Being a woman isn’t easy, and growing up, you’re taught to be automatically cautious of men when going about your day-to-day life.
Whether that’s by taking a taxi home after 10pm because the bus is by default ‘too dangerous’, or being sure your friends know exactly where you are on every Tinder date.
Now, women have taken to Reddit to share the things men do that frighten them without the men even realising.
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This is one I can definitely relate to - one woman said that she’s automatically scared of men who come across as pushy, even with the little things.
She wrote: "When talking to a guy, he's super pushy. Like, asking for pics of this and that (and that) and even saying no, they're stilly pushy... all that makes me do is not want to meet him.
"If he's THIS pushy via text/messaging, how pushy is he going to be in person? If he can't take no NOW, what are the odds he can take no in person?
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“I once had a guy DEMAND that I rank my sexual partners. I told him no. I told him ‘I can't and I won't.’ Dude flew off the digital handle. I blocked him right then [sic]."
A second added: “Pick me up. I'm short and have a slight build. It's not that I'm scared of them trying to prove how strong they are, I'm just terrified of being dropped.”
A third shared: “Blocking the doorway - especially during an argument. Ex did that and would make himself bigger (spreading his arms etc) so I couldn’t leave the room.”
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A fourth added: “Call me nicknames like ‘sweetheart’ or ‘baby girl’ when I’ve never met them before.”
A fifth wrote: “Someone saying ‘where's my hug?’ or otherwise trying to imply that they are owed physical contact.”
Meanwhile, a fifth pointed out that men shouldn’t do this when a woman turns them down.
They wrote: “Not taking no for an answer. Especially when they pretend to be jokey about it, but you can clearly tell they’re kind of pissed… if that makes sense.”
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But perhaps the most heartbreaking response to this question came from a woman who shared that her sheer fear of men very nearly ruined what was a beautiful moment on a date.
She wrote: “A guy I’m seeing took me out to a baseball game for our first date. It was nice, I didn’t get any weird vibes from him at all. After the game, he asked if I wanted to go see some of the spots he likes to go walking.
“I didn’t think much about it until we got there and I realised he was basically taking me to the woods in the dark."
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The woman continued: “He told me to follow him and I’m thinking I’m about to get killed but it turns out he just wanted to show me his favourite place to go on walks and chill because you can see the entire city from there and at night it looks really pretty.
“I ended up having a great time and forgot that it’s pitch black outside and I’m with a guy I’ve never gone out with before out in nature. Definitely thought I was going to get killed at first though.”
What do men do that unintentionally scares you?
For me, it’s saying that they’re a nice guy...
Topics: Sex and Relationships
Emma Guinness