Woman Insists That No ‘Normal’ Man Would Ever Ask A Woman For Help
Don't gamble with your safety.
Rommel Canlas | Shutterstock As women in a world in which gender-based violence is far too common, we've heard our fair share of advice on how to stay safe while out in public. Stay alert, be aware of your surroundings, send a trusted friend your location, switch up your routine, never wear earbuds at night — the list goes on.
One woman on TikTok added another suggestion to the never-ending list. She urged women to be hesitant if an unknown man asks for their help in public as their safety could be in jeopardy.
The woman insisted that no 'normal' man would ever ask a woman for help.
"Quick story about women's safety that's gonna end in something that I think all women need to remember," content creator Maya Cherry began in her video.
"When I was 16, my friend had just gotten her license, so we were excited to go to the neighborhood Target 'cause we felt like we were grown, we could go by ourselves," she recalled. After shopping, the two teenage girls began walking back to the car in the dark and noticed an older man parked a couple of spots away getting into his van.
The man appeared to be struggling to put his groceries into his car and suddenly turned to Cherry and her friend, asking if they could help him. Her friend immediately agreed, but Cherry was hesitant. Having watched episodes of "Criminal Minds" and "Law & Order: SVU," she was wary of the man's request.
“I’m like, ‘Um, sir, we can't. But I'm happy to go find someone that can help you,’” she recounted. “And he's like, ‘Oh, no, it'll be quick. It's not that many groceries. We can all do it, just the three of us together.’”
Unwilling to agree, Cherry and her friend went back into Target, found a male employee, told him about the situation, and asked for help.
However, when Cherry and her friend returned to the parking lot with the male employee, the elderly man was gone.
"The man is gone. The van is gone. The groceries are gone," Cherry said.
The situation made Cherry think of a video she watched when she was 15 in which a father told his three college-aged daughters that no normal, respectable man who cares about women's safety would ever ask a woman to come to his aid — he would ask another man. Someone cognizant of the world around them and the danger women face every day would recognize the potentially harmful situation a request like this puts a woman in.
Most men would also assume that women are less capable of lifting heavy objects, so asking a woman — let alone a teenage girl — for help doing such a task is immediately suspicious.
This is the exact tactic Ted Bundy and other evil men have used to hurt women.
Self-defense TikToker @the.self.defense.girl dubbed the rule Cherry described "The Ted Bundy Rule" for this very reason.
“This is the exact tactic that Ted Bundy used to lure his victims," she explained. "He would have a cast or be on crutches and ask women to help him to his car where he would proceed to knock them out, kidnap them, and unalive them.”
"If a grown man genuinely needs help he's typically gonna ask another man and not a woman or a child,” she added, urging women to “question why he's asking for your help in particular.”
While the man who asked Cherry and her friend for help could have been harmless, it's not a risk she was willing to take and she was smart to seek an employee's help. "He could have been fine. He could have been someone's sweet old grandpa," she said. "Or we could have ended up on the 5 o'clock news."
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.