Thread by @CathLoveday

THREAD
I have thought hard about sharing this story firstly because it feels quite personal and secondly because this stuff happens every day and probably seems very trivial to many. But anyway here is my story of what happened on the tube early yesterday morning (1/10)

It was one of those stations where there are two possible trains and you never know which is leaving first. There were no announcements so some of us were doing the usual hokey-cokey dance between the two. I just made it on to the right one as the doors closed (2/10)

muttered a mild frustration under my breath, which in retrospect seems to have been taken as a chat up line by a man standing nearby. He looked at me a bit oddly, so feeling a bit uncomfortable I walked down 2 full sections of the tube to find a seat away from him (3/10)

He followed me (past many empty seats), sat directly opposite and stared intently at me. Many women will know well what goes though your mind at this point: the yoyo between thinking you must be imagining it and the creeping instinctive fear that you have become a target (4/10)

I made no eye contact but as time went on, I instinctively felt he would follow me when I got off. My original plan was to walk some of the way, but it was pretty early and I knew the streets would still be quiet so, as I was getting increasingly nervous I concocted a plan (5/10)

Sure enough, he followed me when I got off (NB not a particularly popular station) so I started walking along the platform but then paused. This forced him to overtake me, so he also paused and looked over his shoulder (twice). He then also stopped walking (6/10)

I pretended to look at my watch then just before the beeps went I jumped back on the train, giving him no time to reach the next door and get back on. I was shaken but I am fine. I am just grateful that I had my wits about me and that I was able to think my way through it (7/10)

I’ve no idea what his intentions were but the scary thing was that even on a busy train in central London, he was unperturbed. I worry about who was next but I had nothing to report to the police as I was so busy avoiding his gaze that couldn’t even say what he looked like (8/10)

Of course, I know I could have imagined the whole thing but over the years I’ve learned to trust my instincts. This has been a far less common occurrence in my 50s than it was in my 20s and I am so much better at coping with it, but this happens to people every day (9/10)

Finally, I want to thank @JohnAmaechi who I was on my way to meet for the first time. With this as my opening story, he may well have thought I was a bit bonkers, but he listened intently to me and validated what I’d experienced which was all I needed (10/10)

Just to add: this an everyday story and nothing actually happened so why bother with this thread? Because we need to talk about it. We need to believe women who say they’re scared. We all need to look out for this stuff all the time and we need to call it out (ENDS)