Some weeks ago I had an encounter that made me realise there is significant power in being young and impulsive.

I've recently started jogging regularly to keep healthy.I usually jog at a park near where I live a few evenings a week. A few weeks ago, I was walking across the traffic crossing to the park for my usual jog. Now before I continue I want to say that some people I've told this story to are sceptical about the sequence of events of this story, but i swear this is all 100% true. I was listening to music on my phone and walking so I wasn't really paying attention to the people around me. And I probably wouldn't have noticed this guy who was walking along the same crossing but in the opposite direction,except for what happened next. He suddenly jerked, turned around and walked in the same direction I was walking in. Which is the direction he has come from in the first place. I know I'm not being overly sensitive because the girl walking behind me noticed this too and started slowing down.

So he kept an eye on me while walking in front of me. So TECHNICALLY he wasn't following me, but he WAS trailing me. We had reached the entrance to the park. He stood outside and didn't follow me when I went in. At that point I considered the potential danger over and went running. You see I have this habit of looking down at the ground when I run. I don't know if it's due to poor posture, or maybe it just takes too much effort to lift my head while running. So I didn't look up until I was almost finished running. But when I did the man from the traffic light was there. Right smack in the middle of the park watching me and waiting for me. He had this half smile on his face that told me my shock was displayed clearly on my face. I stopped dead in my tracks and started scrolling through my phone contacts to find my mom's number. In retrospect I'm not really sure what I was expecting my mom to do about the man but that was what I did anyway. When I looked up from my phone, the man was gone. Okay not really. He'd just brisk-walked his way to the other end of the park. He'd obviously picked up on how I was calling someone about him and knew he should scram. So at this point I should have been happy that he was gone and I should have run straight home.

Of course that's not what I really did. I'm not really sure what possessed me to do what I did next though anger and PMS are two plausible suggestions. But I think it was mostly because I was tired of being followed( I'll get to this part later.) So I followed him. Yes I turend around and followed a strange man who had trailed me for a good half an hour, in the semi-darkness of the park. I trailed him until I was about 50 metres behind him. And then I shouted at him. He didn't respond at first, probably because he never thought that I would actually follow him. Then he turned around and it was his turn to look shocked. What happened next was be yelling, in a fit of rage asking him if he thought if it was funny to follow girls and that I was going to call the police. The moment he heard the word police, he put his hands up, mid-chest and said sorry. He walked away really quickly after that and didn't turn back once.

Now I don't know what you think of me or what I did after reading that story. But consider this: Is it not amazing the impact you can have on someone when they underestimate you?

I couldn't help but think about how that man might have POTENTIALLY followed other girls in a similar way and how in all likelihood nobody had ever told him off in the same way I did. Maybe it was more of a 'tit-for-tat' reasoning that motivated me to follow and scream at a strange man; I just wanted him to understand what it was like to be followed by someone who was a threat.

I mentioned before that I was(am) tired of being followed by strange men. Yes, I have been followed by strange men before and I am sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Although, I personally feel that many girls( people I know) are not aware of just often this happens because they they assume that this is a safe country and that public, densely populated areas are safe. At this point I should say that I think being followed has less to do with attrativeness than vulnerability. To put things in context I am exactly five-feet tall and am obviously not athletic. This makes me vulnerable and an easy target because of the fact that most people are bigger and stronge than me. Also, even when I was teaching kindergarten the kids weren't afraid of me. Such is the problem of being a non-threat.

So back to me going berserk at the park. On some level I recognise that being vulnerable gave me some kind of strength because it made me want to stand up against someone who in many ways is stronger than me. The fact that my move was unexpected also made the impression I left on the stranger more intense. Being impulsive as opposed to being cautious (and perhaps in this case more concerned for my own safety) also led me to stand up for myself.

I can see how in many ways this story might be seen as just an amusing anecdote, but it made me realise that I was wrong about this sense of powerless-ness I feel as a young person. Because having no money and few marketable skills tends to leave a dent on your self-esteem in the very competitive adult world that I am beginning to gain an insight into. If nothing at all, it made me recognise that there is something stronger than I had initially realised within myself and that is very exciting to me.

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