Following on from rachelswipe's story below...
... I had a nasty run-in with a not entirely trustworthy guy a couple of years ago in Canterbury.

I was walking home from town one evening just towards dusk, and the quickest and easiest way to get to my house was to walk along the city walls - high up and usually full of people, with a good view of the chavs drinking White Lightning in the park below. I have to walk through a small corner of the park to get to the slope that runs up to the city walls, and as I reach the bottom of the footpath I see a man standing half in the shadows and half in the light. Something about him strikes me as odd, so I avoid eye contact and keep walking. The next thing, he's walking beside me saying "Hello, how are you? I feel strong". He sounds foreign, I couldn't place his accent but I suspected Eastern European, and he follows me all the way along the walls asking me random questions about who I am and where I'm going and whether I want to come with him to an art exhibition because he's "lonely". Fortunately I had the presence of mind (it's a strange survival instinct I have that makes me lie through my teeth about myself to anyone remotely creepy) to tell him my name was Jenny, that I studied economics and the reason I was walking this way was to go to see a friend. By this time, the hairs are really beginning to stand up on the back of my neck and I'm throwing pleading looks at passersby to step in and get this weirdo away from me.

Towards the footbridge that I was going to cross to reach my street (for any of you Canterbury b3tans out there, the one you cross to go to the station, or to the Works if you're so inclined), he gestures to the monument on a grassy knoll up a steep slope from where we are and asks me if I want to accompany him to the top. By this time terrified he's going to cut me into little bits or something, I tell him I have to run, and he asks if he can have my phone number. Thinking on my feet, I tell him "I don't fancy men," and make to leave. He says "That's okay, I didn't mean that, but we can if you want to..." and leers at me. This is the final straw, and fearing I'm about to be grabbed, I scream "oh, FUCK OFF YOU FREAK! LEAVE ME ALONE!" at the top of my voice, and ran all the way home, slamming the door behind me. And I never walked along those walls again in anything less than midday sun.
( Maladicta, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 15:50, 12 replies)

Freaks' Walk
I was once walking along there and saw a flasher in the trees (a bit further along nearer the bus station) this was years and years ago and I thought he was a plumber...Why? He was wearing blue overalls and was holding a bit of pink piping - I was very young at the time...
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 15:53, closed)

Huh...
It actually sounds like he was being rather polite. Why did you assume he was a freako rapist instead of thinking, possibly, that not everyone has such a paranoid aversion to speaking to strangers?

Try practicing this: "I'm flattered, thank you, but I'm just not interested, sorry." Instead of screaming like a mentalist.
(Musuko, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:00, closed)

What is it with Canterbury and nutters?
Mr Maladicta and I went to Pizza Hut for his birthday in December and they all seem to like to congregate around there, singing and waving their nutter hands about...

I'm so glad I don't live around there any more... also, you remember that brothel that they busted in Wincheap a while back? My other half lived two doors away a couple of years ago...
( Maladicta, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:01, closed)

Creepy. Why is it
we girls can be so polite about these kind of things? I once made the mistake of letting a flatmate's ex-boyfriend into the house when she wasn't there. He was seriously weird - possibly that's why he was her ex. He ranted at me for quite a while about how he loved her and would die for her, and why she had to get back with him, then had me forcibly pinned against a wall as I politely tried to calm him down. I suspect as we get older we shout "FUCK OFF" more readily.

@chickenlady: bless your innocence, and I'm glad it remained intact.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:02, closed)

Musuko:
He was standing in the shadows in a quiet area of the park - not doing anything in particular, but it seemed a very odd thing to do, especially to latch on to a girl on her own when there were so many other people about...
( Maladicta, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:03, closed)

@crackhouse...
That's the only time "Chickenlady" and "innocence" have ever appeared in the same sentence...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:08, closed)

Maybe he was lonely
Foreign man alone in a strange country...

I once asked a Japanese girl if I could help her with her English in a cafe in Kings Cross. She was doing exercises in a TEFL book that I had used to teach in various countries and I asked her if she wanted any help.

She looked at me like I'd unfurled my cock into her tea and winked at her. I was just trying to help.

She did have great tits, though.
(frankspencer, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:21, closed)

Eh... perhaps I did overreact a bit
but I did find it more than a little odd from the way he was acting and am not used to being accosted by random strangers who ask me so many questions in one go. I never saw him again though.
( Maladicta, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 16:25, closed)

Strangely enough
I don't remember the brothel in Wincheap...but I did once date a man who owned a large house there and his 'housekeeper' was a small lady of the oriental persuasion....erm....


@ Enzyme - funnily enough I *am* quite innocent!

Oh, stop choking and spluttering into your tea!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 17:10, closed)

@Maladicta
A thought just occurred to me; you were a female walking on your own at night in the quiet area of a park...perhaps he thought he was being chivalrous by escorting you home to keep you safe?

And the barrage of questions could be explained as a clumsy attempt at flirting by someone who, perhaps, is from somewhere where the unsubtle approach is the norm. A Polish guy who I once worked with found out I was gay, smiled, put his arm around my shoulders and said "I laaaike you. You give me number?"
(Musuko, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 13:52, closed)

@ Musuko
There's such a thing as instinct, and I'm sorry, but as a guy you have no idea what it's like. (Being chatted up by a gay colleague, ie someone you know, cuts no ice I'm afraid.) I used to live in France and was regularly followed home (and on two occasions attacked and mugged) by exactly this species of predatory creep. Even if - and it's a very tenuous if - this guy's intentions weren't malicious he was clearly missing a few screws if he thinks the way to make 'friends' is to lurk in the shadows after dark, wait for a young woman on her own and then to pursue her when she clearly has no interest in maintaining the conversation. And what do you suppose he wanted to do up on the deserted knoll? Talk about Caravaggio?
Riiiiight.
(jennymnemonic, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 16:30, closed)

@Jenny
Young men are by far the most likely to be attacked in the street at night, and having a penis doesn't make me any stronger or tougher than a woman (I'm a gay vegetarian...come on).

And the "colleague" worked as I did; part time on odd days, summer job, rubbish collection. I didn't know him from Adam.

Caution is fine...but assuming every slightly-odd man out at night is a mugger or rapist is going to make our streets an even shitter place to be than they already are. I refer you to my earlier QOTW answer, where I wasn't allowed in a room alone with the Muslim girl because of course, as a man, I'm obviously going to toss my sexuality aside and be utterly unable to resist raping her on the spot.

Maybe he was a just a little drunk (or drugged; "I feel strong" comment), felt friendly, and didn't realise how threatening his actions appeared. Rape or assault are some pretty hefty things to assume someone intends based on "looking creepy".
(Musuko, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 17:35, closed)