A 19-year-old has offered an insight into the struggles faced by many young women amid the unsolicited attentions of older men.
TikTok user Mickey Ruiz filmed herself while at work in a streetwear store as a male customer made her feel visibly uneasy.
In the clip, which is recorded as a selfie, the uncomfortable teenager calmly responds to the man as he asks her a series of personal questions.
These include whether she’s still in high school, exactly how old she is, and where her college is based.
Mickey doesn’t film the stranger once, with the camera instead capturing how unnerved she clearly is by his incessant probing. She also reveals that she even gave him a fake name, such is the level of her discomfort.
At one point in the video the man asks her to help him pick out a sticker, to which she cooly but professionally responds: “I think you got it.”
Despite her obvious disinterest, he continues to ask her questions about her college and where it’s located.
He then, seemingly in a bid to be flirtatious, snatches some coins from a jar on the counter and tells her he’s going to use the change to pay for the $3.21-worth of stickers he’s just chosen.
Again, in an apparent (fruitless) bid to charm her, he then asks: “Do you want to know my PIN?”
Refusing to play along, she says simply: “I’m good.”
Closing the transaction, she says: “You’re all set.”
He then replies suggestively: “Am I, though?”
“Yup,” she responds.
“Are you sure about that?” he asks.
He then goes on to ask if she has Instagram, to which she responds: “No.”
“[Are] you too cool for Instagram?” he asks.
She explains that she doesn’t like social media, saying that it “perpetuates some bad vibes from people.”
“You’re cute,” he responds patronisingly, before asking: “Do you play hacky-sack?”
Despite her one-word answers (“no”) he just won’t leave her alone. The clip – and presumably their encounter – eventually ends thanks to Mickey’s tireless efforts to cut off all possible lines of discussion.
The video, which the 19-year-old captioned “why do men?”, racked up more than 8.1 million views on Tiktok in just three days, as commentators hit out at the stranger’s behaviour – but admitted that it was all too familiar.
“It’s the fact that he didn’t care that you were clearly uncomfortable, not surprising unfortunately,” wrote one.
“You literally COULD NOT act more uninterested and he STILL could not take a hint,” said another.
“If he has to ask if you’re in high school that’s already a red flag,” another pointed out.
While a fourth said: “I just know your heart was beating so hard throughout this. I’m so sorry.”
However, others suggested that the man hadn’t acted threateningly and that Mickey and her admirers were overreacting. Another said she should have “said something instead of just sitting there taking it.”
In a separate video, Mickey addressed one critic who accused her of acting like a “b****” and being “stuck up.”
Beginning an impassioned monologue, she responded to his comment: “Women don’t owe you s***. I was just trying to do my job, and this man came in asking personal questions about my life, which I am not required to give.”
She continued: “If you want me to be a b**** I will happily be a b**** but that video was me being calm, collected and trying to be safe, because I’m not sure how a man is going to respond to my rejection.
“Many women have been hurt, murdered because they said ‘no’,” she then pointed out.
“So I would rather take the precautions of me still responding even though I was clearly uncomfortable rather than just being a ‘b****’ and somehow risking my life.
“Put yourself in my shoes, I was the only one at work by myself, he was the only person in the store at the time, and he just comes in asking personal questions about me and my life.
“There was no conversation prior to that. He just straight up started asking me how old I was, what school I went to, where that school was. Don’t you think that’s a little odd? A little creepy? Man or woman?”
Ending her speech, she went on: “Women aren’t b****es, we’re just uncomfortable and scared because we don’t know how men are going to react.
“So please, stay out of my comments section if you’re going to be misogynistic. And a p****.”
If that doesn’t put her critics in their place we’re not sure what will…
