Alarming as these interactions were, panic didn’t fully take hold of me until he appeared in a park near my son’s school and it became blindingly apparent that he had been following me around for weeks. It was the start of a personal hell which left me traumatised and in fear for my life.

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During the following months of panic attacks and constant anxiety, I often thought back to that first meeting and wondered why on earth I had given this man so much information about myself. I’d known that something wasn’t quite right, so why didn’t I walk away? Why, throughout all those encounters, had it never occurred to me that I could just tell him to leave me alone?

In The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker explains that predators who attack strangers go through a victim-selection process before making their move. It’s a bit like an interview, with the predator testing their chosen subject.

They may, for example, approach a woman who is loading shopping into her boot in a deserted car park and offer to help her. If the woman smiles politely and says, “That’s very kind of you but I’m fine, thanks,” she is more likely to become a victim than the woman who raises a flat palm in front of the predator and says sternly, “I don’t want your help.”

A predator basically wants to know how easy it is to manipulate you, says de Becker. Can they engage you in conversation and persuade you to yield to their pressure, even though you don’t want to? Can they manipulate you using guilt or by making you feel indebted to them for their help? The best defences often come at the cost of appearing impolite, he explains, but it’s a small price to pay for keeping yourself safe.

Unfortunately, patriarchal culture has other ideas about the ways women should behave. Women are natural caregivers, we’re told. We should be nurturing, polite and accommodating and we should always put other people’s feelings before our own.

Men are, by and large, better equipped than women when it comes to walking away from strangers who make them feel uncomfortable.

Of course, boys are taught to be polite, too, but they’re also encouraged to be brave, strong and independent. Unlike girls, they’re taught that being respected is more important than being liked, that being in control is more important than other people’s feelings.

While this stereotyping creates issues for children of all genders, it does mean that men are, by and large, better equipped than women when it comes to walking away from strangers who make them feel uncomfortable.

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Having been brought up to prioritise other people’s feelings over my own, it didn’t come naturally to me to walk away mid-conversation, or to say anything which might cause offence, even when I knew something wasn’t quite right. As a result, I made myself vulnerable. And I paid for it with months of fear and anxiety.

I was lucky. Although the stress of being stalked was horrendous and exhausting, I didn’t end up being physically attacked or killed. That’s not the case for everyone.

We need to stop reinforcing gender-specific behaviour. We need to teach young people that being polite should never override feelings of anxiety around strangers. We need to teach children of all genders to be strong and autonomous, in tune with their own needs and confident enough to voice them, even if it means being perceived as rude.

Rattled (Allen & Unwin) by Ellis Gunn is out now.

To read more from Sunday Life magazine, click here.

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