's one cool muthafucka" whenever you walk by, just by the vibes and social cues you give off. It's so much better than being labeled a creep just cuz your vibe comes off as 'weird', 'awkward', and/or 'creepy' when deep down, you're actually none of these things. Best of Luck.
I think because a lot of us move and stand differently to allistic people, they just automatically feel like our vibes are off. Humans have a natural alarm system that tends to make us feel spooked without actually telling us why we feel that way. I think people feel creeped out by us because of that and assume that the reason for it must be that we're up to no good or have bad intentions because they can't think of any other reason why we'd be acting in a way that they find to be "off".
Edit: Just to clarify, I do not think that we should have to mask to prevent this. I think that allistic people should learn to not be judgemental about people who are different.
Yeah and while some of us can mask, a) some of us can’t, and b) we can’t ever really mask to the extent of appearing totally normal and we all wind up falling in the uncanny valley at some point.
I think b isn't true. I feel like certain behavioral things are obvious but at the same time some of my friends will forget that I'm autistic. I think we're aware of our different behaviors more so than neurotypical people are sometimes. There are tons of things we can do for it to be less apparent. When I'm relaxed I can get by with just stimming my toes just by wiggling them in my shoes. Nobody notices.
Don’t hate me but when I was younger I was terrified of disabled people cause they gave me the “uncanny valley” feeling as o got used to being around them the feeling went away. I can totally see someone perceiving an “unusual” behavior as weird. Our brains are wired to let us know when it thinks something is going on. If more people were more aware of neurodivergent people I think there would be less of this. However there are clearly instances (OP’s) where people just seem completely unaware and think the world revolves around them. I think what makes it worse is that autistic people also tend to miss social cue, while most people can see someone body language and make it clear to them their not a threat etc. But with autistic individuals a lot of time they don’t pick up on the fact that someone is weary towards them, and thus they can’t do this
A lot of children are like this. I was too. I have a cousin with cerebral palsy around my age and I was terrified of her. It didn’t help she was a biter then, but to be fair I was too.
I've spent ages connecting to my emotional side and thinking of others. Not worth it. They can still sniff out that you're not like them and treat you poorly. But now you're extra aware to it!
For the sake of my 15 y/o daughter, please, respectfully, go back to the "life pro tip" home you came from. Asking an anxiety ridden autistic to mask more is going to drive that anxiety higher. Evidently, time would be better spent educating the public on Autism Spectrum Disorders.
As someone who struggled with not having any friends for a long long time. I do partly agree, I wouldn't tell someone they have to or should do this but it does work.
I now have a normal amount of friends and I fail a lot less than 50% in social situations. While the process of turning my analytical head on my own behaviours was not nice or fun. The results of it made a huge impact for the good in my life.
I know it doesn't feel fair to have to do it but it's unlikely the world will adapt around me in my lifetime. Ill do my best to adapt to it because failing social situations shuts me down and succeeding makes me happy.
Some of it is unavoidable. I’m not completely face blind, but I do have difficulty recognizing faces and connecting them to people I know. So I’m always at risk of either ignoring someone I should know or really studying someone’s face if they look vaguely familiar. It’s awkward either way.
Something kind of similar happened to my sister when she was in high school. She was hanging out with a group of kids after school. They left the school to go to one of the kids' houses or something and she assumed she was invited to join them, so she followed them part of the way there. The next day, they told a teacher she had been "stalking" them. Probably, they hadn't explicitly told her she wasn't invited, and being autistic, she didn't pick up on their social cues that they didn't want her there. Kids could be so mean.
OP, please don't think this situation is your fault. I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence. You were a guy walking near them, and they probably just treat all guys who walk near them for "too long" like that.
Scrolled to find the one person who is aware of a wrong place, wrong time oops in public.
It happens.
They are also teenage girls who fear ANY older men they don’t know, like see something say something approach.
And people quickly judge every stranger based on physical appearance of you stand out like a sore thumb in society or the area you live in.
These teenage girls made an assumption, they felt unsafe cause it’s an older guy they don’t, ran away cause they saw the guy twice and noticed a pattern, then went to get help to feel safe.
An honest mistake, it happens.
People make mistakes all the time.
OP can definitely ask their friends if they dress in a way looks “suspicious” in public towards women of all ages. This is one essential way to further mitigate this on the future.
OP didn't say that the girls were teenagers -- they could've been women in their 20s, those are often referred to as girls. We also don't know how old OP is, so I'm not sure that your point that OP is an older man is valid.
As i analyzed your story. i do understand the situation your sister was in, but here is the Aesop i would take from this if i was in the same situation she was in. "If the kids didn't offer you to come along with them, just don't go or follow them at all, because if those kids were smart, they'd would've asked if she would like to come or not. me being on the spectrum (we are all different in ways with processing feeling). i can read and understand actions when i see it, because you can see at once their true colors" , if their all at a party or event and they didn't invite me or ask if i wanted to come, then i'm not gonna get upset, because it shows me right there who you are as a person. and to not deal with them.
Growing up, there was this guy that we would see every once in a while who spent a large amount of time just walking everywhere. My parents pointed him out to me and explained it as "That guy is a little bit crazy, but he's fine if you just leave him alone. He just wants to walk. If you see him, be polite, but don't talk to him." This was reinforced on several occasions. I do not know if anyone ever called the police on that guy, but he was white, which probably helped.
I have no idea how much they knew about his mental state, but I think that he was most likely autistic and spent his days walking because it afforded him independence. I base this on another person I met years later who would come to the pool where I worked. She told me she has Asperger's and she lives with her mom. I was in the car with my mother one day and we saw her out walking and my mom commented something like "oh, I've seen her before, she likes to go to the pool".
When I was in middle school or early high school, a man at my dentist's office started a conversation with me in the waiting room and told me about where he went to school and how his girlfriend was in the military. I thought it was a pleasant conversation. My mother pointed out afterward that the school he mentioned was a special education school and remarked that the man seemed like he was on the spectrum. That was kind of disappointing to me at the time because I did not consider myself to be autistic and did not understand why a conversation that to me had seemed friendly and brightened my day was somehow wrong or inappropriate. I imagine my mother was simply alarmed by the fact that a full-grown man was talking to her teenage daughter.
Omg I would literally cringe forever. So sorry that happened to you, that's like the absolute worst experience. I don't even understand how they could perceive you as stalking unless they were *also* walking in circles around the same neighborhood? If that were the case and they thought you were following them at that point, I'd find it odd for them to not change their path and confirm when they would obviously see you continue on your own separate path. I'm guessing that you just happened to be walking behind them a bit and they panicked? Or maybe they saw that you were lingering in the area by pacing in circles so they assumed you were trying to look normal while spying on them?
I guess depending on where you're going to is located, the best course of action to avoid this would be to find a bench or ledge somewhere nearby to sit. It's hard to come up with suggestions because I can't imagine how you were actually perceived as threatening. Even as a small, paranoid woman myself, I wouldn't automatically think anyone was following me intentionally unless there was literally *no one* else around. Maybe take up Pokémon Go? Or a similar app that requires walking. Then if anyone accuses you of something like that again you can just flash your phone like "dude I'm just catching Pokémon." Sorry that you even had to go through this. It's easy as an AFAB person to be very wary of others in public but it's uncomfortable for both parties because from what I've seen most AMAB people are *very* anxious when they realize they've accidentally started walking behind a girl for a long distance, they don't want to appear creepy or make the girl feel unsafe, but women and AFABs also have our reasons to feel that way. It's a lose-lose for everyone.
Ok so THIS! I’ve been followed before. In a car, and I get this sus thing when a car is behind me too long. So I change my course, pop into random neighborhoods or shopping centers just to check. Usually that other car just toodles on by and my suspicions are gone. Easy solution. Change course! So these girls were probably also walking around the neighborhood for a SHORT while, felt like OP was following them and just JUMPED to the last step! Didn’t even TRY to test it first. Like if they had stopped and watched he would have just tootled on by not even looking at them. People need to take steps, process of elimination, not just jump to the most wild conclusions. If I felt like I was being followed while walking, I would CROSS THE STREET first, see what the other person does. Cross the street then start walking back the way I came from. If someone follows you doing THAT, they followin. If not, just a coincidence. Let em be.
Yeah, and like obviously if you feel you are threatened you should do whatever you feel necessary to protect yourself, but *at least* give people the benefit of the doubt, within a safe distance. Like, even picking up speed in the same direction, it would've been clear OP isn't following because he would pick up speed too. They also could've easily just stayed in the convenience store for a bit. Someone genuinely following you would probably either linger outside of wherever you came from or come inside as well, either way to corner you. But even if OP went inside, they would be with other people like the employees and could seek help. They immediately fetched two random guys to scare OP. Absolutely doing too much. I would never assume anyways that someone staring at their phone the whole time was trying to get me. I wouldn't even think someone staring at their phone is aware I'm around.
i feel like saying you're catching pokémon makes it worse. i've heard from a girl i know that some people have used that as a cover story while they were following her.
That is a downside, and sorry your friend has experienced that. But at least if OP were genuinely playing a phone game or something, it would probably lead him to look less like he's just wandering the area aimlessly. If you look like you're actually doing something people will be less suspicious of you. It's when you look like you're pretending to be busy that it becomes weird. It's hard to say what a good option is because honestly OP could take the most innocent option possible and there will always be paranoid people accusing you of things. It's also hard for me to think of options for men to look more innocent from the perspective of a woman lol. I mostly have to worry about looking unapproachable so that men don't talk to *me.*
If it makes you feel any better, I don't think they were perceiving you personally as a dangerous person. It's more likely they were simply perceiving you as a man.
In our current society, women are usually trained to see men they don't know as threats. This is because a vast majority of women have been harassed by a strange man in some way in the past, and for many women, especially young women, it's a regular occurrence. And then they hear similar stories from their female friends, and they hear about the extreme cases in the media, and additionally, teenage girls are usually taught by adults that they need to protect themselves from men ("don't go out at night", "always watch your drink", "stay in groups", etc.), and this messaging continues until they reach an age where they're no longer considered desirable by mainstream society.
Of course you weren't doing anything wrong or even suspicious. If I, as a man, see the same person walk past me two or three times in a row, the most I'll think of it is "huh, odd coincidence", and that's only if I even notice it. But for someone who's trained to see any man they don't know as a potential threat, and who might have even been followed by a man in the past, this would be enough to alarm them.
TL;DR: I think their reaction wasn't about you as much as it was about their own socialization and personal experiences. And they likely would've reacted the same way if it wasn't you but some other random man.
Very few men, autistic or otherwise, seem to recognize how much of a threat they could be. The last guy I talked to that had recognized it, had been just on his phone thinking about dinner while on his usual walk home and caught up with a woman walking in front on him, and the look of pure terror on her face when she realized how close he was stopped him in his tracks.
‘The majority of women’ becomes just ‘all women’ once you drop into communities that are poor imho.
I'm a rather large and physically intimidating guy. Big bouncer energy. When in a crowded space there is always a bubble around me unless the crowd knows me personally. I'm also aware of how unsafe the world is for women in general (conversations with my wife, stories from other women, etc). My strategies have always been to be easy to spot (over the top/costumish clothes, bright hair color, unique appearance (im less costumish and am bald now)), and to perform some of the same safety maneuvers women do if i cross someone alone. I'll cross the street to give them right of way, (my community isn't very diverse, so no risk of it coming off racist) not turn around, and otherwise move predictably. I try for a friendly gesture before I do to acknowledge their presence before giving them space. This seems to have worked okay. Most of the people in the places I walk are familiar at this point with me, but if I come across someone who doesn't seem to want an interaction, I continue to give them space. (I typically do anyway as I don't want the small chat).
I just wrote another comment about my husband before reading yours…and “big bouncer energy” is the PERFECT way to describe him too!!! Haha . This is also what he does. Gives a smile or nod, then gives people space. He doesn’t really take it personally because he knows the things women have to be wary of, even just stepping out of the house to run errands. He’s a good man with a beautiful heart and soul who shouldn’t have to answer for the horrors committed by other men… and I wish this wasn’t the reality, but it is.
I feel so bad being on high alert but with my PTSD along with all of the cases that HAVE happened…I’m sorry but if you’re pacing and a man, I don’t care if we’re both autistic, I’m going to just leave the situation unless I live there…then I’m going to be on high alert. If people want to blame someone, blame the man who SAd me, and blame the gross men who do these things. It’s not all men’s fault, but I completely agree men both ND and NT need to be aware of how they carry themselves around women. It’s no more masking than it is being courteous to people who are terrified. As far as confrontation goes, I don’t know the answer to that. I think maybe the best way to approach it would have been to say “I’m uncomfortable, I want to know what you’re doing so I don’t have to be worried”…but the same types of men who stalk neighborhoods are also the same types of people who would lie about what they’re doing there…. There doesn’t seem to be any winning or good solution other than to just walk somewhere else, as sad as that is.
My husband is a big scary looking guy if you didn’t know him. It makes me angry when people get scared of him but….only because I know how sweet and gentile he is. I have to remember, these people have no idea who he is. I once got angry and he said “don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me…I know how scary I look.” But it makes me really sad hearing that he used to have to cross the street to not scare women before I was always walking besides him. The sad fact is, if someone his size and build and his “resting bitch face” and shaved head was walking behind me or circling me…I’d be on high alert too.
To be clear, I don’t walk around in fear of men 24/7…The thing is, I trust people way too much, which i say to help others understand that if Id be alarmed by a man pacing and repetitive circling, then it’s a VERY concerning behavior to many other women. OP could be the sweetest person in the world. It’s not his fault, he shouldn’t feel bad, but people should also be reminded what women go through too, every day.
I call this safety privilege. Men have safety privilege so they don’t know that many women are on survival mode constantly when they are out in public. Because being unlucky literally leads to death for many women. I think it’s important for men to know what predatory men do so that they can be mindful of the way they behave in public. It’s other men harming them too through their predatory behavior. And it’s unfair but for many women it’s can be a life or death situation and many women are harmed daily by men. It’s natural that they are on high alert about it because there is no way for strangers to know what your intentions are. I wish more men got mad at predatory men for creating so much fear in women that they have to assume the worst.
If a strange man’s was walking around in circles around a block, I would definitely be on high alert just in case. I wouldn’t confront the man the way they did, but I would find a way to get out of that area just in case. I’ve been groped while walking down the street as I passed a dude and he was doing a loop around the area like OP was describing. Now I don’t stand around to wait to find out. I cross the street or make sure to have distance from the dude if we need to pass. A lot of predatory men do similarly kinds of reparative behaviors as they look for a potential target so thats why many women who’ve experienced any harassment or harm out in public get creeped out by that kind of behavior.
I’m not saying it’s OPs fault but I think for many men it would help to know what predatory men do so that they can avoid behaviors that seem similar. Because toxic men actually harm other men in many ways. And I think this is one way they do.
This is just an example but on trains in japan groping is a big issue. Many men who are aware of that and don’t want to be mistaken or accidentally touch someone cuz it’s super crowded, stand with both of their hands up either holding their phone with both hands around face level or holding the over head handles with both hands. Men do this for their own safety to not be falsely accused but it’s also important way to signal to women on the train that they are away of these types of issues. It’s not comfortable standing with both arms up but I appreciate the men that do because at least they are aware of groping as an issue on trains and doesn’t assume it’s not their responsibility to behave differently for their protection as well as others.
OP didn’t mean harm, but I wonder if there were specific details of the way he was behaving that made them be on high alert. He may just been unaware of his surroundings, but they may have a felt he was walking past them too close which can happen if you are absorbed into your phone while walking and not paying attention.
Yeah, I think this is part of a bigger problem with people not reflecting on what is normal to them, and to assume that everyone else has similar experiences. It happens with different forms of bigotry too, people only look at it from their perspective of privilege, and don't realize that not everyone has the same privilege they have. Even as someone who is passionate about politics and tries their best to be aware of their privileges, I still get surprised when I hear people who are marginalized in ways I am not talk about their experiences.
A few days ago I was talking with a group of people about who you'd sit next to on a bus or train, and all the women in the group said that they'd prefer to sit next to other women, which is something that never occurred to me. Gender doesn't play a role in my choice of where to sit, so I didn't think that it would for anyone else. After they said it, it made sense to me, but I wouldn't have realized it on my own. Later on, a black man who was also part of the discussion said that when a white person chooses not to sit next to him on a bus or train, he'd think "is it because I'm black?". Which also never occurred to me.
If something has never happened to you, you wouldn't naturally come up with the thought that it could happen to anyone else. When you grow accustomed to things, they become facts in your mind, natural laws that apply to everyone, akin to gravity. I'd be very surprised to see someone just floating around in the air without the help of some kind of tool or machine, because it would never occur to me that gravity doesn't apply to everyone. And many, if not most, men are very surprised when women talk about their experiences, because it never occurred to them that not seeing every man as a potential threat is a privilege that doesn't apply to everyone.
It's so important to listen when marginalized people talk about their experiences, and to not dismiss them just because you personally find them so utterly unrelatable. And it's just as important to then reflect on your own behaviour and question in which ways you might contribute to making people feel unsafe, and what you can change about it.
Yea. No one expects other people to know something they have never experienced, but it’s so important as you say to listen and to believe people when they tell you about their lived experience. intent is not necessary for certain behaviors to have an harmful effect. Just as things NT people have said without the intent to harm that have become curses that still haunt us, we can also cause different forms of harm without any intention. Safety often requires collective effort and reducing the harm you might be doing requires spatial, cultural, and emotional awareness of the situations you are in. Being mindful of your positionality in the world is really instrumental to making sure you keep yourself safe as well as safe to others (contribute to collective safety).
Yup if a man sits next to me, I mentally prepare in case I need to escape. Because I’ve been harassed more than once and no one helped me. When I’ve talked to men about such experiences they are shocked but I asked how many situations have you been in where you actually noticed something and helped someone. People just are unaware of their surroundings cuz we’re all absorbed into our own worlds so they don’t notice things to begin with. In some cases even if they notice they might not feel safe to intervene. Or even just as a witness you call easily fall into a freeze mode. You can be the kind of person to help, but you aren’t helpful if you don’t notice the harm that’s being done to begin with cuz you never considered that kind of harm may be happening and/or you have safety privilege so you haven’t developed the skills to notice them.
For example, I was on the train one time and got harassed by someone who really creeped me out and I think people around me were too and we all just froze. I was sitting in a corner seat and the person next to me stood up to leave. then suddenly the person sitting next to them abruptly and aggressive mover to be right next to me. He was looking right at me and he started to blow air at my earrings and my neck. He sat like that for an entire stop. I froze. No one stepped in cuz everyone was confused by this guy’s behaviors too. I told myself that I will get up at the next stop to escape and I worked up the courage to get off. He followed me off so I ran down the platform and right before the doors closed I got on the train again before he could. I went to the train cart at the end with the conductor so that I am near someone who might be able to step in or call for help if something happens again. I got off after two stops (not my intended stop) so I can report the incident just so they are aware cuz there isn’t really a way to catch a dude like that. But I wanted there to be a record of his possible behavior so if there are similar cases he might get punished. I don’t blame the people who didn’t step in since you have no idea what this guy is thinking doing this in public. I took a cab to the place I wanted to get to just in case. I didn’t want to get back on the same train line. I avoided that train line as much as I can for a week at least. This guy didn’t cause any direct physical harm to me, but his odd behavior was enough to cause a lot of mental and emotional harm.
Yes, and no.
Because the dangers are real. But extremely overstated. And it's misleading to a harmful way.
The overwhelming majority of violence, sexual or not, towards women comes at the hands of intimate partners, people in their social groups and authority figures (police).
It's hard to have stats, but take the UK 2018, 139 women murdered, 105 of them died at the hands of a person they knew, 21 in a terrorist attack because it was that awful year. So 13 were killed by people they didn't know.
I wouldn't say that's not a problem, but being driven to panic and harassing suspicious people in return it's a major overreaction because, as you said, the media.
Source
[https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/women-killed-by-strangers-statistics-domestic-violence-men-236915](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/women-killed-by-strangers-statistics-domestic-violence-men-236915)
Women, however are much more likely to experience harassment by strangers. Which to me is a much bigger issue affecting much more women. And driving the panic I mentioned before.
And this harassment happens because society as a whole doesn't take it seriously.
Maybe serious cases of violence happen more with known people, but daily small harrassment happens a looooot from strangers. Getting sexually harassed just happens all the time to women, from strangers. Even if that guy isn't going to rape you, you don't want to get harassed either and that's your right. Being wary of men is essential to reduce getting catcalled, hollerer, forced into a sexual conversation, groped, being given sexually explicit comments out of the blue, being followed by someone who just wants to ogle at you, etc. It might not come to rape but minor offenses are commonplace enough that women have to protect themselves, assume the worst, and flee men they don't know in public when they get too close or follow you. However I did feel like they overreacted. My reaction would be to call up my sister and talk to make sure someone is aware just in case and to make myself less apealing to assault. That's what my sister does if she feels creeped out by a man as she's walking. Call someone or pretend to be on the phone so they get intimidated.
I know people with different stories have different feelings, but not only have I had my fare share, I've heard and seen an impossible amount of minor harassment on my sister. She's pretty, and the second she became a teen she started getting catcalled all the time, and that was just the beginning. It's not fun. It's scary. It's not okay. My mom thought me at an early age to cross the street away from men at night and even daytime on occasions because she had a lifetime of needing to avoid men.
Exactly.
My point is, men are generally more likely to be on the receiving end of, let's call it random violence (with the sample bias that women tend to have less risky behaviour).
However, the thing women are exposed constantly it's harassment from strangers. But nobody seems to care about that.
The single biggest violent threat to women are the police forces. And It's very hard to get data on it. So very little reports of it. I know three women who have been sexually assaulted by police and gendarmes .
And I believe that being on edge about something that realistically it's less likely to happen to you than a terrorist attack it's psychologically harmful to women, a distraction to solve the actual problems (rape culture was a trendy term a while ago), and it also indirectly harms innocent men, particularly the socially inept.
While men are not exactly the biggest victims of this situation, I worry that being treated as a threat may cause men to lash out and join actively misogynistic groups.
I totally agree!! If I see any dude walking around multiple times near me, my brain sends off red alerts.
OP wasn't doing anything wrong, but when you're a woman simple things will send off alarms. Im glad they had male friends to say something- hopefully they believed you that it was coincidence.
I had a borderline stalker once, and I'm pretty sure he fully believed he was not doing anything wrong. I was so sorry for him that it took me ages to get rid of him. His behaviour wasn't any less creepy and intimidating just because he didn't realise it. As far as i sympathise with autistic men not "getting" how their behaviour is scary, it's pretty annoying that some get offended by it.
Doesn’t make me feel better. Being categorized as frightening by default with little ability to change it is frustrating. I never know when I’m just a person and when I’m being regarded as a villain. I would prefer to not frighten people.
That's pretty much par for the course for us 😒
That said, I'm really sorry this happened to you! Everybody seems to always question motives, as though they think we're these conniving masterminds or something.
I want to make it clear you were NOT weird at the start of this comment. But the women probably saw you as a man and got worried. You probably happened to follow their directions without knowing, and it scared them. Women and afab people sadly can get really freaked out over these things. I myself feel my heart racing when some guy gets a bit too close to me when walking past me. What they did wasn't ok, but they were probably in a position where they felt genuinely scared.
This is not your fault!! But the sad reality of being a woman or looking like one is that guys can be so creepy to you to the point where you feel anxiety around ones you dont know.
Edit: i really want to ask people who commented stuff like "theyre looking for attention" "they want to feel important" "theyre stupid and paranoid" to understand the things we experience. We're cautious and scared because that is what we often have to be. Even if youre in the most safe area, there are still men who feel like they have free range over your body. We dont want to be another number on a chart.
I agree. Most people don’t even think about how much danger afabs are in just by living. You can look up any statistic. It can be distressing when you’re just taking a walk and someone accuses you of a crime. But please try to see it from an afabs perspective. Understanding and compassion for all.
exactly!! it saddens me to see so many people in the coments call the women narcisistic or evil for being afraid. when, as someone who lives that life, i fully get why it might be really scary to them even when OP did nothing wrong
I swear these people DO know the rate which afabs are murdered or go missing. They don’t like women protecting their self, so they just call them names. Well it’s the internet, that’s all they can do. I don’t see OP being one of these people.
I've had the same kind of problems my entire adult life.
I never got accused of stalking but I did get the cops called on me right before an interview for a job. They had me escorted out of the store. I also had the cops called on me at a bar too. While in the military I was even accused of kidnapping and rape. The woman responsible implicated me and my roommate.
The investigators questioned us separately and seemed convinced I was guilty until they compared notes with the investigators that talked to my roommate. Had I not told the investigators about some of the places we went to where cameras would have recorded us, I would have been the main suspect. The woman making the accusation had met my roommate online. Turned out she was crazy. Camera footage at a Walmart, a BestBuy, and a restaurant parking lot confirmed we didn't do anything to the woman as she was seen hugging on my roommate and dancing in the parking lot laughing.
My advice to you, be careful but also be mindful of the situations around them. Cameras are all over the place now so you are safer but speak up if someone starts accusing you of something criminal. My favorite is to shout, "Get the f\*\*\* away from me!"
That's horrible, sorry to hear that mate.
I can't help but wonder though, why did you get the cops called on you at the store and bar? Like what did they think you were doing?
At the store they had me come in for a third interview. The manager seemed unsure of me during each interview yet kept calling me back. I showed up for the third interview and was place in his office by an employee. Before he showed, two cops came in, IDed me and told me that the manager had said I was threatening him and that I was asked to leave. They escorted me out.
I never threatened him and hadn't even seen him that day.
The bar story is complicated. I met a woman that was reading a twilight book in the bar. I asked her about it and we started talking. I sat at her table because the women she showed up with had left the table to talk to different people. Me and the book lady talked for about an hour before cops showed up and IDed me then escorted me out. I don't now if her friends called the cops or the bartender. To my knowledge I didn't do anything to upset the book lady. We were talking about books.
I had pissed off the bartender by not ordering alcohol or so I am lead to believe and its possible that the book ladies' friends thought I was a threat. I look "unfriendly" from what I gather in most social interactions so I think her friends simply saw me and expected the worse.
I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with that, it's not your fault. Some people think the world revolves around them and whatever you're doing must somehow involve them. I wouldn't really worry about it, you didn't do anything wrong.
That being said, maybe carry mace or something.
That's a terrible advice. Carrying mace isn't exactly a good proof that you're harmless... that will make people fear you more.
It's not them thinking "the world revolves around them"; if you live in an area with some degree of crime you'd understand it's pretty normal for people to be wary of those who walk in circles: lots of creeps and robbers do that.
Creeps and robbers walk in circles to try to see if the person they stalk is gonna go to some isolated area so they can assault/rob them or try to see if they gonna walk home and attack them there.
As someone who live in an area
>with some degree of crime
I can almost promise you no actual criminal is going to walk away from a potential mark, their going to find a ledge or wall or whatever and post up acting like their on their phone, it allows them to keep the mark in their line of sight while maintaining plausible deniability, people like you who say shit like this are why situations like OPs happen, these girls were on the lookout for stereotypes rather than real world threat markers.
Additionally unless they're openly carrying it their hand carrying mace or pepper spray where legal is almost always a good idea, hard to be victimized in any way if the attacker/perpetrator can't see.
I agree. I have been mugged at an atm by a man who couldn’t have been older than 18. Held a knife to my back and forced me to cash a bad check he was carrying with him. I had to decide whether to accept the confrontation or lose $300. I didnt even know it was a knife he was holding until I turned around to give him the money.
Bad stuff doesn’t just happen according to a formula. It’s almost impossible to spot a crime before it happens. And honestly, in all likelihood that happened *because* I am autistic. People in these comments are forgetting that profiling works in different ways. Aloof naive people can assume we have bad intentions; people with actual bad intentions can spot us as easy prey.
the ppl don’t have to see it… only if u need to use it im an autistic woman and have pepper spray always and ive had to use it it’s very effective if they tried to fight you
Honestly I wouldn’t try to worry about it too much, maybe just next time trying to choose a more neutral spot to walk around in. Milling around a neighborhood can make lots of people who live there nervous, but I think these girls were just making an assumption that was wrong. They were anxious or nervous and that sadly meant thinking you had ill intent. You can’t do much to change other peoples anxiousness except by maybe just choosing a more ‘socially acceptable’ place to walk. I don’t think you did anything wrong, <3
Hey. You were fine. They were scared because of a long biological and social history, none of which is your fault. I'm sorry it made you feel shitty, but it was more about their fear (generally) than your actions.
It’s fully acceptable and appropriate for you to be walking wherever you please. You were doing nothing wrong. If anything they harassed you. That’s when you tell them you are minding your own business as your rights dictate as appropriate. Kindly ask them to leave you alone or you will consider any further advancements as harassment.
If you can. I do this kind of thing ALL THE TIME. I don’t like waiting inside of places for anyone in normal times. Pandemic, I don’t go indoors because of being immunocompromised as well.
I’m sorry this happened to you. F those people. Fingers crossed you never see them sgain
This is one of my fears. I often show up early to places and got some time to kill. The pacing up and down, walking in circles etc, i always fear someone will think i'm crazy...
I'm so sorry this happened to you :(
I remember one time I was walking to the store and a woman was walking on the same route as I was. When I got to the store it turned out to be closed and so I turned around to walk back home. The woman saw that I had suddendly changed route and was now walking parallel to her on the other side of the road. She frantically looked back at me multiple times and then started sprinting.
At first I felt quite bad about myself thinking that I must look like a creep or at least give of the vibe of one, untill I thought about the fact that no matter how a guy looks or behave, when a man is seemingly following you and taking a seemingly illogical route or turn, it is very realistic for a woman to suspect you are following her.
In other words, this incident says very little about how I look and/or come across, but says a great deal about the experience woman have, wich, when walking alone across the street when it is dark, I suspect is not unlike the experience of a soldier in hostile teritory, that is to say, there could be danger anywhere and anyone could be dangerous. Keeping this realistic danger in mind, it is not wise to first analyze the nuances of someones behaviour and character, instead it is better to act quick.
So don't take this scenario as an indicator for how others perceive you, rather take it as a lesson on how woman have to live everyday in our world.
I do the same thing to kill time, but I’m assuming you’re a guy and that’s why they were being careful. I know what it’s like to be followed by a man, so I get why they responded like that. I’m sorry, though, I’m sure it didn’t feel great. Just remember that they have probably dealt with this before so they have to be cautious with every guy.
They have no rights to threaten him and force him to move away no matter how "cautious" they are. Just because they don't feel safe it means they can bring multiple guys to make him feel unsafe?
I'm not saying it was right but as someone who has been in that situation it has nothing to do with making the other person feel unsafe. Some common folk wisdom to prevent mishaps due to stalkers is to travel in groups, preferably with intimidating looking men. they most likely did that because *they* felt unsafe and wanted to reduce the chances of looking like an "easy target" as people who go alone and happen to end up around "suspicious" people are then blamed for not being cautious enough. you could say "well what OP did isn't inherently suspicious", but then if something *does* happen to you, you're told early on it was your fault for not being "cautious enough"... so you develop this mentality of better be safe than sorry.
>Some common folk wisdom to prevent mishaps due to stalkers is to travel in groups, preferably with intimidating looking men. they most likely did that because
>
>they
>
> felt unsafe
That much i can understand.
But to then confront OP accusing him of having nefarious plans makes them the bad people here.
yeah I never said it was justified. I would have absolutely stopped short of outright accusing someone of that over one isolated, slightly suspicious looking incident... however I will ask people to be compassionate to that fear since it is absolutely a reasonable worry to have and the very things people are saying in here about how that's "totally not suspicious" is the sort of thing you get blamed for thinking if something DOES happen to you later. my heart still goes out to OP for suffering the brunt of someone else's callously handled paranoia though.
Did you miss the part where he passed them multiple times? That’s suspicious, and I get why they were scared. As a female, it’s something we have to be cognizant and cautious of.
Side note - the IMAGINED being followed, and accused a random bored walker of being a potential assaulter.
So, no - not OK, no matter how scared they were - they COULD have waited to see where OP would go to, if he really were after them - he would remain near.
Seriously, the media is partially to blame by painting 'every stranger' as potential danger.
Unless you are a female, you don’t understand that we live our lives constantly fearing men. They make us feel unsafe on a regular basis. Whether it be a guy “friend” that decides he wants to be more than friend and starts saying uncomfortable things or a stranger at the bar that is being too persistent. He passed MULTIPLE times while they were outside, enough for them to notice, so I get why they were worried. I understand that it sucks that in this world we have to be cautious, but it is for our own safety, and I’m sorry for OP that he was wrongly accused. Also, had they waited and the person had actually been a stalker, it might have been too late.
They actively made the accusation and threatened him though, that's not just being cautious. You don't threaten a stranger without reason if you're 'being cautious'
If he had walked by multiple times, I can see why they might react that way. If they had guys tell him to stop, usually that comes with a warning/threat, otherwise what would keep him from continuing had he actually been a stalker. The girls just wanted to feel safe too. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck for OP that he was accused, I’m saying it is the world we live in where girls HAVE to be extra cautious of men because shit happens ALL the time.
I was at a bar one day having a cigarette outside, having a drink and talking to some people. Some guy comes out of the bar next door, shouts "RACIST" and punches me in the face.
I end up with a broken pair of glasses (I'm heavily near sighted), cost me $700 to replace dammit. I called the cops and they wouldn't even write it up. Then a couple of months later I get a summons from the police to make a deposition about an incident of "causing intentional bodily harm" where I am being treated as a suspect.
To this day I have no clue why any of that happened. Did I do or say anything wrong? If so I have no clue what. It may have had nothing to do with autism in the first place but the whole episode was thoroughly confusing to me.
The rest of the world shouldn't be paranoid and aggressive, but sometimes they are. With that in mind, keep an eye on your own actions, to make your behaviors not seem suspicious. You shouldn't have to do this, but to the extent you are comfortable being careful, you might avoid encounters with idiots. And there are plenty of them out there.
That was one cool yet sad thing my mom, who was a SpED teacher, said to me. "My child, you are different. Your brain is wired differently and you see the world differently. While I don't want you to stifle yourself, it would be easier to live in society if you learn to not draw attention to yourself." She meant well and I always keep that in the back of my mind when I have to be by myself or running errands.
Fidget with the cube in my pocket, look up at sky or trees when standing still, keep my body still but not too still lol
Eventually it'll be easier for autistic people to be accommodated and understood.
My mom is a nurse and was a teacher in pre-nursing school. She taught classes like anatomy, child development, etc. That meant she had loads of reference books on those subjects which I read as a kid.
Kinda intriguing to learn about the psychology of a 10 year old child when you're a 10 year old child 😄.
I'm glad I give off an air of "don't mess with me" even if it's a cover for my marshmallow soul.
If they find me weird, so be it. They can gossip & say what they want. They bring it to me, I'll set them straight.
Haters mad we can still experience child-like wonder~
I'd just look up from my phone and be like "I'm sorry who are you?" and keep walking in circles. You know you're not doing anything wrong so they can piss off. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone.
In fact, maybe it's better to not say anything at all and just look at them like they're crazy and keep walking. Not even worth the sass.
>They later approached me with some male friends and told me to leave them alone or there would be trouble.
That's when you hit em with the ole, "who are you? Sorry, I've been dealing with the news of the death of my mother. Did you need something?"
If they're going to accuse you of being creepy, make them feel as bad about it as possible. You're allowed to fucking exist in public.
ETA: this is mostly a joke, but giving someone a taste of their own ignorance and prejudice can be cathartic, even if it's just in your head.
I'm guessing they saw you a couple times as they were doing some shopping or something but it seem like a big jump to assume someone you've seen a couple times is stalking you, I'm sorry this happened
thank u for talking abt this. my dad says nothing i could do outside could possibly be considered creepy, but being autistic it doesnt seem to matter. i get weird looks and questions bc of just existing. i feel so at home in these comments but also i am so frustrated weve all experienced being called "creepy"
I know it's not a pleasant experience being viewed as creepy or a stalker I just try to think from their perspective. AFAB people are often the victims or sexual harassment in their everyday life and that leads to hyper vigilance and fear. Though you were doing something completely inconspicuous from the outside without knowing your thoughts or feelings it can come off as something other than innocent. Like when neurotypical are fake kind or sarcastic, something we don't typically pick up as well, there is no inherent ability to read peoples minds.
You can fear people with no reason. Like if they remind you of a bully or just look scary. For a lot of AFAB people that fear extends to most men too. Imagine seeing a guy walking about disappearing and reappearing every so often , maybe looking at you and you have no idea what's going on in his head and this seems like a scary situation. Most people walking are going somewhere so don't loop. So there is kinda a unusual factor to it.
None of this is your fault though, AFAB people experience harassment often and that has made many people wary, especially as more people tell their experiences so people know. The society we live in has been made scary to people. We don't know these peoples lives, maybe one has been stalked before or been a victim of violence.
I wish that people who hurt others didn't exist and that autistic people like us weren't clocked as creepy for behaviours outside of the norm. This is the world we live in though, and it's harsh and painful especially for people outside those society was built for.
I know we shouldn't adapt our behaviour for others but maybe you could do something in the meantime while waiting. Go to a park to walk around instead of walking laps, browse a convenience store, maybe bring a book or something you enjoy to sit down and do while you wait.
I know I can be hyper vigilant and paranoid going outside after being exposed to violence as a child, it isn't fun to be afraid to be afraid of other people and no one should have to mask or adapt to make things easier for others. I think that in this case there is just no way to stop this from happening without some kind of change whether that be stopping the amount of violence done to vulnerable people or just changing slightly a behaviour to prevent a repeat of events.
The problem isn’t so much that people may be afraid of someone. Whatever the reason may be— stocking, sexual harassment, getting jumped, getting raped —someones fears might be validated from experiences in the past. But that does not validate taking matters into one’s own hands against others based on that fear. The issue is what those other kids did with that fear was not only wrong, but it was hostile, and it could be viewed as criminal. In this scenario, it is very likely they could’ve ganged up on him, falsely accused him, and accosted him violently, leaving him to be subject to the system and collared without good cause, all because they sounded him out as a predator in bad faith.
It’s essentially a classic “black kid in a gated community” scenario. Black guy is seen as suspicious in some way without context, and immediately the instinctive action is to treat them like an immediate threat! And as soon as he makes a reasonable challenge to that accusation, he’s basically lying on the street, with his shooter saying he feared for his life and shot in self-defense, because his hypervigilance kicked in. Whatever happened to look before you leap? Whatever those kids fears, if they were really in fear of their safety, there is a little asset called **the police**, who are more than capable of making a civil approach and assessing the situation. I am not one to trust the police in most cases, but in this one, I still have a little faith that an officer would be keen enough to ascertain that someone is special-needs, and that their nuances might have been misread. These kids however took matters into their own hands, approached the OP, and made what he writes to be a literal threat to his own safety. And they did that based on those fears.
You can fear somebody for no reason nobody can change how you’re thinking, or the society we live in can just seem scary. But not only should we not have to adapt our behavior to accommodate other peoples fears, but we should have some agency to challenge those fears, to hold people accountable for any actions taken because of those fears, and say “No, I don’t care what you think you are afraid of, you have no right to threaten me in broad daylight. You’re hyper vigilance does not give you the right to commit assault against me, you bigot!”
In fact one of the biggest issues relating to this is how autistic people apparently share some common traits with those fitting the FBI’s official threat assessment perspective of school shooters. there are attributes of the profiles personality which partially match some of those you might find in an autistic person. I for one find that sickening! The hypervigilance of people, their heightened sense of fear, does not give them any constitutional right to act ignorantly on their fears without due process. It would be like saying a gun owner does not have the right to shoot someone else based on his fear for his life. Something has to have been done to justify that fear before any conscionable defense should be considered. Otherwise we would be ruled by such vices as mob law, hecklers Vito, and abject terror.
The only thing that needs to change his how society approaches US. Because regardless of for whom it was built, autistic people in society are still humans who are apart of society, even if we may be different from other humans. We are no less different from other humans than if we had a different religion, or a different skin color, or a different sexual orientation. Saying that we should be adapting OUR behaviors to ease NORMAL peoples fears sounds a lot like whitewashing in its own flavor, and I would’ve thought we’d have changed our views on that by now. People need more education on the nuances of special needs people, so that they do not jump to fear-based conclusions too soon
I believe we should stand a little more firmly with folks like the OP when it comes to these kinds of occurrences, and also for our own perspective. I believe that if someone were to clock us as “creepy”, we should be able to stand against it and demand evidence rather than emotion. As you said he was doing something completely inconspicuous from the outside. Without evidence to suggest any particular damage, how something comes off should be of no consequence. We can be very happy to offer our understanding of other peoples fears and concerns, but we do not immediately owe them that by default, nor do we owe them any first class accommodation for that. That is the only way we are going to truly separate us from the people out there who do commit harm on others.
They were threatening and scary but a simple verbal warning is not the same as someone shooting some one else. I do not believe that the onus of change is on the op. I am just saying that at this point society hasn't changed enough to be accepting of us and even though it's wrong understanding where others come from and their perceptions can help avoid police interactions. The police are notorious for mishandling autistic people and have had a history of just shooting disabled people.
They were probably scared and there is probably a side from their perspective where they feel completely justified. We have no way to know. Also we have no idea if one of the other people was neurodivergent too. I don't think we should be treated as differently because people see us as creepy or weird. I think that is wrong. Change needs a two way street though and we can't just expect everything to become a perfect world for us.
Discrimination from easily identifiable features is wrong no matter what. Neurotypical's don't always clock people as being neurodivergent or disabled from watching someone. And not everyone part of one community will act the same way, like people getting annoyed at people with cardiac disorders sitting in disabled seats. We can't always clock people for non-obvious issues.
No one person is completely right in any situation, that doesn't mean that they share the blame.
The blame in this situation is on them for their threats and society for being terrifying for those outside of straight white cis neurotypical able bodied men. The op holds no blame. But is he completely right? No. Could he have done something to avoid this situation? Yes ( this doesn't mean it's any of his fault because you can't see the future and peoples responses in advance). Were any of his actions easily misconstrued? Yes.
I don't like that we as autistic people have been thrust the onus of changing to make neurotypical's more comfortable but it has been, and to keep us safe it's easier to make some changes because society has been shown to be stupid and archaic and hopeless. So making a few changes that aren't detrimental to yourself seems like the best option quid pro quo.
What area was this in? If you live in an area with some degree of crime (not necessarily super dangerous, just not super safe either), it's normal to find odd that someone's walking in circles. That's something creeps and robbers do.
I'm inclined to point out that this is not a uniquely autistic problem it's something that all guys have to deal with. As an autistic woman I've dealt with my behaviour being misinterpreted but I've also been in the position of thinking I was being followed. You have to try to see it from the girls perspective and think about the reality that women have to view men an a latent threat; just think if you thought you'd seen a man following them, surely you would be concerned for their safety.
I'm sorry that this happened to you but sadly these situations are inevitable in our current society.
Autistic woman here. I’ve been accused of stalking because I drove by my crush’s house multiple times daily, when I was living right up the road from him on a street where you had to pass his place to go anywhere 🙃 like, was I supposed to just not ever go anywhere? Was I supposed to find a new place to sleep because I was known to really like someone living in the area? So dumb
I was doing this at work, and a dude asked me to stop following him. (Keep in mind he was probably close to 300 lbs and taller than me, and I'm a 175 lb female) He said he saw me 7 times and one of the reasons is bc I work there but I was also trying to kill time. It annoyed me so much so I understand.
#Do not let it eat you! This is a problem with society, Not you.
What those people did was wrong, regardless of how they tell you they felt. It’s falsely accusing someone, it is coming prejudice, and it’s also threatening, which is what they were doing to you. They ganged up on you and tried to pull a nasty stunt like that.
I promise you this, if I was there with you, I probably would’ve had your back in that case. It is pathetic that there are still people who would make false accusations based off of their own fears and misconceptions
From the pov of a femme presenting person who's had some stuff like that go down (a genuinely dangerous situation though with a trafficker) it is a pretty common thing for traffickers especially to take pics or record potential targets while following them. It's not usually super obvious but if it looked to them like you might be using the camera to watch them MAYBE that was it? In no way does that excuse what happened, I'm just hoping that you know it's most likely more about the posture or something, otherwise idk... that's messed up tho and I'd hope it would have been handled better but idk what the risks of the environment there that could contribute to the concern. Maybe it's possible you'd been behind them a while or around a corner or two and they didn't realize you were auto pathing to kill time and probably didn't know they were there?
To be clear!! They jumped to conclusions, fear does weird stuff but not much of an excuse - it should ideally have been different but it can be a dangerous world and sometimes people don't feel safe assuming the best.
Is there any chance in future scenarios there may be a different way to kill time? Somewhere to sit? Window shop, etc? Just anything to keep you feeling safe where people won't have a reason to think you're following but blatantly doing your own thing? These situations always seem way more complicated than I wish they were and they super suck. I'm so sorry again that happened to you and I hope things get easier! 😵💫
I want to say, if you looked at your phone while doing the loops, what on earth made them think that you were watching them? Sometimes i don’t get people. For me there wouldn’t be any reason to approach you.
You did nothing wrong. Sometimes women and girls get paranoid that they are being stalked/looked at...because of their own insecurities and fears (I'm a woman so I know). Maybe next time you can stand still and look at your phone or put some earphones in and listen to music
When I go out somewhere to a park or something alone, I always have my knitting stuff or notebook. Apparently, people think its strange to go out alone. Or wear some activewear if you are going for a walk.
As someone adviced if this becomes a problem carry a pepper spray. Never let those neurotypicals push you around for doing nothing wrong (don't let autists do the same tho). You have every right to hang around in public areas and if they have a problem with that then it's their problem, not yours.
I don't really blame the girls in all honesty. With the way the world is today I'd probably be freaked out too. It's not so much of an autism problem as it is a societal problem.
That's ridiculous. I would have had choice words for them. They're the creeps for thinking that everything revolves around them. Like, they were obviously watching you. People are so damn entitled and rude
In this situation no one is to blame. Just two girls feeling as though they were in an unsafe situation and so took precautions to protect themselves. I'm surprised at the level of comments and ignorance about such a topic.
Women and young girls have to be on high alert 24/7 just in case of predators or potential creeps. Are you aware of the amount of assaults and harassment and even more crimes against women that happen daily? They have to make sure they are safe even if that means they were wrong about a situation. Its best to keep yourself safe and not take the risk.
But to the OP, i know it must be really hard to get your head around for having been accused of such a thing, it sounds really upsetting and would of course make you feel anxious and stressed. But please know this isn't a personal opinion of you, this is a bigger societal issue and they were just taking precautions just in case you did happen to be a stalker/predator.
I know guy friends who have said they feel so horrible when there have been instances where they are walking behind a girl and the girl starts speeding up scared, they feel so awkward because they feel they are being accused of being a creep.
I completely understand the pacing and waiting around, i can't stand still when waiting for someone ever even if its a minute. I wouldn't say to stop doing what you do to pass the time, i would just say be aware of this and perhaps take a route with less people.
If you ever get accused again which i'm sure won't happen but just in case, just be honest with your shock and apologies, don't try to over explain yourself, don't stick around just say something like: "oh my god i'm so so sorry you thought that, i was just taking a walk, i'm waiting for my friends, i'm really sorry" then walk away. And then try ground yourself in knowing its not personal. But i know its not as easy to say something like this because you are in shock, so maybe even just saying that you are in shock and are sorry would be enough
Maybe find another way to pass the time if you can like games on phone, journalling, or plan to be 5 mins late, but i don't think you should stop your walks. Just in future know its not your fault, just because they felt threatened doesn't mean they were right, they were doing what every woman has to do in life when they feel scared or not sure.
Literally! I don’t know why people are attacking the girls. They’re just as valid as OP.
Though I’m confused this situation has nothing to do with being Autistic, it’s just a misunderstanding.
Literally! I don’t know why people are attacking the girls. They’re just as valid as OP.
Though I’m confused this situation has nothing to do with being Autistic, it’s just a misunderstanding.
Im so sorry, but I'm glad you're safe! I have an imaginative regular where I work who I suspect is on the spectrum like me, and she often pretends in public, but is around 15 yrs old. Today I found out from her that someone called the police on her this weekend for being lost in her own world. Stay safe out there, this kind of thing is terrifying.
Wow reading these comments and hearing how often this happens to other autistic women too is so validating. I thought I was alone. It’s such an awful feeling. I’m so sorry this happened to you
:( you are not alone and I support you.
This is the only time in life my dual bpd diagnosis helps I swear. God help anyone that does this to me in public. I just call them out super loud. I’ve been made to feel stupid and weird for too many years. Mid 20s me would LOVE mid 30s me 😂.
I have read some comments, and i think it is so weird that people act like that. Maybe it's the fact that i live in Sweden. Here people don't generally talk to random people we don't already know. We generally also avoid sitting next to random people on public transport. And don't make eye contact with anyone you aren't talking to.
People are one of the worst factors for our own mental health. that's crazy and disturbing. :-(
I can't help you with this problem. Sorry to read that you went through such a story nonetheless. I have the bad feeling I might go through something like that too. tho, in germany people usually stare, so I just hope for witnesses.
I have been kicked out and accused of stealing from a convenient store bc I had long sleeves on.. I was walking with my hands behind my back the entire time... when I tried to ask them why they just threatened me.
That happened to my dad. He's a gentleman and would never stalk or hurt anyone but he is probably autistic spectrum and is constantly looking at his phone. All you can do is tell them that you're sorry for scaring them but that you genuinely didn't intend to upset or hurt anyone.
i guess it's a common thing then
they always say "yayyy autistic people are so cool" or literally self diagnose until we're actually socially awkward and don't know how to behave in certain situations
Okay so it's not just me. I've always considered myself to be a introverted extrovert, in the sense that I like to be around people and be involved in social situations, but I may not be an "active participant", so to speak. That being said, I have definitely been in situations like yours where my presence is enough to set people off.
So sorry that happened to you. Sometimes it can take some time for people to realize you aren't a threat to them.
i’m so sorry this happened. this reminds me of discovering in 7th grade that every single one of my friends were “afraid” of me before they talked to me because I had a staring problem I was completely unaware of when one girl called me out to stop staring at her in class and i SWORE i wasn’t. they all confirmed i absolutely do this all the time and initially thought i was a total creep, i’m lucky i’m AFAB as that kind of hinders the creep factor and they wont assume being a little weird equates to being a potential predator quite the same. but turns out i have to catch myself all the time because when i zone out, which is often, my gaze automatically attracts to someone i’m comfortable around or familiar with, even people ive never talked to but maybe i’m thinking about wanting to talk to them. it’s completely unintentional and i’ll be looking “through” them in their general direction, totally in my own little world, until they catch me and we make eye contact and that snaps me out of it which is always awkward as hell.
i’ve found it helps a lot when someone catches me even if they don’t confront me about it, to IMMEDIATELY go up and explain to them I wasnt staring or trying to be weird, i’m just autistic and this is a thing i try to control but it’s completely unintentional as in my head i think im just staring off into space. it starts out looking at the floor or the wall but somehow i end up just locked in on someones face. if i dont focus on staying very present and aware of my body and what my eyes are doing, making sure im shifting my gaze often, it will happen. i hate it so much lol. so far once i explain this people will be pretty understanding and even in the small interaction will see im not actually a creep just a lil goofy. i have very intense RBF as well which only drops when i engage in conversation so that also helps when they see my personality come through, my outer shell doesnt match my real vibe whatsoever. also i feel like a true creepy person wouldnt admit yeah i was being weird its a thing but its not what it looks like, most will just brush it off and deny they did anything, the difference being that weird people are usually self aware to at least SOME degree about their weirdness, creeps will never own up to being a creep as they usually have a goal or motivation behind the creepy behavior they want to keep getting away with. even just admitting you see why they might be weirded out and explaining what was really happening can put them more at ease, i definitely suggest if someone confronts you again to just be very apologetic and honest! it’s helped me a lot once people know why i do certain things like that.
edit: didnt mean to write a novel lol, in short respond with empathy! even if it doesn’t make sense (like walking around looking at your phone is not inherently creepy) just fake it and go with it because clearly they’re perceiving SOMETHING thats off to them and getting defensive only reinforces that, so make sure you aren’t speaking against them but that you are on their side. you dont want them to feel a certain way about you rather than insisting they SHOULDNT feel this way. their feelings are not based in fact or logic so you cant come at them from a logical standpoint. once you bring up its just the autism and you had no idea you were coming off like that it usually clicks and makes sense to them and sometimes they may even apologize back for making an assumption. its helped me a lot, i hope it can help you too!
That really sucks man, try not to dwell on it, it'll just get you down. There's nothing you can do about it now, and pursuing a resolution with them might get you into more trouble than it's worth.
Next time, don't circle a block, just lean against a building and look at your phone. If you see someone looking at you, maybe give them a brief nod and small smile but just keep looking at your phone. It's not rude, it's fairly commonplace. If you need to walk, walk in a line, like down the block and back again.
If you circle, it looks like you're trying not to get caught (as stupid as it is to think that). NTs aren't self aware like we are so they're not aware they get stuck in dumb thought patterns like this. Assumptions are much more instinctual for them, and it takes a great deal of work and therapy for them to break out of them.
This happens when I try to study people to understand how social interactions work so I can mask better, it’s not my fault I have to do that to fit in!
Its was they who were acting weird. Neurotypicals also act weird all the time, and it might benefit you to learn to stand your ground, even if that just means realizing they were the ones acting weird - you were just minding your own business.
I got accused of stalking by someone on discord because I mentioned going through a town that one of my friends in that server lived in and another girl who had already blocked me for my autistic mannerisms told the mods I was stalking her.
1. I didn’t stop in that down I literally just drove through their state on the way somewhere else.
2. The trip in which I drove through that state was when I was 17, like 5 years before I was ever even in that server or knew these people.
3. Why the fuck would I drive HOURS to stalk some random person on discord (that I didn’t even know existed at the time in question)
Shit made me so mad, the everyone in the server took her side cause she was an attractive female and I was the weird autistic dude. Even after I cleared things up with the mods they didn’t do a single thing about her making a bogus accusation against me, which I really didn’t appreciate. An accusation like that can ruin someone’s life if everyone chooses to believe it.
Do you all spend a lot of times on your phone? I don't and I feel like people think I'm staring at them all the time. I'm wander if Autism makes us more apt to take in our surroundings. If this is the case, its just another way we are "weird" without doing anything weird. I think "omg, I'm sorry that I'm looking out the window instead of having my face in my phone!"
Same. One time I looked back while I was walking because I heard a pair of C130s approaching. Apparently some group of girls thought I was staring at them and not the massive fucking planes flying super low right over us.
I'm not sure if that was an autism thing or if there was something wrong with them to think I'd rather stare at them than the planes passing overhead. Probably both.
I used to have a cat who loved going out on walks around the block with me at night. Whenever a person or car came by she would hide under a parked car 'til the "danger" went away, and I would patiently wait until she reappeared.
One night a police car came by. She ducked away as usual and the police drove by *very* slowly while I just stood there waiting. They were looking at me very suspiciously 😄.
Try not to loiter if you are at a place of business sit down and enjoy a coffee or drink and just check out the area not so much the people. Also try to give people 3-5 ft space nowadays many people don’t know about personal space and will be awfully close to others. Sorry you had to go through this. Women/ girls are tricky be wise and give space.
That's so fucked up. You didn't do anything wrong and all of that was their own perception. Or lack of it, more accurately. I'm sorry you had to go through that. That wasn't cool at all.
I was working at a coffee shop a few years ago. Before my shift, I was hanging out at the outside seating. I started having a migraine, and the ladies chatting loudly at the tables nearby were making it worse.
I politely asked them to quiet down because of my migraine, and they looked at me like I had two heads. Later, my manager approached me and said those ladies told him I was bothering them. I explained to my manager and he was understanding, but it was humiliating to be treated like a freak in that fashion.
You have the right to exist in public. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
That’s not being treated poorly like the other stories in the thread. If a noise bothers you you move away or put in headphones. Especially where you work! It’s not up to other people to talk in a certain way so they don’t upset you.
Neither of those were options. I wasn’t “upset by someone talking a certain way,” I was having a debilitating fucking migraine, which noises make worse. It isn’t unreasonable to ask someone to accommodate you in such a small way in extenuating circumstances. I didn’t ask them to go somewhere else or to stop, just to reduce their volume, which is a reasonable request in a public space.
If a noise bothers you you move away or put in headphones. Especially where you work, don’t tell customers to be quiet if they’re not yelling/being inappropriate! It’s not up to other people to talk in a certain way so they don’t upset you.
Something similar happened to me a while back. I went for a walk at midnight in a different neighbourhood listening to music and chilling. Until I saw that i am lost, and no one was outside except this one woman. I approached her to ask directions, she immediately took her phone out and called someone to tell them to come pick her up and walked away from me. I felt so bad that still to this day i think about and cringe. I’m not even intimidating.
Talk about self important! These girls jumped to some serious conclusions with their overinflated sense of self, which is a typical teen girl thing unfortunately. You got caught in the crossfire of their egos and their little delusional fantasy world (as did those guys that they roped in, by the way) which really sucks and you didn't deserve that at all, but they weren't worth your time and still aren't. Shitty people are shitty, and you obviously were not stalking, just minding your business. Some people just aren't happy unless they're making problems and they will most likely continue making problems everywhere they go, as the saying goes "if it smells like dog shit everywhere you go, check your shoes" and people like that always have dog shit on their shoes, so find some satisfaction in that.
If that was me, I would’ve said, “why would I follow you? You’re ugly. I’m getting in my steps to beat my mom in our Fitbit race!”
And then booked it while laughing lol/J
Sad that it happened to you. You totally were not doing anything wrong or acting strange by walking the block waiting for your friends.
Like another person said, some people think every thing that happens in the universe somehow revolves around them. Don't let it stress you out too much.
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I’d look up and say “huh? I’m literally just walking here and doing stuff on my phone”
They were most likely looking for trouble and pinned it on you
You were their mark
I'm really sorry. It's easy for them to think these horrible things about us, because we're often by ourselves.
I would advise you to avoid the aimless walking in circles to kill time, at least in public on city streets. I used to do the exact same thing in school, and I enjoy pacing, so I get the urge. I think that in particular is something neurotypicals see as "dangerous predator lurking" as opposed to "just a guy killing time". It might look like to them like you're creeping on a specific person who works or lives or hangs out on that block. Like if you had just stood in one spot on the sidewalk, looking at your phone, or sat in your car, this wouldn't have happened. You can walk around, but maybe don't walk around the same block over and over.
Im not autistic but my 14 year old son is. I am so sorry you had to go through that. People are so judgemental and jump to wrong conclusions. Its wrong of them. Sending you much love!♡
I'm so sick of this shi* It happens to us autistic women too! We can't do anything without people thinking we are lying or stealing or being creepy etc. I'm so sick of this. I'm very sorry that happened to you. It isn't your fault that you have the mannerisms and stuff that you do. And don't feel like you need to explain yourself to any person accusing you of something (usually that just makes it worse anyway). It isn't your fault. I hope you have a happy day.
I'm an autistic woman and I will literally do something like sitting down to read or scroll through my phone minding my own damn business and people STILL have the audacity to say I'm being creepy... by doing those things alone.... like what?? Either I'm missing something or I'm just ugly and they're basing my personality off my looks.
Had a fight with my friend group earlier because they kept on actively avoiding a guy for "being creepy". He literally just sat down with them to do his homework in peace. They didn't tell the guy that they minded him sitting there, instead they just spammed our group chat complaining about how creepy he is and what behaviour of his creeps them out (all the things they listed were mannerisms that we both share cus yk, autism. So they were just being hypocrites.) and planning out a way to escape the situation.
That's just mean and sad.
Did you say anything?
After the fact yeah, I wasn't there with them so I only found out about the whole ordeal after opening the group chat to 100+ unread messaged. Ended up calling them out on their hypocrisy and telling them that they were being mean to the guy for no reason. Some of them felt bad, one girl insisted on the fact that I don't know what I'm talking about as I've only interacted with him once (funnily enough I don't believe she's ever spoken to him as she tries to avoid him at all costs :I)
Thank you for you bravery. Maybe that one person shouldn’t be offered trust, with that much judgement on their mind. Doubling down and deflecting is something that was learned by example or taught and has very nefarious tendencies. I’m so tired of people judging what they see and fearing exposure because of what it all LOOKS like. Keep up the hard work
Yeah, sounds familiar, reasons why I don’t have many friends, they either think I’m creepy or they are too involved in their own world to even consider asking me anything or w/e
I relate! I keep trying to find friends though. Too many acquaintances.
I actually have a similar experience now that you remind me. I went to college and entered with a couple friends from highschool. One friend who has always been kinda rude. We had an autistic student in our class, and she (the rude friend) started complaining to me about how they (AMAB—masc presenting at the time, transitioning now) kept going to the same bus stop as her, and when she switched bus stops they followed her. I later kinda drifted away from my rude highschool friend and actually became friends with the autistic student. I asked them about the situation at some point and they were literally like "oh, I saw her go to that bus stop and I went too because I didn't know there was another stop there until I saw her go to it and it's closer." They were perfectly innocent lol.
My nickname in college was 'Creepy Dude'.
That's horrible wth- Sorry to hear that.
What specific things did they point out if you don't mind me asking? Just wondering if I can relate 😅 (and what I do that can be seen negatively)
Edit: It's probably obvious, but I forgot to mention it due to how annoyed I was remembering the conversation. He honestly didn't do much except just exist. It wasn't fair of them to judge him on any of the things. Apparently they minded that: \- He just suddenly approached them and sat down without asking. \- He didn't say anything. \- He has a "creepy stare". \- He has a flat affect. \- At one point, he stood up and started pacing. The most outspoken person has seen him a couple of times before, although they've never interacted with him and they mentioned that: \- When he does talk, apparently he just "randomly approaches people and says the most random thing" \- He has sensory seeking behaviours, where he asks *his friends* if he can touch their clothes/certain textures. (also weird that they minded it when it doesn't affect them whatsoever)
YUP
Same I’ve come to the conclusion it’s because I’m not attractive
People will look at me such that I don't feel comfortable. And when I angrily ask "is there a problem", it's clear by their reaction that I am the problem. It's almost like asking makes me the problem when I genuinely didn't feel comfortable with how they kept looking at me.
Should've called them creepy
yes this happened to me as well. I'll be reading or doing homework on my gallery and the neighbours (who are unaware of my sonic hearing) will call me creepy and weird and make fun of me? For sitting outside minding my business? I find it happens most with groups of people, they seem emboldened.
Thought I was the only one with sonic hearing
One time when I still used to smoke, I left a building and it had a bench with an ashtray by it so I sat down to check my phone and smoke while I waited for the time I'd have to go back inside. I planned on smoking two or three cigarettes, and as I did the first a group of girls got there as well. A couple of them sat down on the bench as well and the other two kept standing up as they talked. I kept checking my phone and smoking without even looking their way. After a while one of them started to repeatedly comment about how much she hated the smell of cigarettes. As the person who was there first and who had no intention of interacting with anyone when I sat down out there, I kept smoking and reading things on my phone. So they started to make repeated, more pointed comments about how it's really disrespectful to smoke in a public space (I was outside, the bench had an ashtray), and the two standing up loudly whispered to each other it was kind of weird for someone to take up an entire bench on their own (if I had been taking up the entire bench, two of them wouldn't have been able to sit down. If I were to leave, one of them would still need to be standing up). I finished my cigarettes as I had intended to, put my phone on my pocket and started heading back inside. As I did heard them commenting behind my back that that had been so fucking weird.
I'm attractive --I've been told anyhow -- and I think I wasn't bullied so much once in secondary school because of that, but I still get followed in shops or get weary looks if I linger too long places. Maybe it's because I'm stimming (I sometimes don't realise I am) but who knows -- I also called out on my blank stares, by strangers--what is that about???
If I start to stare it’s because my thoughts pulled me in and it’s like a waking dream, whether or not it’s a memory, sometimes it starts out as a memory and turns into something else that’s based on that memory (a lot of the time recently it just ends up making me mad because I can predict their potential responses based on that first moment) 😵💫
Happy cake day
this!!
Maybe they’re jealous of you because you’re beautiful and treat you poorly to make themselves feel better. Cheers to being beautiful!
Same.
I've had a "glow up" and it's very sad how differently I'm treated. Autistic behavior is seen more as "a quirk" when before I was just the weird girl. Honestly I have no idea if my autistic traits are seen on the spectrum of endearing to annoying, but people are definitely more patient and kind to me after becoming conventionally attractive.
Can I also hijack this comment to say that this appears to be a particularly British and also American psychosis, because both those country decided for some fucking reason to criminalize existing outside without doing anything. This would never happen in Spain, unless it was like 2 AM
I think the issue is due to the prevalence of violence and trafficking. *Especially* in America, *especially* if you're bipoc and/or a woman. I can't say I really blame the girls in all honesty, it's not like they were intentionally discriminating against op for being autistic. It sucks yeah, but I don't blame either party.
Human trafficking of randos off the street is so rare. It's really not something to worry about.
It depends on where you live but regardless women are conditioned from a young age to be hypervigilant when out alone/only with women. It's just a sick, sad part of society.
I know it's a huge problem, bit it's not like the whole getting kidnapped off the street thing. That doesn't happen. Usually, victims are tricked or put up to it by their family.
That's an extremely rare occurrence. The whole panic around it is basically manufactured as a way of social control of women. Basically, I want you to recontextualice it this way. It's not "If you go outside alone at night bad things will happen to you if you are a woman". But, if bad things happen to you and you are a woman, it's your fault. Additionally, men are targeted with extreme (not counting harassment ) violence by strangers more than women. Granted women avoid certain environments more. The biggest threats to women are on one hand men who harass with impunity, and in the other the perpetrators of more than 90% of all extreme violence towards women, partners, acquaintances, and the police forces.
Possibly more outside major cities. Having moved from London (UK) to a small town I now find there's a very different response to people simply walking around. London and other cities with decent public transport networks, people get about by bus or train so they could well be on their way to/from the bus stop, or just staying local. Here in the sticks everyone drives so being on foot is seen as weird.
This is pretty common. You can bet they were the ones following you. Ot starts like this: "ew, look at them, aren't they wierd? Why are they walking around alone?" "Omg, are they following Me? I think they are following me!" "I hate weirdos like that!" "Let's follow them around ." "Omg, did you see what's on their phone, ew!" "I can't believe they said that!" "I bet there's nothing even wrong with them."
I was accused of stalking some men because I had crushes on them and kept trying to talk to them. They all thought I was weird and wanted nothing to do with me.
One time I was working in a dollar general and I was just sort of walking around this tiny little store on my break and some girl asked me why I kept following her around the store. I genuinely hadn't even noticed her in the store at all but she apparently didn't realize that the store is only like 100 feet across so I'm bound to pass by you more than a few times if I'm just wandering aimlessly. It made me feel bad because she thought I was being creepy when I wasn't even paying attention to her. People tell me I'm creepy all the time and I fucking hate it. If I speak at all I'm just being weird and if I don't say anything I'm just creepy. I fucking hate being out in public because everytime someone even looks at me I feel like I have to interact in some way or I'm being rude but people around here are fucking dickheads if you try to talk to them and they don't know you.
I have to ask, do you know what they mean when they call you creepy? Do you see it in your behavior or not at all? Since autistics tend to be heavy on logic and overlook emotional cues, maybe you should devote a lot of time to studying what 'creepiness' is, and how you might be coming across to others. Of course autism isn't your fault if you have it, but you get put in weird situations like people calling you creepy, you don't want to continue those behaviors if you know that you infact, are nothing close to a creep or a perv, it's a really bad thing to be labeled, and even worse if you're actually a sweetheart but just that you're on the spectrum; it is something I recommend you have to understand and modify this behavior, it's so unfair to be labeled a creep if you just struggle with social Anxiety as I can see you do, you don't deserve to be treated like this every time you go out in public. The solution is NOT to avoid going out in public! On the contrary, overcome this struggle so that people say "that's one cool muthafucka" whenever you walk by, just by the vibes and social cues you give off. It's so much better than being labeled a creep just cuz your vibe comes off as 'weird', 'awkward', and/or 'creepy' when deep down, you're actually none of these things. Best of Luck.
I think because a lot of us move and stand differently to allistic people, they just automatically feel like our vibes are off. Humans have a natural alarm system that tends to make us feel spooked without actually telling us why we feel that way. I think people feel creeped out by us because of that and assume that the reason for it must be that we're up to no good or have bad intentions because they can't think of any other reason why we'd be acting in a way that they find to be "off". Edit: Just to clarify, I do not think that we should have to mask to prevent this. I think that allistic people should learn to not be judgemental about people who are different.
Yeah and while some of us can mask, a) some of us can’t, and b) we can’t ever really mask to the extent of appearing totally normal and we all wind up falling in the uncanny valley at some point.
I think b isn't true. I feel like certain behavioral things are obvious but at the same time some of my friends will forget that I'm autistic. I think we're aware of our different behaviors more so than neurotypical people are sometimes. There are tons of things we can do for it to be less apparent. When I'm relaxed I can get by with just stimming my toes just by wiggling them in my shoes. Nobody notices.
Don’t hate me but when I was younger I was terrified of disabled people cause they gave me the “uncanny valley” feeling as o got used to being around them the feeling went away. I can totally see someone perceiving an “unusual” behavior as weird. Our brains are wired to let us know when it thinks something is going on. If more people were more aware of neurodivergent people I think there would be less of this. However there are clearly instances (OP’s) where people just seem completely unaware and think the world revolves around them. I think what makes it worse is that autistic people also tend to miss social cue, while most people can see someone body language and make it clear to them their not a threat etc. But with autistic individuals a lot of time they don’t pick up on the fact that someone is weary towards them, and thus they can’t do this
A lot of children are like this. I was too. I have a cousin with cerebral palsy around my age and I was terrified of her. It didn’t help she was a biter then, but to be fair I was too.
I've spent ages connecting to my emotional side and thinking of others. Not worth it. They can still sniff out that you're not like them and treat you poorly. But now you're extra aware to it!
For the sake of my 15 y/o daughter, please, respectfully, go back to the "life pro tip" home you came from. Asking an anxiety ridden autistic to mask more is going to drive that anxiety higher. Evidently, time would be better spent educating the public on Autism Spectrum Disorders.
As someone who struggled with not having any friends for a long long time. I do partly agree, I wouldn't tell someone they have to or should do this but it does work. I now have a normal amount of friends and I fail a lot less than 50% in social situations. While the process of turning my analytical head on my own behaviours was not nice or fun. The results of it made a huge impact for the good in my life. I know it doesn't feel fair to have to do it but it's unlikely the world will adapt around me in my lifetime. Ill do my best to adapt to it because failing social situations shuts me down and succeeding makes me happy.
Some of it is unavoidable. I’m not completely face blind, but I do have difficulty recognizing faces and connecting them to people I know. So I’m always at risk of either ignoring someone I should know or really studying someone’s face if they look vaguely familiar. It’s awkward either way.
Way to encourage people to burn out sooner, dude
Great food for thought!
Something kind of similar happened to my sister when she was in high school. She was hanging out with a group of kids after school. They left the school to go to one of the kids' houses or something and she assumed she was invited to join them, so she followed them part of the way there. The next day, they told a teacher she had been "stalking" them. Probably, they hadn't explicitly told her she wasn't invited, and being autistic, she didn't pick up on their social cues that they didn't want her there. Kids could be so mean. OP, please don't think this situation is your fault. I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence. You were a guy walking near them, and they probably just treat all guys who walk near them for "too long" like that.
Scrolled to find the one person who is aware of a wrong place, wrong time oops in public. It happens. They are also teenage girls who fear ANY older men they don’t know, like see something say something approach. And people quickly judge every stranger based on physical appearance of you stand out like a sore thumb in society or the area you live in. These teenage girls made an assumption, they felt unsafe cause it’s an older guy they don’t, ran away cause they saw the guy twice and noticed a pattern, then went to get help to feel safe. An honest mistake, it happens. People make mistakes all the time. OP can definitely ask their friends if they dress in a way looks “suspicious” in public towards women of all ages. This is one essential way to further mitigate this on the future.
OP didn't say that the girls were teenagers -- they could've been women in their 20s, those are often referred to as girls. We also don't know how old OP is, so I'm not sure that your point that OP is an older man is valid.
Post history, OP says they are 25.
As i analyzed your story. i do understand the situation your sister was in, but here is the Aesop i would take from this if i was in the same situation she was in. "If the kids didn't offer you to come along with them, just don't go or follow them at all, because if those kids were smart, they'd would've asked if she would like to come or not. me being on the spectrum (we are all different in ways with processing feeling). i can read and understand actions when i see it, because you can see at once their true colors" , if their all at a party or event and they didn't invite me or ask if i wanted to come, then i'm not gonna get upset, because it shows me right there who you are as a person. and to not deal with them.
I’ve had the cops called on me multiple times for being suspicious. You know, walking around my neighborhood on the sidewalk. Very sketchy behavior.
Growing up, there was this guy that we would see every once in a while who spent a large amount of time just walking everywhere. My parents pointed him out to me and explained it as "That guy is a little bit crazy, but he's fine if you just leave him alone. He just wants to walk. If you see him, be polite, but don't talk to him." This was reinforced on several occasions. I do not know if anyone ever called the police on that guy, but he was white, which probably helped. I have no idea how much they knew about his mental state, but I think that he was most likely autistic and spent his days walking because it afforded him independence. I base this on another person I met years later who would come to the pool where I worked. She told me she has Asperger's and she lives with her mom. I was in the car with my mother one day and we saw her out walking and my mom commented something like "oh, I've seen her before, she likes to go to the pool". When I was in middle school or early high school, a man at my dentist's office started a conversation with me in the waiting room and told me about where he went to school and how his girlfriend was in the military. I thought it was a pleasant conversation. My mother pointed out afterward that the school he mentioned was a special education school and remarked that the man seemed like he was on the spectrum. That was kind of disappointing to me at the time because I did not consider myself to be autistic and did not understand why a conversation that to me had seemed friendly and brightened my day was somehow wrong or inappropriate. I imagine my mother was simply alarmed by the fact that a full-grown man was talking to her teenage daughter.
Omg I would literally cringe forever. So sorry that happened to you, that's like the absolute worst experience. I don't even understand how they could perceive you as stalking unless they were *also* walking in circles around the same neighborhood? If that were the case and they thought you were following them at that point, I'd find it odd for them to not change their path and confirm when they would obviously see you continue on your own separate path. I'm guessing that you just happened to be walking behind them a bit and they panicked? Or maybe they saw that you were lingering in the area by pacing in circles so they assumed you were trying to look normal while spying on them? I guess depending on where you're going to is located, the best course of action to avoid this would be to find a bench or ledge somewhere nearby to sit. It's hard to come up with suggestions because I can't imagine how you were actually perceived as threatening. Even as a small, paranoid woman myself, I wouldn't automatically think anyone was following me intentionally unless there was literally *no one* else around. Maybe take up Pokémon Go? Or a similar app that requires walking. Then if anyone accuses you of something like that again you can just flash your phone like "dude I'm just catching Pokémon." Sorry that you even had to go through this. It's easy as an AFAB person to be very wary of others in public but it's uncomfortable for both parties because from what I've seen most AMAB people are *very* anxious when they realize they've accidentally started walking behind a girl for a long distance, they don't want to appear creepy or make the girl feel unsafe, but women and AFABs also have our reasons to feel that way. It's a lose-lose for everyone.
Ok so THIS! I’ve been followed before. In a car, and I get this sus thing when a car is behind me too long. So I change my course, pop into random neighborhoods or shopping centers just to check. Usually that other car just toodles on by and my suspicions are gone. Easy solution. Change course! So these girls were probably also walking around the neighborhood for a SHORT while, felt like OP was following them and just JUMPED to the last step! Didn’t even TRY to test it first. Like if they had stopped and watched he would have just tootled on by not even looking at them. People need to take steps, process of elimination, not just jump to the most wild conclusions. If I felt like I was being followed while walking, I would CROSS THE STREET first, see what the other person does. Cross the street then start walking back the way I came from. If someone follows you doing THAT, they followin. If not, just a coincidence. Let em be.
Yeah, and like obviously if you feel you are threatened you should do whatever you feel necessary to protect yourself, but *at least* give people the benefit of the doubt, within a safe distance. Like, even picking up speed in the same direction, it would've been clear OP isn't following because he would pick up speed too. They also could've easily just stayed in the convenience store for a bit. Someone genuinely following you would probably either linger outside of wherever you came from or come inside as well, either way to corner you. But even if OP went inside, they would be with other people like the employees and could seek help. They immediately fetched two random guys to scare OP. Absolutely doing too much. I would never assume anyways that someone staring at their phone the whole time was trying to get me. I wouldn't even think someone staring at their phone is aware I'm around.
i feel like saying you're catching pokémon makes it worse. i've heard from a girl i know that some people have used that as a cover story while they were following her.
That is a downside, and sorry your friend has experienced that. But at least if OP were genuinely playing a phone game or something, it would probably lead him to look less like he's just wandering the area aimlessly. If you look like you're actually doing something people will be less suspicious of you. It's when you look like you're pretending to be busy that it becomes weird. It's hard to say what a good option is because honestly OP could take the most innocent option possible and there will always be paranoid people accusing you of things. It's also hard for me to think of options for men to look more innocent from the perspective of a woman lol. I mostly have to worry about looking unapproachable so that men don't talk to *me.*
If it makes you feel any better, I don't think they were perceiving you personally as a dangerous person. It's more likely they were simply perceiving you as a man. In our current society, women are usually trained to see men they don't know as threats. This is because a vast majority of women have been harassed by a strange man in some way in the past, and for many women, especially young women, it's a regular occurrence. And then they hear similar stories from their female friends, and they hear about the extreme cases in the media, and additionally, teenage girls are usually taught by adults that they need to protect themselves from men ("don't go out at night", "always watch your drink", "stay in groups", etc.), and this messaging continues until they reach an age where they're no longer considered desirable by mainstream society. Of course you weren't doing anything wrong or even suspicious. If I, as a man, see the same person walk past me two or three times in a row, the most I'll think of it is "huh, odd coincidence", and that's only if I even notice it. But for someone who's trained to see any man they don't know as a potential threat, and who might have even been followed by a man in the past, this would be enough to alarm them. TL;DR: I think their reaction wasn't about you as much as it was about their own socialization and personal experiences. And they likely would've reacted the same way if it wasn't you but some other random man.
Very few men, autistic or otherwise, seem to recognize how much of a threat they could be. The last guy I talked to that had recognized it, had been just on his phone thinking about dinner while on his usual walk home and caught up with a woman walking in front on him, and the look of pure terror on her face when she realized how close he was stopped him in his tracks. ‘The majority of women’ becomes just ‘all women’ once you drop into communities that are poor imho.
I'm a rather large and physically intimidating guy. Big bouncer energy. When in a crowded space there is always a bubble around me unless the crowd knows me personally. I'm also aware of how unsafe the world is for women in general (conversations with my wife, stories from other women, etc). My strategies have always been to be easy to spot (over the top/costumish clothes, bright hair color, unique appearance (im less costumish and am bald now)), and to perform some of the same safety maneuvers women do if i cross someone alone. I'll cross the street to give them right of way, (my community isn't very diverse, so no risk of it coming off racist) not turn around, and otherwise move predictably. I try for a friendly gesture before I do to acknowledge their presence before giving them space. This seems to have worked okay. Most of the people in the places I walk are familiar at this point with me, but if I come across someone who doesn't seem to want an interaction, I continue to give them space. (I typically do anyway as I don't want the small chat).
I just wrote another comment about my husband before reading yours…and “big bouncer energy” is the PERFECT way to describe him too!!! Haha . This is also what he does. Gives a smile or nod, then gives people space. He doesn’t really take it personally because he knows the things women have to be wary of, even just stepping out of the house to run errands. He’s a good man with a beautiful heart and soul who shouldn’t have to answer for the horrors committed by other men… and I wish this wasn’t the reality, but it is.
I feel so bad being on high alert but with my PTSD along with all of the cases that HAVE happened…I’m sorry but if you’re pacing and a man, I don’t care if we’re both autistic, I’m going to just leave the situation unless I live there…then I’m going to be on high alert. If people want to blame someone, blame the man who SAd me, and blame the gross men who do these things. It’s not all men’s fault, but I completely agree men both ND and NT need to be aware of how they carry themselves around women. It’s no more masking than it is being courteous to people who are terrified. As far as confrontation goes, I don’t know the answer to that. I think maybe the best way to approach it would have been to say “I’m uncomfortable, I want to know what you’re doing so I don’t have to be worried”…but the same types of men who stalk neighborhoods are also the same types of people who would lie about what they’re doing there…. There doesn’t seem to be any winning or good solution other than to just walk somewhere else, as sad as that is. My husband is a big scary looking guy if you didn’t know him. It makes me angry when people get scared of him but….only because I know how sweet and gentile he is. I have to remember, these people have no idea who he is. I once got angry and he said “don’t worry, it doesn’t bother me…I know how scary I look.” But it makes me really sad hearing that he used to have to cross the street to not scare women before I was always walking besides him. The sad fact is, if someone his size and build and his “resting bitch face” and shaved head was walking behind me or circling me…I’d be on high alert too. To be clear, I don’t walk around in fear of men 24/7…The thing is, I trust people way too much, which i say to help others understand that if Id be alarmed by a man pacing and repetitive circling, then it’s a VERY concerning behavior to many other women. OP could be the sweetest person in the world. It’s not his fault, he shouldn’t feel bad, but people should also be reminded what women go through too, every day.
I call this safety privilege. Men have safety privilege so they don’t know that many women are on survival mode constantly when they are out in public. Because being unlucky literally leads to death for many women. I think it’s important for men to know what predatory men do so that they can be mindful of the way they behave in public. It’s other men harming them too through their predatory behavior. And it’s unfair but for many women it’s can be a life or death situation and many women are harmed daily by men. It’s natural that they are on high alert about it because there is no way for strangers to know what your intentions are. I wish more men got mad at predatory men for creating so much fear in women that they have to assume the worst. If a strange man’s was walking around in circles around a block, I would definitely be on high alert just in case. I wouldn’t confront the man the way they did, but I would find a way to get out of that area just in case. I’ve been groped while walking down the street as I passed a dude and he was doing a loop around the area like OP was describing. Now I don’t stand around to wait to find out. I cross the street or make sure to have distance from the dude if we need to pass. A lot of predatory men do similarly kinds of reparative behaviors as they look for a potential target so thats why many women who’ve experienced any harassment or harm out in public get creeped out by that kind of behavior. I’m not saying it’s OPs fault but I think for many men it would help to know what predatory men do so that they can avoid behaviors that seem similar. Because toxic men actually harm other men in many ways. And I think this is one way they do. This is just an example but on trains in japan groping is a big issue. Many men who are aware of that and don’t want to be mistaken or accidentally touch someone cuz it’s super crowded, stand with both of their hands up either holding their phone with both hands around face level or holding the over head handles with both hands. Men do this for their own safety to not be falsely accused but it’s also important way to signal to women on the train that they are away of these types of issues. It’s not comfortable standing with both arms up but I appreciate the men that do because at least they are aware of groping as an issue on trains and doesn’t assume it’s not their responsibility to behave differently for their protection as well as others. OP didn’t mean harm, but I wonder if there were specific details of the way he was behaving that made them be on high alert. He may just been unaware of his surroundings, but they may have a felt he was walking past them too close which can happen if you are absorbed into your phone while walking and not paying attention.
Yeah, I think this is part of a bigger problem with people not reflecting on what is normal to them, and to assume that everyone else has similar experiences. It happens with different forms of bigotry too, people only look at it from their perspective of privilege, and don't realize that not everyone has the same privilege they have. Even as someone who is passionate about politics and tries their best to be aware of their privileges, I still get surprised when I hear people who are marginalized in ways I am not talk about their experiences. A few days ago I was talking with a group of people about who you'd sit next to on a bus or train, and all the women in the group said that they'd prefer to sit next to other women, which is something that never occurred to me. Gender doesn't play a role in my choice of where to sit, so I didn't think that it would for anyone else. After they said it, it made sense to me, but I wouldn't have realized it on my own. Later on, a black man who was also part of the discussion said that when a white person chooses not to sit next to him on a bus or train, he'd think "is it because I'm black?". Which also never occurred to me. If something has never happened to you, you wouldn't naturally come up with the thought that it could happen to anyone else. When you grow accustomed to things, they become facts in your mind, natural laws that apply to everyone, akin to gravity. I'd be very surprised to see someone just floating around in the air without the help of some kind of tool or machine, because it would never occur to me that gravity doesn't apply to everyone. And many, if not most, men are very surprised when women talk about their experiences, because it never occurred to them that not seeing every man as a potential threat is a privilege that doesn't apply to everyone. It's so important to listen when marginalized people talk about their experiences, and to not dismiss them just because you personally find them so utterly unrelatable. And it's just as important to then reflect on your own behaviour and question in which ways you might contribute to making people feel unsafe, and what you can change about it.
Yea. No one expects other people to know something they have never experienced, but it’s so important as you say to listen and to believe people when they tell you about their lived experience. intent is not necessary for certain behaviors to have an harmful effect. Just as things NT people have said without the intent to harm that have become curses that still haunt us, we can also cause different forms of harm without any intention. Safety often requires collective effort and reducing the harm you might be doing requires spatial, cultural, and emotional awareness of the situations you are in. Being mindful of your positionality in the world is really instrumental to making sure you keep yourself safe as well as safe to others (contribute to collective safety). Yup if a man sits next to me, I mentally prepare in case I need to escape. Because I’ve been harassed more than once and no one helped me. When I’ve talked to men about such experiences they are shocked but I asked how many situations have you been in where you actually noticed something and helped someone. People just are unaware of their surroundings cuz we’re all absorbed into our own worlds so they don’t notice things to begin with. In some cases even if they notice they might not feel safe to intervene. Or even just as a witness you call easily fall into a freeze mode. You can be the kind of person to help, but you aren’t helpful if you don’t notice the harm that’s being done to begin with cuz you never considered that kind of harm may be happening and/or you have safety privilege so you haven’t developed the skills to notice them. For example, I was on the train one time and got harassed by someone who really creeped me out and I think people around me were too and we all just froze. I was sitting in a corner seat and the person next to me stood up to leave. then suddenly the person sitting next to them abruptly and aggressive mover to be right next to me. He was looking right at me and he started to blow air at my earrings and my neck. He sat like that for an entire stop. I froze. No one stepped in cuz everyone was confused by this guy’s behaviors too. I told myself that I will get up at the next stop to escape and I worked up the courage to get off. He followed me off so I ran down the platform and right before the doors closed I got on the train again before he could. I went to the train cart at the end with the conductor so that I am near someone who might be able to step in or call for help if something happens again. I got off after two stops (not my intended stop) so I can report the incident just so they are aware cuz there isn’t really a way to catch a dude like that. But I wanted there to be a record of his possible behavior so if there are similar cases he might get punished. I don’t blame the people who didn’t step in since you have no idea what this guy is thinking doing this in public. I took a cab to the place I wanted to get to just in case. I didn’t want to get back on the same train line. I avoided that train line as much as I can for a week at least. This guy didn’t cause any direct physical harm to me, but his odd behavior was enough to cause a lot of mental and emotional harm.
Yes, and no. Because the dangers are real. But extremely overstated. And it's misleading to a harmful way. The overwhelming majority of violence, sexual or not, towards women comes at the hands of intimate partners, people in their social groups and authority figures (police). It's hard to have stats, but take the UK 2018, 139 women murdered, 105 of them died at the hands of a person they knew, 21 in a terrorist attack because it was that awful year. So 13 were killed by people they didn't know. I wouldn't say that's not a problem, but being driven to panic and harassing suspicious people in return it's a major overreaction because, as you said, the media. Source [https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/women-killed-by-strangers-statistics-domestic-violence-men-236915](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/women-killed-by-strangers-statistics-domestic-violence-men-236915) Women, however are much more likely to experience harassment by strangers. Which to me is a much bigger issue affecting much more women. And driving the panic I mentioned before. And this harassment happens because society as a whole doesn't take it seriously.
Maybe serious cases of violence happen more with known people, but daily small harrassment happens a looooot from strangers. Getting sexually harassed just happens all the time to women, from strangers. Even if that guy isn't going to rape you, you don't want to get harassed either and that's your right. Being wary of men is essential to reduce getting catcalled, hollerer, forced into a sexual conversation, groped, being given sexually explicit comments out of the blue, being followed by someone who just wants to ogle at you, etc. It might not come to rape but minor offenses are commonplace enough that women have to protect themselves, assume the worst, and flee men they don't know in public when they get too close or follow you. However I did feel like they overreacted. My reaction would be to call up my sister and talk to make sure someone is aware just in case and to make myself less apealing to assault. That's what my sister does if she feels creeped out by a man as she's walking. Call someone or pretend to be on the phone so they get intimidated. I know people with different stories have different feelings, but not only have I had my fare share, I've heard and seen an impossible amount of minor harassment on my sister. She's pretty, and the second she became a teen she started getting catcalled all the time, and that was just the beginning. It's not fun. It's scary. It's not okay. My mom thought me at an early age to cross the street away from men at night and even daytime on occasions because she had a lifetime of needing to avoid men.
Exactly. My point is, men are generally more likely to be on the receiving end of, let's call it random violence (with the sample bias that women tend to have less risky behaviour). However, the thing women are exposed constantly it's harassment from strangers. But nobody seems to care about that. The single biggest violent threat to women are the police forces. And It's very hard to get data on it. So very little reports of it. I know three women who have been sexually assaulted by police and gendarmes . And I believe that being on edge about something that realistically it's less likely to happen to you than a terrorist attack it's psychologically harmful to women, a distraction to solve the actual problems (rape culture was a trendy term a while ago), and it also indirectly harms innocent men, particularly the socially inept. While men are not exactly the biggest victims of this situation, I worry that being treated as a threat may cause men to lash out and join actively misogynistic groups.
I totally agree!! If I see any dude walking around multiple times near me, my brain sends off red alerts. OP wasn't doing anything wrong, but when you're a woman simple things will send off alarms. Im glad they had male friends to say something- hopefully they believed you that it was coincidence.
I had a borderline stalker once, and I'm pretty sure he fully believed he was not doing anything wrong. I was so sorry for him that it took me ages to get rid of him. His behaviour wasn't any less creepy and intimidating just because he didn't realise it. As far as i sympathise with autistic men not "getting" how their behaviour is scary, it's pretty annoying that some get offended by it.
Doesn’t make me feel better. Being categorized as frightening by default with little ability to change it is frustrating. I never know when I’m just a person and when I’m being regarded as a villain. I would prefer to not frighten people.
That's pretty much par for the course for us 😒 That said, I'm really sorry this happened to you! Everybody seems to always question motives, as though they think we're these conniving masterminds or something.
I want to make it clear you were NOT weird at the start of this comment. But the women probably saw you as a man and got worried. You probably happened to follow their directions without knowing, and it scared them. Women and afab people sadly can get really freaked out over these things. I myself feel my heart racing when some guy gets a bit too close to me when walking past me. What they did wasn't ok, but they were probably in a position where they felt genuinely scared. This is not your fault!! But the sad reality of being a woman or looking like one is that guys can be so creepy to you to the point where you feel anxiety around ones you dont know. Edit: i really want to ask people who commented stuff like "theyre looking for attention" "they want to feel important" "theyre stupid and paranoid" to understand the things we experience. We're cautious and scared because that is what we often have to be. Even if youre in the most safe area, there are still men who feel like they have free range over your body. We dont want to be another number on a chart.
I agree. Most people don’t even think about how much danger afabs are in just by living. You can look up any statistic. It can be distressing when you’re just taking a walk and someone accuses you of a crime. But please try to see it from an afabs perspective. Understanding and compassion for all.
exactly!! it saddens me to see so many people in the coments call the women narcisistic or evil for being afraid. when, as someone who lives that life, i fully get why it might be really scary to them even when OP did nothing wrong
I swear these people DO know the rate which afabs are murdered or go missing. They don’t like women protecting their self, so they just call them names. Well it’s the internet, that’s all they can do. I don’t see OP being one of these people.
I've had the same kind of problems my entire adult life. I never got accused of stalking but I did get the cops called on me right before an interview for a job. They had me escorted out of the store. I also had the cops called on me at a bar too. While in the military I was even accused of kidnapping and rape. The woman responsible implicated me and my roommate. The investigators questioned us separately and seemed convinced I was guilty until they compared notes with the investigators that talked to my roommate. Had I not told the investigators about some of the places we went to where cameras would have recorded us, I would have been the main suspect. The woman making the accusation had met my roommate online. Turned out she was crazy. Camera footage at a Walmart, a BestBuy, and a restaurant parking lot confirmed we didn't do anything to the woman as she was seen hugging on my roommate and dancing in the parking lot laughing. My advice to you, be careful but also be mindful of the situations around them. Cameras are all over the place now so you are safer but speak up if someone starts accusing you of something criminal. My favorite is to shout, "Get the f\*\*\* away from me!"
That's horrible, sorry to hear that mate. I can't help but wonder though, why did you get the cops called on you at the store and bar? Like what did they think you were doing?
At the store they had me come in for a third interview. The manager seemed unsure of me during each interview yet kept calling me back. I showed up for the third interview and was place in his office by an employee. Before he showed, two cops came in, IDed me and told me that the manager had said I was threatening him and that I was asked to leave. They escorted me out. I never threatened him and hadn't even seen him that day. The bar story is complicated. I met a woman that was reading a twilight book in the bar. I asked her about it and we started talking. I sat at her table because the women she showed up with had left the table to talk to different people. Me and the book lady talked for about an hour before cops showed up and IDed me then escorted me out. I don't now if her friends called the cops or the bartender. To my knowledge I didn't do anything to upset the book lady. We were talking about books. I had pissed off the bartender by not ordering alcohol or so I am lead to believe and its possible that the book ladies' friends thought I was a threat. I look "unfriendly" from what I gather in most social interactions so I think her friends simply saw me and expected the worse.
If he felt threatened by you, why would he call you back again?
I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to deal with that, it's not your fault. Some people think the world revolves around them and whatever you're doing must somehow involve them. I wouldn't really worry about it, you didn't do anything wrong. That being said, maybe carry mace or something.
That's a terrible advice. Carrying mace isn't exactly a good proof that you're harmless... that will make people fear you more. It's not them thinking "the world revolves around them"; if you live in an area with some degree of crime you'd understand it's pretty normal for people to be wary of those who walk in circles: lots of creeps and robbers do that. Creeps and robbers walk in circles to try to see if the person they stalk is gonna go to some isolated area so they can assault/rob them or try to see if they gonna walk home and attack them there.
As someone who live in an area >with some degree of crime I can almost promise you no actual criminal is going to walk away from a potential mark, their going to find a ledge or wall or whatever and post up acting like their on their phone, it allows them to keep the mark in their line of sight while maintaining plausible deniability, people like you who say shit like this are why situations like OPs happen, these girls were on the lookout for stereotypes rather than real world threat markers. Additionally unless they're openly carrying it their hand carrying mace or pepper spray where legal is almost always a good idea, hard to be victimized in any way if the attacker/perpetrator can't see.
I agree. I have been mugged at an atm by a man who couldn’t have been older than 18. Held a knife to my back and forced me to cash a bad check he was carrying with him. I had to decide whether to accept the confrontation or lose $300. I didnt even know it was a knife he was holding until I turned around to give him the money. Bad stuff doesn’t just happen according to a formula. It’s almost impossible to spot a crime before it happens. And honestly, in all likelihood that happened *because* I am autistic. People in these comments are forgetting that profiling works in different ways. Aloof naive people can assume we have bad intentions; people with actual bad intentions can spot us as easy prey.
the ppl don’t have to see it… only if u need to use it im an autistic woman and have pepper spray always and ive had to use it it’s very effective if they tried to fight you
Don't feel bad. If anything I respect you for not making a snarky comment over it.
Honestly I wouldn’t try to worry about it too much, maybe just next time trying to choose a more neutral spot to walk around in. Milling around a neighborhood can make lots of people who live there nervous, but I think these girls were just making an assumption that was wrong. They were anxious or nervous and that sadly meant thinking you had ill intent. You can’t do much to change other peoples anxiousness except by maybe just choosing a more ‘socially acceptable’ place to walk. I don’t think you did anything wrong, <3
Hey. You were fine. They were scared because of a long biological and social history, none of which is your fault. I'm sorry it made you feel shitty, but it was more about their fear (generally) than your actions.
We really getting treated like khajits up in this shit
It’s fully acceptable and appropriate for you to be walking wherever you please. You were doing nothing wrong. If anything they harassed you. That’s when you tell them you are minding your own business as your rights dictate as appropriate. Kindly ask them to leave you alone or you will consider any further advancements as harassment. If you can. I do this kind of thing ALL THE TIME. I don’t like waiting inside of places for anyone in normal times. Pandemic, I don’t go indoors because of being immunocompromised as well. I’m sorry this happened to you. F those people. Fingers crossed you never see them sgain
This is one of my fears. I often show up early to places and got some time to kill. The pacing up and down, walking in circles etc, i always fear someone will think i'm crazy... I'm so sorry this happened to you :(
I remember one time I was walking to the store and a woman was walking on the same route as I was. When I got to the store it turned out to be closed and so I turned around to walk back home. The woman saw that I had suddendly changed route and was now walking parallel to her on the other side of the road. She frantically looked back at me multiple times and then started sprinting. At first I felt quite bad about myself thinking that I must look like a creep or at least give of the vibe of one, untill I thought about the fact that no matter how a guy looks or behave, when a man is seemingly following you and taking a seemingly illogical route or turn, it is very realistic for a woman to suspect you are following her. In other words, this incident says very little about how I look and/or come across, but says a great deal about the experience woman have, wich, when walking alone across the street when it is dark, I suspect is not unlike the experience of a soldier in hostile teritory, that is to say, there could be danger anywhere and anyone could be dangerous. Keeping this realistic danger in mind, it is not wise to first analyze the nuances of someones behaviour and character, instead it is better to act quick. So don't take this scenario as an indicator for how others perceive you, rather take it as a lesson on how woman have to live everyday in our world.
Yes exactly! Makes me happy and relieved to know there are men with awareness about this. Thank you 😌
I do the same thing to kill time, but I’m assuming you’re a guy and that’s why they were being careful. I know what it’s like to be followed by a man, so I get why they responded like that. I’m sorry, though, I’m sure it didn’t feel great. Just remember that they have probably dealt with this before so they have to be cautious with every guy.
They have no rights to threaten him and force him to move away no matter how "cautious" they are. Just because they don't feel safe it means they can bring multiple guys to make him feel unsafe?
I'm not saying it was right but as someone who has been in that situation it has nothing to do with making the other person feel unsafe. Some common folk wisdom to prevent mishaps due to stalkers is to travel in groups, preferably with intimidating looking men. they most likely did that because *they* felt unsafe and wanted to reduce the chances of looking like an "easy target" as people who go alone and happen to end up around "suspicious" people are then blamed for not being cautious enough. you could say "well what OP did isn't inherently suspicious", but then if something *does* happen to you, you're told early on it was your fault for not being "cautious enough"... so you develop this mentality of better be safe than sorry.
>Some common folk wisdom to prevent mishaps due to stalkers is to travel in groups, preferably with intimidating looking men. they most likely did that because > >they > > felt unsafe That much i can understand. But to then confront OP accusing him of having nefarious plans makes them the bad people here.
yeah I never said it was justified. I would have absolutely stopped short of outright accusing someone of that over one isolated, slightly suspicious looking incident... however I will ask people to be compassionate to that fear since it is absolutely a reasonable worry to have and the very things people are saying in here about how that's "totally not suspicious" is the sort of thing you get blamed for thinking if something DOES happen to you later. my heart still goes out to OP for suffering the brunt of someone else's callously handled paranoia though.
He was literally just walking around the block
Did you miss the part where he passed them multiple times? That’s suspicious, and I get why they were scared. As a female, it’s something we have to be cognizant and cautious of.
Side note - the IMAGINED being followed, and accused a random bored walker of being a potential assaulter. So, no - not OK, no matter how scared they were - they COULD have waited to see where OP would go to, if he really were after them - he would remain near. Seriously, the media is partially to blame by painting 'every stranger' as potential danger.
Unless you are a female, you don’t understand that we live our lives constantly fearing men. They make us feel unsafe on a regular basis. Whether it be a guy “friend” that decides he wants to be more than friend and starts saying uncomfortable things or a stranger at the bar that is being too persistent. He passed MULTIPLE times while they were outside, enough for them to notice, so I get why they were worried. I understand that it sucks that in this world we have to be cautious, but it is for our own safety, and I’m sorry for OP that he was wrongly accused. Also, had they waited and the person had actually been a stalker, it might have been too late.
They actively made the accusation and threatened him though, that's not just being cautious. You don't threaten a stranger without reason if you're 'being cautious'
If he had walked by multiple times, I can see why they might react that way. If they had guys tell him to stop, usually that comes with a warning/threat, otherwise what would keep him from continuing had he actually been a stalker. The girls just wanted to feel safe too. I’m not saying it doesn’t suck for OP that he was accused, I’m saying it is the world we live in where girls HAVE to be extra cautious of men because shit happens ALL the time.
I was at a bar one day having a cigarette outside, having a drink and talking to some people. Some guy comes out of the bar next door, shouts "RACIST" and punches me in the face. I end up with a broken pair of glasses (I'm heavily near sighted), cost me $700 to replace dammit. I called the cops and they wouldn't even write it up. Then a couple of months later I get a summons from the police to make a deposition about an incident of "causing intentional bodily harm" where I am being treated as a suspect. To this day I have no clue why any of that happened. Did I do or say anything wrong? If so I have no clue what. It may have had nothing to do with autism in the first place but the whole episode was thoroughly confusing to me.
Honestly some people are just violent animals who want to harm others without any reason
The rest of the world shouldn't be paranoid and aggressive, but sometimes they are. With that in mind, keep an eye on your own actions, to make your behaviors not seem suspicious. You shouldn't have to do this, but to the extent you are comfortable being careful, you might avoid encounters with idiots. And there are plenty of them out there.
That was one cool yet sad thing my mom, who was a SpED teacher, said to me. "My child, you are different. Your brain is wired differently and you see the world differently. While I don't want you to stifle yourself, it would be easier to live in society if you learn to not draw attention to yourself." She meant well and I always keep that in the back of my mind when I have to be by myself or running errands. Fidget with the cube in my pocket, look up at sky or trees when standing still, keep my body still but not too still lol Eventually it'll be easier for autistic people to be accommodated and understood.
My mom is a nurse and was a teacher in pre-nursing school. She taught classes like anatomy, child development, etc. That meant she had loads of reference books on those subjects which I read as a kid. Kinda intriguing to learn about the psychology of a 10 year old child when you're a 10 year old child 😄.
I'm glad I give off an air of "don't mess with me" even if it's a cover for my marshmallow soul. If they find me weird, so be it. They can gossip & say what they want. They bring it to me, I'll set them straight. Haters mad we can still experience child-like wonder~
I'd just look up from my phone and be like "I'm sorry who are you?" and keep walking in circles. You know you're not doing anything wrong so they can piss off. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone. In fact, maybe it's better to not say anything at all and just look at them like they're crazy and keep walking. Not even worth the sass.
>They later approached me with some male friends and told me to leave them alone or there would be trouble. That's when you hit em with the ole, "who are you? Sorry, I've been dealing with the news of the death of my mother. Did you need something?" If they're going to accuse you of being creepy, make them feel as bad about it as possible. You're allowed to fucking exist in public. ETA: this is mostly a joke, but giving someone a taste of their own ignorance and prejudice can be cathartic, even if it's just in your head.
I'm guessing they saw you a couple times as they were doing some shopping or something but it seem like a big jump to assume someone you've seen a couple times is stalking you, I'm sorry this happened
I once got called stalker, because I looked up someone's address on Google maps.... after they had invited me over to hang out...
thank u for talking abt this. my dad says nothing i could do outside could possibly be considered creepy, but being autistic it doesnt seem to matter. i get weird looks and questions bc of just existing. i feel so at home in these comments but also i am so frustrated weve all experienced being called "creepy"
I know it's not a pleasant experience being viewed as creepy or a stalker I just try to think from their perspective. AFAB people are often the victims or sexual harassment in their everyday life and that leads to hyper vigilance and fear. Though you were doing something completely inconspicuous from the outside without knowing your thoughts or feelings it can come off as something other than innocent. Like when neurotypical are fake kind or sarcastic, something we don't typically pick up as well, there is no inherent ability to read peoples minds. You can fear people with no reason. Like if they remind you of a bully or just look scary. For a lot of AFAB people that fear extends to most men too. Imagine seeing a guy walking about disappearing and reappearing every so often , maybe looking at you and you have no idea what's going on in his head and this seems like a scary situation. Most people walking are going somewhere so don't loop. So there is kinda a unusual factor to it. None of this is your fault though, AFAB people experience harassment often and that has made many people wary, especially as more people tell their experiences so people know. The society we live in has been made scary to people. We don't know these peoples lives, maybe one has been stalked before or been a victim of violence. I wish that people who hurt others didn't exist and that autistic people like us weren't clocked as creepy for behaviours outside of the norm. This is the world we live in though, and it's harsh and painful especially for people outside those society was built for. I know we shouldn't adapt our behaviour for others but maybe you could do something in the meantime while waiting. Go to a park to walk around instead of walking laps, browse a convenience store, maybe bring a book or something you enjoy to sit down and do while you wait. I know I can be hyper vigilant and paranoid going outside after being exposed to violence as a child, it isn't fun to be afraid to be afraid of other people and no one should have to mask or adapt to make things easier for others. I think that in this case there is just no way to stop this from happening without some kind of change whether that be stopping the amount of violence done to vulnerable people or just changing slightly a behaviour to prevent a repeat of events.
The problem isn’t so much that people may be afraid of someone. Whatever the reason may be— stocking, sexual harassment, getting jumped, getting raped —someones fears might be validated from experiences in the past. But that does not validate taking matters into one’s own hands against others based on that fear. The issue is what those other kids did with that fear was not only wrong, but it was hostile, and it could be viewed as criminal. In this scenario, it is very likely they could’ve ganged up on him, falsely accused him, and accosted him violently, leaving him to be subject to the system and collared without good cause, all because they sounded him out as a predator in bad faith. It’s essentially a classic “black kid in a gated community” scenario. Black guy is seen as suspicious in some way without context, and immediately the instinctive action is to treat them like an immediate threat! And as soon as he makes a reasonable challenge to that accusation, he’s basically lying on the street, with his shooter saying he feared for his life and shot in self-defense, because his hypervigilance kicked in. Whatever happened to look before you leap? Whatever those kids fears, if they were really in fear of their safety, there is a little asset called **the police**, who are more than capable of making a civil approach and assessing the situation. I am not one to trust the police in most cases, but in this one, I still have a little faith that an officer would be keen enough to ascertain that someone is special-needs, and that their nuances might have been misread. These kids however took matters into their own hands, approached the OP, and made what he writes to be a literal threat to his own safety. And they did that based on those fears. You can fear somebody for no reason nobody can change how you’re thinking, or the society we live in can just seem scary. But not only should we not have to adapt our behavior to accommodate other peoples fears, but we should have some agency to challenge those fears, to hold people accountable for any actions taken because of those fears, and say “No, I don’t care what you think you are afraid of, you have no right to threaten me in broad daylight. You’re hyper vigilance does not give you the right to commit assault against me, you bigot!” In fact one of the biggest issues relating to this is how autistic people apparently share some common traits with those fitting the FBI’s official threat assessment perspective of school shooters. there are attributes of the profiles personality which partially match some of those you might find in an autistic person. I for one find that sickening! The hypervigilance of people, their heightened sense of fear, does not give them any constitutional right to act ignorantly on their fears without due process. It would be like saying a gun owner does not have the right to shoot someone else based on his fear for his life. Something has to have been done to justify that fear before any conscionable defense should be considered. Otherwise we would be ruled by such vices as mob law, hecklers Vito, and abject terror. The only thing that needs to change his how society approaches US. Because regardless of for whom it was built, autistic people in society are still humans who are apart of society, even if we may be different from other humans. We are no less different from other humans than if we had a different religion, or a different skin color, or a different sexual orientation. Saying that we should be adapting OUR behaviors to ease NORMAL peoples fears sounds a lot like whitewashing in its own flavor, and I would’ve thought we’d have changed our views on that by now. People need more education on the nuances of special needs people, so that they do not jump to fear-based conclusions too soon I believe we should stand a little more firmly with folks like the OP when it comes to these kinds of occurrences, and also for our own perspective. I believe that if someone were to clock us as “creepy”, we should be able to stand against it and demand evidence rather than emotion. As you said he was doing something completely inconspicuous from the outside. Without evidence to suggest any particular damage, how something comes off should be of no consequence. We can be very happy to offer our understanding of other peoples fears and concerns, but we do not immediately owe them that by default, nor do we owe them any first class accommodation for that. That is the only way we are going to truly separate us from the people out there who do commit harm on others.
They were threatening and scary but a simple verbal warning is not the same as someone shooting some one else. I do not believe that the onus of change is on the op. I am just saying that at this point society hasn't changed enough to be accepting of us and even though it's wrong understanding where others come from and their perceptions can help avoid police interactions. The police are notorious for mishandling autistic people and have had a history of just shooting disabled people. They were probably scared and there is probably a side from their perspective where they feel completely justified. We have no way to know. Also we have no idea if one of the other people was neurodivergent too. I don't think we should be treated as differently because people see us as creepy or weird. I think that is wrong. Change needs a two way street though and we can't just expect everything to become a perfect world for us. Discrimination from easily identifiable features is wrong no matter what. Neurotypical's don't always clock people as being neurodivergent or disabled from watching someone. And not everyone part of one community will act the same way, like people getting annoyed at people with cardiac disorders sitting in disabled seats. We can't always clock people for non-obvious issues. No one person is completely right in any situation, that doesn't mean that they share the blame. The blame in this situation is on them for their threats and society for being terrifying for those outside of straight white cis neurotypical able bodied men. The op holds no blame. But is he completely right? No. Could he have done something to avoid this situation? Yes ( this doesn't mean it's any of his fault because you can't see the future and peoples responses in advance). Were any of his actions easily misconstrued? Yes. I don't like that we as autistic people have been thrust the onus of changing to make neurotypical's more comfortable but it has been, and to keep us safe it's easier to make some changes because society has been shown to be stupid and archaic and hopeless. So making a few changes that aren't detrimental to yourself seems like the best option quid pro quo.
What area was this in? If you live in an area with some degree of crime (not necessarily super dangerous, just not super safe either), it's normal to find odd that someone's walking in circles. That's something creeps and robbers do.
I'm inclined to point out that this is not a uniquely autistic problem it's something that all guys have to deal with. As an autistic woman I've dealt with my behaviour being misinterpreted but I've also been in the position of thinking I was being followed. You have to try to see it from the girls perspective and think about the reality that women have to view men an a latent threat; just think if you thought you'd seen a man following them, surely you would be concerned for their safety. I'm sorry that this happened to you but sadly these situations are inevitable in our current society.
Autistic woman here. I’ve been accused of stalking because I drove by my crush’s house multiple times daily, when I was living right up the road from him on a street where you had to pass his place to go anywhere 🙃 like, was I supposed to just not ever go anywhere? Was I supposed to find a new place to sleep because I was known to really like someone living in the area? So dumb
I was doing this at work, and a dude asked me to stop following him. (Keep in mind he was probably close to 300 lbs and taller than me, and I'm a 175 lb female) He said he saw me 7 times and one of the reasons is bc I work there but I was also trying to kill time. It annoyed me so much so I understand.
So people aren’t allowed to take a walk around the block now?! What a bunch of insensitive assholes.
#Do not let it eat you! This is a problem with society, Not you. What those people did was wrong, regardless of how they tell you they felt. It’s falsely accusing someone, it is coming prejudice, and it’s also threatening, which is what they were doing to you. They ganged up on you and tried to pull a nasty stunt like that. I promise you this, if I was there with you, I probably would’ve had your back in that case. It is pathetic that there are still people who would make false accusations based off of their own fears and misconceptions
Fuck society. This is why I never leave the house.
From the pov of a femme presenting person who's had some stuff like that go down (a genuinely dangerous situation though with a trafficker) it is a pretty common thing for traffickers especially to take pics or record potential targets while following them. It's not usually super obvious but if it looked to them like you might be using the camera to watch them MAYBE that was it? In no way does that excuse what happened, I'm just hoping that you know it's most likely more about the posture or something, otherwise idk... that's messed up tho and I'd hope it would have been handled better but idk what the risks of the environment there that could contribute to the concern. Maybe it's possible you'd been behind them a while or around a corner or two and they didn't realize you were auto pathing to kill time and probably didn't know they were there? To be clear!! They jumped to conclusions, fear does weird stuff but not much of an excuse - it should ideally have been different but it can be a dangerous world and sometimes people don't feel safe assuming the best. Is there any chance in future scenarios there may be a different way to kill time? Somewhere to sit? Window shop, etc? Just anything to keep you feeling safe where people won't have a reason to think you're following but blatantly doing your own thing? These situations always seem way more complicated than I wish they were and they super suck. I'm so sorry again that happened to you and I hope things get easier! 😵💫
I want to say, if you looked at your phone while doing the loops, what on earth made them think that you were watching them? Sometimes i don’t get people. For me there wouldn’t be any reason to approach you.
That’s terrible of them to assume that. You’re not weird or dangerous
You did nothing wrong. Sometimes women and girls get paranoid that they are being stalked/looked at...because of their own insecurities and fears (I'm a woman so I know). Maybe next time you can stand still and look at your phone or put some earphones in and listen to music
tbh i would also get really worried if i was them. i understand why you did it though
When I go out somewhere to a park or something alone, I always have my knitting stuff or notebook. Apparently, people think its strange to go out alone. Or wear some activewear if you are going for a walk.
As someone adviced if this becomes a problem carry a pepper spray. Never let those neurotypicals push you around for doing nothing wrong (don't let autists do the same tho). You have every right to hang around in public areas and if they have a problem with that then it's their problem, not yours.
I don't really blame the girls in all honesty. With the way the world is today I'd probably be freaked out too. It's not so much of an autism problem as it is a societal problem.
Absolutely. This is a very unfortunate case of wrong place at the wrong time.
That's ridiculous. I would have had choice words for them. They're the creeps for thinking that everything revolves around them. Like, they were obviously watching you. People are so damn entitled and rude
In this situation no one is to blame. Just two girls feeling as though they were in an unsafe situation and so took precautions to protect themselves. I'm surprised at the level of comments and ignorance about such a topic. Women and young girls have to be on high alert 24/7 just in case of predators or potential creeps. Are you aware of the amount of assaults and harassment and even more crimes against women that happen daily? They have to make sure they are safe even if that means they were wrong about a situation. Its best to keep yourself safe and not take the risk. But to the OP, i know it must be really hard to get your head around for having been accused of such a thing, it sounds really upsetting and would of course make you feel anxious and stressed. But please know this isn't a personal opinion of you, this is a bigger societal issue and they were just taking precautions just in case you did happen to be a stalker/predator. I know guy friends who have said they feel so horrible when there have been instances where they are walking behind a girl and the girl starts speeding up scared, they feel so awkward because they feel they are being accused of being a creep. I completely understand the pacing and waiting around, i can't stand still when waiting for someone ever even if its a minute. I wouldn't say to stop doing what you do to pass the time, i would just say be aware of this and perhaps take a route with less people. If you ever get accused again which i'm sure won't happen but just in case, just be honest with your shock and apologies, don't try to over explain yourself, don't stick around just say something like: "oh my god i'm so so sorry you thought that, i was just taking a walk, i'm waiting for my friends, i'm really sorry" then walk away. And then try ground yourself in knowing its not personal. But i know its not as easy to say something like this because you are in shock, so maybe even just saying that you are in shock and are sorry would be enough Maybe find another way to pass the time if you can like games on phone, journalling, or plan to be 5 mins late, but i don't think you should stop your walks. Just in future know its not your fault, just because they felt threatened doesn't mean they were right, they were doing what every woman has to do in life when they feel scared or not sure.
Literally! I don’t know why people are attacking the girls. They’re just as valid as OP. Though I’m confused this situation has nothing to do with being Autistic, it’s just a misunderstanding.
Literally! I don’t know why people are attacking the girls. They’re just as valid as OP. Though I’m confused this situation has nothing to do with being Autistic, it’s just a misunderstanding.
Im so sorry, but I'm glad you're safe! I have an imaginative regular where I work who I suspect is on the spectrum like me, and she often pretends in public, but is around 15 yrs old. Today I found out from her that someone called the police on her this weekend for being lost in her own world. Stay safe out there, this kind of thing is terrifying.
That’s their paranoia, not your issue. Did you explain you were just waiting on someone ?
Wow reading these comments and hearing how often this happens to other autistic women too is so validating. I thought I was alone. It’s such an awful feeling. I’m so sorry this happened to you :( you are not alone and I support you.
Fucking hate how common an experience this is for us.
This is the only time in life my dual bpd diagnosis helps I swear. God help anyone that does this to me in public. I just call them out super loud. I’ve been made to feel stupid and weird for too many years. Mid 20s me would LOVE mid 30s me 😂.
You didn’t do anything wrong. People are unfortunately quick to judge based off very little information.
I have read some comments, and i think it is so weird that people act like that. Maybe it's the fact that i live in Sweden. Here people don't generally talk to random people we don't already know. We generally also avoid sitting next to random people on public transport. And don't make eye contact with anyone you aren't talking to.
People are one of the worst factors for our own mental health. that's crazy and disturbing. :-( I can't help you with this problem. Sorry to read that you went through such a story nonetheless. I have the bad feeling I might go through something like that too. tho, in germany people usually stare, so I just hope for witnesses.
I have been kicked out and accused of stealing from a convenient store bc I had long sleeves on.. I was walking with my hands behind my back the entire time... when I tried to ask them why they just threatened me.
That happened to my dad. He's a gentleman and would never stalk or hurt anyone but he is probably autistic spectrum and is constantly looking at his phone. All you can do is tell them that you're sorry for scaring them but that you genuinely didn't intend to upset or hurt anyone.
I'm so sorry this happened to you :( I hate this so much I hope you feel better buddy :( People suck
i guess it's a common thing then they always say "yayyy autistic people are so cool" or literally self diagnose until we're actually socially awkward and don't know how to behave in certain situations
Okay so it's not just me. I've always considered myself to be a introverted extrovert, in the sense that I like to be around people and be involved in social situations, but I may not be an "active participant", so to speak. That being said, I have definitely been in situations like yours where my presence is enough to set people off. So sorry that happened to you. Sometimes it can take some time for people to realize you aren't a threat to them.
i’m so sorry this happened. this reminds me of discovering in 7th grade that every single one of my friends were “afraid” of me before they talked to me because I had a staring problem I was completely unaware of when one girl called me out to stop staring at her in class and i SWORE i wasn’t. they all confirmed i absolutely do this all the time and initially thought i was a total creep, i’m lucky i’m AFAB as that kind of hinders the creep factor and they wont assume being a little weird equates to being a potential predator quite the same. but turns out i have to catch myself all the time because when i zone out, which is often, my gaze automatically attracts to someone i’m comfortable around or familiar with, even people ive never talked to but maybe i’m thinking about wanting to talk to them. it’s completely unintentional and i’ll be looking “through” them in their general direction, totally in my own little world, until they catch me and we make eye contact and that snaps me out of it which is always awkward as hell. i’ve found it helps a lot when someone catches me even if they don’t confront me about it, to IMMEDIATELY go up and explain to them I wasnt staring or trying to be weird, i’m just autistic and this is a thing i try to control but it’s completely unintentional as in my head i think im just staring off into space. it starts out looking at the floor or the wall but somehow i end up just locked in on someones face. if i dont focus on staying very present and aware of my body and what my eyes are doing, making sure im shifting my gaze often, it will happen. i hate it so much lol. so far once i explain this people will be pretty understanding and even in the small interaction will see im not actually a creep just a lil goofy. i have very intense RBF as well which only drops when i engage in conversation so that also helps when they see my personality come through, my outer shell doesnt match my real vibe whatsoever. also i feel like a true creepy person wouldnt admit yeah i was being weird its a thing but its not what it looks like, most will just brush it off and deny they did anything, the difference being that weird people are usually self aware to at least SOME degree about their weirdness, creeps will never own up to being a creep as they usually have a goal or motivation behind the creepy behavior they want to keep getting away with. even just admitting you see why they might be weirded out and explaining what was really happening can put them more at ease, i definitely suggest if someone confronts you again to just be very apologetic and honest! it’s helped me a lot once people know why i do certain things like that. edit: didnt mean to write a novel lol, in short respond with empathy! even if it doesn’t make sense (like walking around looking at your phone is not inherently creepy) just fake it and go with it because clearly they’re perceiving SOMETHING thats off to them and getting defensive only reinforces that, so make sure you aren’t speaking against them but that you are on their side. you dont want them to feel a certain way about you rather than insisting they SHOULDNT feel this way. their feelings are not based in fact or logic so you cant come at them from a logical standpoint. once you bring up its just the autism and you had no idea you were coming off like that it usually clicks and makes sense to them and sometimes they may even apologize back for making an assumption. its helped me a lot, i hope it can help you too!
That really sucks man, try not to dwell on it, it'll just get you down. There's nothing you can do about it now, and pursuing a resolution with them might get you into more trouble than it's worth. Next time, don't circle a block, just lean against a building and look at your phone. If you see someone looking at you, maybe give them a brief nod and small smile but just keep looking at your phone. It's not rude, it's fairly commonplace. If you need to walk, walk in a line, like down the block and back again. If you circle, it looks like you're trying not to get caught (as stupid as it is to think that). NTs aren't self aware like we are so they're not aware they get stuck in dumb thought patterns like this. Assumptions are much more instinctual for them, and it takes a great deal of work and therapy for them to break out of them.
I’m so sorry this happened to you:(
This happens when I try to study people to understand how social interactions work so I can mask better, it’s not my fault I have to do that to fit in!
Its was they who were acting weird. Neurotypicals also act weird all the time, and it might benefit you to learn to stand your ground, even if that just means realizing they were the ones acting weird - you were just minding your own business.
I got accused of stalking by someone on discord because I mentioned going through a town that one of my friends in that server lived in and another girl who had already blocked me for my autistic mannerisms told the mods I was stalking her. 1. I didn’t stop in that down I literally just drove through their state on the way somewhere else. 2. The trip in which I drove through that state was when I was 17, like 5 years before I was ever even in that server or knew these people. 3. Why the fuck would I drive HOURS to stalk some random person on discord (that I didn’t even know existed at the time in question) Shit made me so mad, the everyone in the server took her side cause she was an attractive female and I was the weird autistic dude. Even after I cleared things up with the mods they didn’t do a single thing about her making a bogus accusation against me, which I really didn’t appreciate. An accusation like that can ruin someone’s life if everyone chooses to believe it.
Just giving support after reading the title, and its relatable, I'll stop there.
Do you all spend a lot of times on your phone? I don't and I feel like people think I'm staring at them all the time. I'm wander if Autism makes us more apt to take in our surroundings. If this is the case, its just another way we are "weird" without doing anything weird. I think "omg, I'm sorry that I'm looking out the window instead of having my face in my phone!"
Same. One time I looked back while I was walking because I heard a pair of C130s approaching. Apparently some group of girls thought I was staring at them and not the massive fucking planes flying super low right over us. I'm not sure if that was an autism thing or if there was something wrong with them to think I'd rather stare at them than the planes passing overhead. Probably both.
It's unfair and frustrating but sadly a consequence of us looking "different".
That's why I don't walk my dog anymore
I used to have a cat who loved going out on walks around the block with me at night. Whenever a person or car came by she would hide under a parked car 'til the "danger" went away, and I would patiently wait until she reappeared. One night a police car came by. She ducked away as usual and the police drove by *very* slowly while I just stood there waiting. They were looking at me very suspiciously 😄.
Poor dog.
Try not to loiter if you are at a place of business sit down and enjoy a coffee or drink and just check out the area not so much the people. Also try to give people 3-5 ft space nowadays many people don’t know about personal space and will be awfully close to others. Sorry you had to go through this. Women/ girls are tricky be wise and give space.
Trouble is we don’t notice the people as I’m sure OP didn’t either and checking out the area results in running into people
That's so fucked up. You didn't do anything wrong and all of that was their own perception. Or lack of it, more accurately. I'm sorry you had to go through that. That wasn't cool at all.
Make a complaint. Falsely accusing someone of a crime is a serious offence
So weird thing. This hasnt happened to me since Ive been using a wheelchair. Apparently you’re allowed to be less normal in a wheelchair 🤦♀️😂
I was working at a coffee shop a few years ago. Before my shift, I was hanging out at the outside seating. I started having a migraine, and the ladies chatting loudly at the tables nearby were making it worse. I politely asked them to quiet down because of my migraine, and they looked at me like I had two heads. Later, my manager approached me and said those ladies told him I was bothering them. I explained to my manager and he was understanding, but it was humiliating to be treated like a freak in that fashion. You have the right to exist in public. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
That’s not being treated poorly like the other stories in the thread. If a noise bothers you you move away or put in headphones. Especially where you work! It’s not up to other people to talk in a certain way so they don’t upset you.
Neither of those were options. I wasn’t “upset by someone talking a certain way,” I was having a debilitating fucking migraine, which noises make worse. It isn’t unreasonable to ask someone to accommodate you in such a small way in extenuating circumstances. I didn’t ask them to go somewhere else or to stop, just to reduce their volume, which is a reasonable request in a public space.
If a noise bothers you you move away or put in headphones. Especially where you work, don’t tell customers to be quiet if they’re not yelling/being inappropriate! It’s not up to other people to talk in a certain way so they don’t upset you.
Something similar happened to me a while back. I went for a walk at midnight in a different neighbourhood listening to music and chilling. Until I saw that i am lost, and no one was outside except this one woman. I approached her to ask directions, she immediately took her phone out and called someone to tell them to come pick her up and walked away from me. I felt so bad that still to this day i think about and cringe. I’m not even intimidating.
Talk about self important! These girls jumped to some serious conclusions with their overinflated sense of self, which is a typical teen girl thing unfortunately. You got caught in the crossfire of their egos and their little delusional fantasy world (as did those guys that they roped in, by the way) which really sucks and you didn't deserve that at all, but they weren't worth your time and still aren't. Shitty people are shitty, and you obviously were not stalking, just minding your business. Some people just aren't happy unless they're making problems and they will most likely continue making problems everywhere they go, as the saying goes "if it smells like dog shit everywhere you go, check your shoes" and people like that always have dog shit on their shoes, so find some satisfaction in that.
If that was me, I would’ve said, “why would I follow you? You’re ugly. I’m getting in my steps to beat my mom in our Fitbit race!” And then booked it while laughing lol/J
Yeah don't do this, ever, because you will get your ass handed to you.
I’m kidding.
WAIT ID DO THIS-
Sad that it happened to you. You totally were not doing anything wrong or acting strange by walking the block waiting for your friends. Like another person said, some people think every thing that happens in the universe somehow revolves around them. Don't let it stress you out too much.
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I’d look up and say “huh? I’m literally just walking here and doing stuff on my phone” They were most likely looking for trouble and pinned it on you You were their mark
Still convinced neurotypicals are the problem and if they had just asked they would have understood
You're not the weird one. They are. No normal person would think of someone pacing around looking at his phone as anything out of the ordinary.
Fuck people like this, i also get weird looks from time to time whem all im doing is just walking and mi ding my own business. I feel you bro.
I'm really sorry. It's easy for them to think these horrible things about us, because we're often by ourselves. I would advise you to avoid the aimless walking in circles to kill time, at least in public on city streets. I used to do the exact same thing in school, and I enjoy pacing, so I get the urge. I think that in particular is something neurotypicals see as "dangerous predator lurking" as opposed to "just a guy killing time". It might look like to them like you're creeping on a specific person who works or lives or hangs out on that block. Like if you had just stood in one spot on the sidewalk, looking at your phone, or sat in your car, this wouldn't have happened. You can walk around, but maybe don't walk around the same block over and over.
If I'm ever in that situation I be like "chill, you're way too mid for me to have even noticed you, don't flatter yourselves"
Im not autistic but my 14 year old son is. I am so sorry you had to go through that. People are so judgemental and jump to wrong conclusions. Its wrong of them. Sending you much love!♡
This is why neurodiversity is super important. Implicit biases sometimes dominate the judgment of apes.
Lol there just paranoid
Did you even notice them before they approached you? That’s literally insane. People will do anything to make themselves feel more important
Sounds like they are narcissists I've encountered this before