We asked the women of the BuzzFeed Community to share their creepiest and most shocking "Nice Guy" stories. Here are the experiences that prove why women constantly feel on edge:
Warning: This post contains descriptions physical violence, sexual assault, stalking, and suicide that some readers may find disturbing.
1. "I joined a singles activities group after a bad breakup, so obviously everyone there was single. I met a guy who was nice, but I wouldn't date him. Well, he wasn't getting the hint and started texting me nonstop throughout the day — I'm talking every 10 minutes — even though I never responded. Then, he went even further and started texting me things like 'Good morning, I'm passing by (my place of employment) on my way to work, and thinking of you.' Again, I wouldn't answer. One day, I was at work and looked up from my computer to see him STANDING IN THE LOBBY and staring at me."
"I went to the back and told my manager what was going on, and luckily I was allowed to sit in the employee room for a while until someone came to get me once he finally left, about TWENTY MINUTES LATER. My best guess is that he was waiting for me to come back out and finally got tired of waiting. I ended up blocking his number and dropping out of the group because I had so much anxiety about having to see him again. I had so much fun in the group, but I don't know if I'll ever join one again because of that experience."
2. "I went on a date with a guy who brought me lunch after a midterm in grad school. Basically, he showed up at my office and all my colleagues thought it was sweet, so even though he'd asked me like 30 times to go out beforehand, I guess I felt I like owed him something after everyone told me how nice that was. We went out, I still found him super creepy, and I texted him after that I'd prefer to just be friends. I got no reply, but a lot of weird calls at random hours and felt that someone was following me home from the bus stop. I never saw anyone behind me so figured I was just being extra cautious."
"It turned out, he paid his friend to follow me home in a car from the university to find out where I lived. He broke into my home one night and assaulted me, drugged me, and left me for dead in my bathroom. Fortunately, I woke up many hours later and managed to call 911 before passing out again. He was prosecuted, but I had to drop out of my grad program."
3. "A man I worked with was always super nice to me. He was nice to everyone, but a little more with me. Everyone told me he was into me, talked him up, and convinced me to go out with him. At the time I was just getting out of a manipulative, toxic relationship, so I wasn't looking for anything serious. After a couple of casual dates, I told him I wasn't interested in being someone's girlfriend at the moment. This 'nice guy' flipped the fuck out."
"He got out of the car and started screaming, laughing, crying, and was throwing things. We were in his car and weren't near my home or any of my friends' homes, so I just sat in silence until he got back in the car and decided to drive me home. The very next day, he acted like nothing had happened and showed up at my front door. I still don't know how he got past the security gate. He basically stalked me for two months until he finally gave up."
4. "I had a 24-year-old coworker when I was 17 years old. He was weird, but nothing I couldn't handle. Once, I needed a ride home. I didn't live in an area that was bus line-friendly, and this was in 1998, so I didn't have a cell phone. He offered and I reluctantly accepted. The ride was fine, just small talk. When we arrived, I thanked him and went to undo my seat belt. He tried to kiss me. I pulled back and just stared at him in what was probably confusion and disgust, then got out of the car. I told my manager I wasn't comfortable working with him, and his reply was, 'he's a nice guy, he meant no harm.'"
"A few weeks later, I was dozing at my boyfriend's house in a hammock on the back patio. I woke up to my coworker inches from my face, staring at me and breathing hard. He said, 'I just wanted to watch you sleep, nothing else. I'm a nice guy.' He had sat outside my boyfriend's house and waited for him to get in the shower so he could sneak in and watch me. Two weeks later at work, Mr. Nice Guy was hit with four sexual harassment slips, all from women under 18 years old."
5. "A friend and I were at a Halloween event on campus in college. We saw a guy sitting alone, andI felt bad for him so I asked if he wanted to join us. My friend and I were 19, and he was 26. I was severely naive at the time. We all started hanging out quite regularly, and things were going okay, but in hindsight there were a LOT of red flags. He began asking me out, and I let him down easy because my friend was into him. They went out on a date and apparently he forced a kiss on her, so she wasn’t interested anymore. We all hung out again, and soon after he started asking me out again. I finally decided to firmly tell him that I wasn’t interested, and didn’t think I ever would be."
"He went on this long tangent about how no one ever wanted to give him a chance, and the last girl he dated broke up with him because her friend 'brainwashed her' into thinking he was a creep. I felt super uncomfortable, so I left and distanced myself from him. A few months later, I decided to sign up for online dating. He found my profile, lied about his age to appear younger, and sent me a message. I ignored and blocked him. He created a new profile, and sent another, similar message. Same result: ignored and blocked. After the 5th time, I'd had enough and finally just went off on him. He called me 'crazy' and said I was overreacting. He said something along the lines of, 'Sorry I bothered you. I just wanted to treat you like the princess you are, but I guess no one likes a Prince Charming anymore.' Barf."
6. "At my first job, I was 16 years old. My male coworker was 27 and engaged to a woman across the country. In the kitchen, he made every excuse to walk as close to me as possible so he could touch my back or waist. He constantly complimented me, which would be fine if he didn't take it too far by only complimenting my body or perceived attractiveness to other men."
"When he was going to visit his fiancé in Florida, he offered to buy me a gift from the Harry Potter amusement park, and asked for my address to mail it to me instead of just bringing it to work. Every time I complained to management, I was told, 'He's harmless, he's just being nice, give him a chance.' No, he's an adult, and I was a child."
7. "I met a guy through a dating app, and we both agreed there wasn’t that spark. He fronted that he was a 'nice guy' and okay with rejection. He became one of best friends and my closest guy friend. One day, we were all hanging out getting day drunk. I left early."
"Four hours later, my best friend called me to say that our guy friend had suddenly attempted to kill her by choking her, all the the while screaming about how she was 'ruining everything for him.' She managed to throw him off and force him to run out of the house. Police were called and he was booked into a psychiatric hold."
—Anonymous
8. "In college, a guy asked me and my friends to go to an event. A group hangout — pretty normal occurrence. A few hours before the event, my roommate pulled me aside. She told me that he'd called her and told her she wasn’t invited anymore. I confirmed with all the others invited, he'd called them all and told them they weren't invited anymore. All except for me. He was trying to trick me into going to an event solo with him."
"I went into his room (we lived in a house with dorm rooms) to confront him, and saw that he had a photo of me taped to his wall. I ripped it down and ran away."
9. "My roommate's boyfriend was a self-proclaimed 'nice guy.' One night, after they drank, he came into my room and laid on my bed while I didn’t have a top on. I told him to leave."
"Two minutes later, I heard my door open and he was standing in my doorway, naked, walking towards my bed. I screamed, kicked him out, and told my roommate he was never allowed in our apartment again."
—Anonymous
10. "I went to meet a guy I met online back in the day at his place — yeah, dumb, I know — on my way to see other friends. He was super creepy and I got out of there as soon as I could, but he got mad at me because he was 'such a nice guy' and I didn’t appreciate it."
"So, he posted my phone number in chat rooms posing as a single girl so I would get spammed with calls. I told each guy that called what happened, and they shut it down fast. Somehow, I didn't get any more calls."
—Anonymous
11. "I was on the website 7cups, which you can use to speak to people called 'listeners' about your problems. I found someone who looked nice, and I started talking about my relationship issues. He wasn't helping. Instead, he was talking about how he was a 'nice guy' and how every girl cheated on him. I was so confused. Then, he said maybe I could be his girlfriend, after messaging online for less than a day."
"Then, he said he had stuffed animals that he cooked and cleaned with, and that he'd named. I ghosted. He was so upset about being a 'nice guy,' and was super creepy. He had a lot of good reviews from others who messaged him, and I felt lied to!"
12. "I joined a new company and for the first six months, a coworker kept sending me helpful work-related texts, touching me on the arm as a greeting, and coming over to talk to me whenever he could. I thought he was being friendly since I was new, and didn’t think much of it. I was just glad I had someone around my age to talk to at work. However, he started in on gift-giving, excessive physical contact, and even found out where I hiked on the weekends and showed up there. I didn’t have a specific hour when I would hike, so he would show up at my hiking spot and wait there for hours until I got there."
"He would then follow me down the hill, going on and on about relationships, really loudly, until I got embarrassed. I stopped hiking and he started calling me during weekends and after work hours, all whilst avoiding me at work. Then, I heard from colleagues that he thought I led him on and that I gave ‘hints’ that I liked him back, when that ‘hint’ was me borrowing his phone once to use the calculator because mine was dead."
13. "There was a guy I had 'met' online. We talked for a solid two years before I told him my last name or the city I lived in. He was incredibly sweet, always remembered things I'd told him, and made a point to ask about my day or how my interview went, etc. I had kept any real info to myself out of sheer paranoia, not because he'd 'done' anything to make me feel uncomfortable. One day I decided to just go for it and tell him my last name and the city I was in."
"At some point or another, I decided to cut off contact for reasons I can’t even recall anymore. About a week or so later, my mom came into the house looking confused, so I asked what was wrong. She said there was a teddy bear in our mailbox and a letter with my name on it, with NO POSTAGE. He literally found my home address and wrote me some huge love letter saying he didn’t understand why I chose to not talk to him anymore, how he loved me, etc. It gave me the creeps SO bad to think he went out of his way to find me like that and he had been outside of my house."
14. "This 'nice guy' decided we were soulmates after one date. He sent me over 100 texts the day after the date, building up to one telling me he would kill himself if I didn't go out with him again."
"He followed up the suicide threat with telling me he wasn't going to leave his girlfriend, and I would just have to be a grownup and share him. When I blocked him, he called me 'crazy' to our mutual friends."
15. And finally, "I got a smoothie with a classmate to discuss end-of-semester projects and plans over break. After we finished talking about our projects and papers, he launched into a whole half-hour rant about how all women were 'bitches' and 'whores' and 'teases' who wouldn't sleep with him. As I was about to leave, he literally said, 'but you're not like other girls,' and asked me out."
"When I let him down gently with an, 'I'm sorry but I only like you as a friend,' he immediately called me a 'bitch, just like all the other bitches,' and stormed off. Good riddance."
I've made this point many times before, and I'll make it again: Men, women don't owe you shit simply because you think you "deserve it" or because you're a "nice person." Not their bodies, not their time, not even a second look! If you read this post and immediately got defensive, maybe you should think about why you feel that way. Or, if you're giving yourself a pat on the back because you're "one of the good ones" and "not like these guys," don't. You don't get brownie points for doing the bare minimum. At the very least, start calling out this behavior when you see it, so we can try and make the world even a tiny bit safer for women to exist in.
