“Don’t be scared, get in.”

Last night, I went to the movies with a friend of mine who’s also a female. It was pretty late and we had to go home on foot. It wasn’t the first we did that so we didn’t really see any problem at first.

Of course, every time we walked home, there would be car honks here and there, and sometimes three in a row. One time, there was a man on a bike who slowed down to talk to us saying he was looking for a wife. We were only 18 and we were just trying to walk home. We tried to answer as little as possible to his questions and he kept talking to us for 20 minutes before he finally left.

But last night, as we walked home, two men who were in their car slowed down and catcalled us. We didn’t understand a thing they were saying and we didn’t really care. We tried to ignore them the best we could and they finally drove away. But two minutes later, they came back on the other side of the road and catcalled us again. They turned around just to do that.

Once they were gone, we relaxed again. We were now just a few minutes away from our home when another car, a truck, stopped on the side of the road next to us. Then we started to freak out. The car was going our way and we couldn’t prevent them from coming out of their car. The driver got out and started to ask us if we wanted a ride home. We declined as politely as we could, but we insisted, and then the man from the passenger seat was opening his door too. We were so scared, we didn’t know what to do. The guy kept saying and asking us to drop us off but we declined. He noticed we were scared and instead of just understanding the message he said, “Don’t be scared, get in.”

After a while he finally gave up, I was ready to run away. We finally got home. This experienced just ruined our night. More than that.

Optional: What’s one way you think we can make public places safer for everyone?

Honestly, I don’t even know considering it could happen anywhere in the world. I do feel very unsafe and going out slowly becomes a mental torture for me. I can’t stop thinking about what happened and what could have happened. I use to love to go out with my friend, now it is something I try to avoid just for that reason.

Location: France

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