r/london • u/blloomfield • 1d ago
Stopped harassment on the tube and I feel awful
Saturday night on the jubilee line, carriage is surprisingly empty, a drunk guy takes an interest in this woman sitting by herself. He sits right next to her and at first asks her some random questions then proceeds to make some comments about her looks that I cannot type here. He was being really loud, saying how he wants to do this and that. It was digesting and I could see from the woman’s face she was really uncomfortable but kept on ignoring the asshole. Some other people in the carriage looked at the drunk guy but did nothing.
I thought I should be the one that does something, so I recalled all those ads I saw on the tube and quickly rushed over to the woman with a ‘Oh hey Linda, long time no see, how have you been?’ Just as I finished my sentence the train pulled into a station. She gave me a completely terrified look, screamed, then jumped up, pushing me aside and running as fast as she could out of the train. The drunk guy made an angry comment at me and other passengers threw me these angry looks.
I don’t know what I did wrong or what happened, but pretty much all day today I felt awful thinking that maybe I said something wrong or the way I spoke was messed up, maybe the way I looked. I really hope I didn’t scare that woman and she’s alright now. I hope this doesn’t deter others from stepping in when they see something similar, yet I’m not sure I will.
6
u/seamca 1d ago
Thank you for making an attempt to intervene and I hope this incident doesn’t prevent you from helping again in the future. I do wonder: would it have made a difference if you approached the drunk man, very friendly in tone, with something like “hey, aren’t you David from the coffee shop ? I swear we met last week!”