“PMS – Pushy Men on the Street, BACK OFF.”

My friend and I were laughing and having a good time in Times Square while waiting for some friends to go to dinner. We were sitting on those little red chairs they have right on 42nd and Broadway. When we rose up to leave, this strange man blocked our path and regurgitated a familiar phrase we always heard, “Hello ladies, would you like to see a comedy show?” He was standing too close for comfort, practically breathing in our faces. We stood there silently for a few minutes before my friend responded politely but firmly, “No, we were just leaving.”

Instead of allowing us to leave, he blocked our path. I had never seen one of these comedy show promoters “track down” people who were getting up to leave. Usually they stood on the sidewalks, calling out to whoever passed by. Instead, this hideously arrogant creeper (I call him hideous because that’s what he was – an awful person), decided to approach us and violate our personal space. He said flirtatiously, while still blocking our path, “Where are you going?” My friend politely answered, “To eat,” but his lack of boundaries made me distinctly uncomfortable. I answered just as firmly, “You don’t need to know that” in an attempt to get rid of him.

“I AM NOT GOING TO FOLLOW YOU!” he called obnoxiously after me as we finally managed to walk past him. “JEEZ, WHAT LIT THE FUSE ON YOUR TAMPON?!”

Yes, because if I dare to speak out, I must be PMSing, right? Listen, hideous creeper: you are a nobody who thinks they can silence women and who thinks that his needs and wants are more important than my needs and wants. Let me tell you something: they’re not. I have a right to feel safe, I have a right to not have my path blocked, and I have every right not to see a comedy show and get rude comments from an ignorant misogynistic fool such as yourself. You won’t silence me. You won’t force me to be polite if YOU’RE not showing me the same respect. No wonder you feel the need to harass complete strangers – no self-respecting woman would probably approach you of their own volition, am I right? Uneducated, ignorant, misogynistic – you are the holy trio of what is wrong with the world. You are the type of ugly that lights the fuse on my “tampon,” as you say. The type of ugly that doesn’t seem to go away.

PMS – Pushy Men on the Street, BACK OFF.

– PushyMenonStreet(PMS indeed)

Location: Times Square, NYC

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