Do you feel safe walking by yourself at night?

If I feel even the least bit paranoid on the way home I tend to make the keyring'n'fist weapon.

these things made me anxious at the time, but i feel ok walking home now. i would definitely consider myself to be scrawny asshole-bait.

i pull out my berreta

My wife will not go out alone at night ever, in any situation.

But at the chances that much higher for a woman to be attacked? I never thought so. I always figured it was guys being attacked more than women (like SSSS says). As much as I want to follow G. Greer, I still feel nervous walking on my own at night. The silliest thing I ever did: walk in some Hawaiian suburb and along the highway in the dark.

I always used to feel safe in central London, right up until I was walking back from work at about 9.30pm, up Gray's inn rd, it was still light, summertime, but the road was empty with no-one else about, and a vey tall bloke walked up quickly behind me, groped me, then started talking to me, saying that we should be friends, and generally being very intimidating. I managed to get onto the outside of the pavement and then cross the road, while telling him that I didn't want to be friends, then called Chris, willing him to hurry up and come round the corner, as he was walking to meet me.

now I'm always aware when there aren't many people around, and am very suspicious if I hear or see anyone else.

Fucking fucker, we go to court in September and if he gets off I will possibly be angry for the rest of my life.

Last year some guy began shouting at me as I walked home, for no reason, and for whatever stupid childish reason I said "fuck off you fat cunt" and proceeded to mock him.

He did nothing at first but then grabbed me and tried to punch me a few times, kind of missing both times. Some passers by were like "what are you doing?" to him then and he stopped. But he proceeded to find some friends of mine the same night, and stabbed one of them with a bottle in the neck, felt kind of lucky after that, though my friend was fine, somehow.

So yeah if alone I do feel nervous on the way home, I think there's always the chance of something happening, even if it's only verbal interaction or baiting (very common and quite annoying sometimes).

It's hard not to feel a violent rage towards those who attempt to start fights, as hypocritical as it is. I remember one night last year coming home and some guy starts a fight with me for no reason, absolutely no reason, and keeps trying to make me hit him or something, and then 4 of my friends came around the corner by chance, 2 really big guys, and this idiot is still going on at us and trying to start something even as at this stage we're all laughing and ridiculing him.

But you just think in so many situations that guy would have got battered to a bloody pulp, and like we all pretty much wanted to but something stops you I suppose.

On the weekends (if there's not a ball game) I can walk down the middle of the street and not see cars, let alone pedestrians. If I walk ten minutes north, I'm in the middle of projects/assisted living, and of course some of the complexes are fine and some are really scary. There are also three major homeless shelters in the neighborhood, and I've had very few problems with any of the residents, but once in a while you run across someone who is mentally ill.

I still feel safe though, the worst I've had to deal with is catcalls (you're going to get those anywhere)--like nathalie said, remember statistics are in your favor and you can't live in fear.

I went to a kind of warehouse party last weekend that was being held in an old mental hospital near didsbury. All was well until I separated from my friends. I walked down a corridor past a few young lads who pushed me against a wall and asked where my drugs were. I told them I didn’t have any so they punched me in the ribs and went through my pockets taking my wallet & phone; they then give me a bit of a kicking which didn’t seem to last more than 30 seconds. I got up feeling furious, so I (having thought about this since have realised it wasn’t wise) I followed them shouting at them to give me my stuff back. This seemed to make them awkward as they told me to f off or I’d get my head kicked in. I paused and thought f it. I kept following them asking for my wallet back and my sim card from my phone, they threw the phone at me & gave me my wallet back minus the £40 inside. Apart from the cracked rib & cut on head, I think it could’ve been worse.
What are your experiences of being mugged or taxed as we call it over hear, did you put up a fight or let them take whatever they wanted.

there's more stories on the "mugged, taxed thread".

i have one of these, http://www.westernfireandsafety.com/police%20maglite%20flashlite.jpg

blind them then start cracking skulls!

So we watch out, but I wouldn't say we're living in fear.

I live in a city in central Massachusetts; my school is set up as housing interspersed among the neighborhood and city buildings. It's not particularly safe (occasional murders, some harrassment, drunk driving), but the crime rate is not too huge and there are campus police and safety phones around campus. I used to be pretty comfortable walking at night short distances, as my boyfriend was a six minute walk down the street, but one night I was followed way too closely by a guy and the fact that I realized I would have just been frozen with fear has made me incredibly hesistant to be alone in an isolated area, or anywhere at night. I have also been Propositioned and several gross things have happened. If anything, Worcester had made me disgusted with men and drinkers. As far as advice goes, I always walk down the middle of the street because I can see both sides of the street and I feel an attack would have to be a little more overt, and when it comes to propositions I don't antagonize the guys I just lie and say I am meeting my friend or boyfriend.

I *never* felt safe walking at night alone in London!

She was scared even with me there. It doesn't scare me at all. It is an aggressive place, and I think one of these days I'm going to get the shit beaten out of me (this will be because I keep getting confrontational with trios of black men, each half my age and six inches taller than me, coming home very late at night), and I'll start being frightened.

a) I'm a guy
b) I usually look like I don't want to be fucked with
c) I live in central Seattle... not exactly even Getting Mugged City (although it's not out of the question, of course.)

Pretty obviously, there's not much to fear.

1. The two guys I was with were 6'+ and large. I am 5'7" and 145.
2. Dude. It's Dublin, not Gary, right? We ended up not going for a different reason altogether.

Anyway. not sure where I'm going with this. Basically: I'm small, hayseed, and have a really short (HA!) temper (espc when drunk). Thus, some day, someone will start shit with me on the street and I will get cut. But not before I kick his teeth in.

I'm with this. If I'm going into a bad neighborhood or area (which I've done on purpose before (as opposed to an alternate route), perhaps foolishly) I get the game-face on and get very sensitive to my surroundings. Even though most people would have a pretty good shot at kick my ass (and could probably tell from 100yards), I can run much much faster than you.

this is my attitude 100%. But then I'm told my normal expression is one of total pissed-off-ness, so the mad-dog face thing isn't too hard for me.

a recent crackhead maybe?

I live near some projects and there are quite a few guys on Haight Street selling drugs. There have been several murders near Haight and Fillmore over the last year or two years so there is some justification to being careful around there but the murders were all gang related. As vanilla as I sometimes look, I make a point of being polite and affable to all the dealers/gangsters in my hood lest they mistake me for a tourist or an asshole and I mind my own business.

Most of the recent murders have been at the hands of the cops. Also 10-13 years ago the neighborhood that M. is referring to was much, much different than it is today.

hee hee, i guess so. she was NASTY, though.

June 5, 2004

May 9, 2004

The funny thing is, I'm only a short distance from St Kilda which is still pretty bad, despite its gentrification. Loads of prossies, pimps and pushers, and in this whole wider area (St Kilda/St K East and Prahran) there are a lot of hostels and homeless people who are sometimes pretty unhinged and wander around the streets shouting and haranguing people, but fairly harmlessly.

I have never been mugged. I dont get around at night on my own if I can help it, I get taxis and lifts to clubs and stuff, and I'd never ever go about at night dressed in ANY way provocatively (I dont care what any feminist says, I know it is wrong that dressing certain ways should mean ANYTHING but stiff shit, it just does, so avoid it). I try to avoid being anywhere unfamilliar if I am drunk or otherwise out of my head. When I do get around in the evening, say home from work, I am familar with my surroundings and walk with casual but determined confidence. Never wear a bag that can be easily grabbed off you. For gods sake put away the obvious riches - ipods, mobile phones etc.

Become invisible.

Run away and/or just ignore them. I totally go into "I'm not here" mode around such situations.

OTMFM -- i know from experience. (e.g., that 300-lb crackhead in philly charged me b/c i said something smart-assed to her [though i knew that cops were nearby].)

Like the time a bunch of us inadvertently made this mod kid aggro at a club. We were actually looking at him and admiring his mod suit! It looked fantastic! But he was pissed (or speeding maybe) and came right up in our faces and said "are you looking at me? Whats yer fuckin problem? You taking the piss?" and yelling a shitload and ignoring our "no man, we like your suit!" exclamations. His g/f had to pull him off us, basically.

But neither of these bothered me that much. The first one was just a random teen trying to impress his boyfriends with pseudo thug behavoir and the other, well, the guy was just a dipshit (would a real mafia guy really say that? Doubt it.)

Point being you can't go thru life being afraid of what MIGHT happen. That's just no way to live.

Hmm, I'm 5'9", have a shaved head and am quite good at lifting heavy things. Doesn't seem to stop them starting on me.

Oh and obviously, dont talk back at people.

See, now I used to agree with this. But over the last few months I've become tired of rudeness and aggression from strangers. Tired enough to reason pleasantly with them provided they aren't hanging out with a bunch of mates, anyways.

Do you feel safe wanking by yourself at night?

Fucking mod.

(xpost: resist)

i mean, what is it about london? i don't get this aggro when i go to glasgow or anywhere else. ok i've been here 20 years and i ought to know what it's like by now, but over the last 2-3 years it's definitely become worse.

you end up just wanting to give up. like, why should i have to get in a fight every time i dare to take one step outside my house? you know, it's a case of, well i'll just work from home, buy my books and music from amazon or wherever, order my food and essentials online, because at the moment i don't feel i want to go outside my house at all, and it's not agoraphobia.

makes me want to go back to italy, to be perfectly honest with you.

But that has nothing to do with the thread, if people shout things out cars at me I usually just grin and wave at them, or sometimes ignore them, I don't think I've ever spoken back to someone who does that! But OTOH no one's ever said anything threatening or rude to me out their car window or from across the street.

Some days I am the queen of TOURIST, RAUS! SCHNELL! behind slowies on Oxford Street/Tube escalators. I do shout at them on occasion.

That's mighty parochial of you, Eisbar!

(I know Ally, it was so weird. I wasn't in a gang blocking the way or anything, I was on my own. People are just dicks sometimes. QED.)

As I've been helped by random passersby in purportedly unhelpful cities like NYC and Paris, I try to repay the favor by being helpful to people in mine.