Obligatory not today, but a long time ago when I was at university, I was making my way to a lecture one afternoon. The road I was walking alongside was incredibly busy, with constant traffic and hundreds of buses daily.
At a certain point, a van that was unloading was parked on the pavement, blocking pedestrians from using it. It meant that anyone heading up the street on foot had to walk in the road around it.
I started making my way into the road around the van at the same time as a female student coming in the other direction. This happened just as a bus was barrelling towards me behind the girl, in the same direction she was walking.
I knew the bus would be extremely close to us because of all the traffic, and the girl had walked further into the road so she could walk around both me and the van. Then I noticed she was wearing headphones and wouldn’t have any idea that the bus behind her was bearing down. In a split second I realised I had to do something or this girl was going to die. Just as we were passing each other, I swung my arm behind me to push her towards the van, out of the path of the bus. I thought I was saving her life.
Except I misjudged it. I must have left it a fraction of a second too late. The bus driver on the other hand had read the situation and had steered quickly enough to avoid her. My reactions had been worse. Instead of shoving her out of the way via her shoulder, my arm swung around and although I managed to make contact with her, that contact was on her arse. I literally ended up doing nothing but slapping her ass.
Mortified, I stopped in my tracks and turned around to apologise. But she didn’t react. She kept on walking. Then I realised - with her headphones in, and the bus missing her, she had no idea of the danger she was in, and in her mind, all that’s happened is some random man has just sexually assaulted her on the way home, and she was too shocked or scared to turn round and ask what the fuck.
This happened nearly three decades ago and I still think about this poor girl. There is a 100% chance that I am this woman’s #metoo story, when in reality I was just some idiot trying to be a hero.
lol good story, that stuff sometimes happens, don’t think too much about it
i was in a similar story once, but i didn’t do something, which was the bad part, i guess
i was walking with a friend through a park once, and we were talking casually, when suddenly, she stumbled about a root of some tree and was about to fall. i saw it and thought “oh wait i have to catch her”, but then i thought “if i do i must touch her, and you can’t touch a girl without asking her permission first”, and so i let her fall. i’m pretty sure she didn’t like that and was a bit angry at me afterwards. but such is life.