One night I sat in downtown, Honolulu (Hawaii), waiting for my ride. Class had just finished at about 9 P.M., a stranger walks up to me and sits beside me, asks what I’m doing, then stares for awhile after I answer him. It got a bit awkward so I asked him a few questions, attempting small talk, he took awhile to answer my questions, often times asked me to repeat it then answer. As he sat on my right side, I asked his name and where he was from. What he was doing in town at night, holding a fire knife.
He hadn’t answered me, he continued to stare at me, and started jerking his head in a certain direction. I asked if he was okay and he replied, “Roll with me to the beach”. I said politely said, “No thanks, I’m waiting for my ride”. He then asked to move to the other side of me, I told him it was fine, not thinking anything of it.
I tried to talk to him some more but he wasn’t replying much at all. He then asked me once again, what I was doing and proclaimed for me to walk with him to the beach. So I asked, “What for? I told you I’m waiting for my ride”. He then replied, “So we can have sex on the beach and have a good time talking about it on the way”. I was shocked that he’d come directly with such a statement.
I then told him, “No! I don’t know what kind of girl you take me for but you’re mistaken”! I awkwardly stared away from him, then looking down at my bag in silence and noticed he had pulled down his zipper and was holding his appendage in his hand. I looked up and away to my right side fast, and what he was doing and for him to out it away. He told me to look down at it and I refused. I was very scared, not knowing what would happen next if I tried to run away, being that there was no one around. I ignored him for the next few minutes while he asked questions and then my ride pulled up. I haven’t spoken about it to anyone ’til now.
Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?
Making anywhere a safer place seems almost impossible because no matter the time or place, there are still sick people rooming around and in some circumstances, people aren’t walking around at night or certain times of the day.
– Anonymous
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
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