A Guy Shares an Apology Note to a Woman He Followed, Then Explains Why He Did It

Just imagine that you’re walking on the street late at night and a strange man suddenly starts to follow you. For most people, the intentions of this man would be pretty clear and they’d hardly suspect he might have something else in mind. But sometimes, life can surprise us and this story is yet another reminder of that.

We at Bright Side have proof that things aren’t always as obvious and straightforward as they seem at first glance.

You never know where the danger may come from.

A Reddit user shared his experience of stalking a girl on the street — although, he meant to do her no harm. One night, he passed a woman who barely noticed him, but a couple of seconds later, he decided to turn around and start following her. She realized that something was wrong, so she sped up her walking pace and grabbed her phone.

He continued following her, keeping his distance and pretending to be talking on the phone. When the woman turned the corner to the dead-end street where she and the follower’s cars were parked, she wanted to start running but the high hills forced her to keep a steady pace. She looked pretty scared. The man stopped near his car to make a call. At this time, the woman managed to safely get into her car and drive away, taking pictures of him while driving by.

While this story sounds like an episode from a thriller, the Reddit user shares that he actually had a good reason why he acted in such a suspicious way. He said that the woman probably didn’t notice 2 other guys who were pointing at her and acting weird. She also didn’t notice that they were already standing in the corner of the dead-end street looking at her getting into her car.

This woman also missed that later, the man spent 10 more minutes in his car waiting for the police to arrive. And then he was questioned by them for 15 minutes, showing them the pictures of these 2 suspicious guys he was taking while following her.

The author of the post wanted to apologize to this woman and explain his behavior.

At the end of his message, the man said, “I’m sorry that I scared you, but to be completely honest, I was really scared myself.” He said that he was no hero by any means and that his instinct was telling him to get out of there. But he thought that this woman could have been his wife who also parks on the same street or his daughter, and he wouldn’t forgive himself if something bad happened and he did nothing to stop it.

Internet users asked the author why he didn’t try to talk to the woman to explain the situation to her. He said that these strange guys seemed to be waiting for an opportunity and he was afraid that he would trigger them in some way and he’d become a second target. He also called the police later because if those guys were trying to assault this woman, it probably wasn’t their first time and they might have gone for another victim.

He also wondered if there was a way to help a woman in the same situation without freaking her out. And he got a lot of replies:

Many women said that it was a pretty controversial situation and that they’d be very stressed if someone acted this way toward them. They thanked the author for his bravery but suggested some alternative scenarios.

How do you think the author of the post should have reacted in this situation? How would you react if somebody tried to protect you this way?