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Strange, Lost Old Man

Naughty_Felid said:
Don't agree. This isn't homophobic at all, it was just a fact on how some men met up to have sex.
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i meant, are we common denominating a "strange encounter" devoid of any sexual layer that the op was able to pick up on, into an old gay pick up artist spotting some fresh prey in the sticks and chancing his arm ... a lot of unrequired assumptions in that
 
davidplankton said:
She walks like Babs Windsor.
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henry said:
i meant, are we common denominating a "strange encounter" devoid of any sexual layer that the op was able to pick up on, into an old gay pick up artist spotting some fresh prey in the sticks and chancing his arm ... a lot of unrequired assumptions in that
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No as forteans I think we are looking at different possibilities. The old gay guy is no different than the old guy who was mental and demented, because that's what this guy was obviously.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
No as forteans I think we are looking at different possibilities. The old gay guy is no different than the old guy who was mental and demented, because that's what this guy was obviously.
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yeah but, "mental and demented" can be directly drawn from the encounter as described ... wheres the gayness come in ?
 
In reply to naughty_felid -

As the proud owner of a vagina myself this last nearly 60 years I have a certain insight. ;)

It has been many years since I was last approached by random 'interested 'men. It used to happen while I was walking my small children in the park, in my early 30s. Sad bastards.
 
To drag the thread back on-topic, personally I'd've

a. felt wary
b. not got in the car
Also, if there was a convo and it'd gone as described, I'd've rung the non-emergency police line and told them, in case the bloke was either trouble or in trouble. Leave it to them to sort it out.
 
I have indeed just called it in to the non-emergency line, describing it in as much detail as I could. Both operators I spoke to reacted to the line "get in and show me", so the concern running through this thread certainly isn't unwarranted. They'll run what little of the registration I was able to get through a few systems, and see if anything pings. I assume if anything does, they'll get back to me. Even if they don't, at least I know I've done all I can. My thanks to all those prodding me out of my personal mental fog. Taken me a while to compute this, myself.

To address one point brought up, our little village is the furthest thing from a red light area. Quiet, rural, farms, a decent amount of money - though little of it mine, sadly - a busier road than we'd like, thanks to commuters and industrial traffic, but certainly not the kind of place someone would trawl for a pick-up. Very few people walk at night; I only do so since it's a short distance - 8-10 minutes at most - and I know the area and most everyone along the way. The only red lights you'd see here are passing brake lights and the one on the back of my headlight headset! :p

I must admit to being somewhat naive sexually. I have only very modest drives and have had no sexual relationships, so it's entirely likely any hints he may have been making went right over my head. Frankly, I'm glad they did. I still believe mental impairment of some kind most likely, but other possibilities can't be dismissed.

As one last aside, thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. You've been superb. I think I'm going to like it here. :)
 
I often walk my dogs down a similar sounding road (without strange old men). I find headlights just knock out my night vision and it's better walking with no light but wearing a fluorescent jacket.
 
Glad to hear you called it in, @WanderingFox. Whatever was going on with the man, at least there will be a record of it now.

Re: the references to prostitutes upthread - I suspect said pick-ups are rife with local codes and cues that not everyone will know, hence leading to some awkward mistakes.

In the town where I used to live, if anyone had suggested there were male prostitutes working the streets, I would have laughed outright. The place was very conservative, and even the female prostitutes kept themselves to one out-of-the-way parking lot. However, late one night, I was driving through a very nice upper-middle class neighborhood. I saw a young man wearing a concert t-shirt, jeans and white sneakers suddenly step out of the shadows, then retreat. Then down the block, another young man in a (different) concert t-shirt, jeans and white sneakers did the same. I thought that was odd. Then there was another, and another, all dressed in a similar way. It took me a moment to figure it out, but then I was like :eek::eek:

A person wanting such a hook-up without knowing where to look or what to look for would probably would make a hash of it.
 
Ulalume said:
In the town where I used to live, if anyone had suggested there were male prostitutes working the streets, I would have laughed outright. The place was very conservative, and even the female prostitutes kept themselves to one out-of-the-way parking lot. However, late one night, I was driving through a very nice upper-middle class neighborhood. I saw a young man wearing a concert t-shirt, jeans and white sneakers suddenly step out of the shadows, then retreat. Then down the block, another young man in a (different) concert t-shirt, jeans and white sneakers did the same. I thought that was odd. Then there was another, and another, all dressed in a similar way. It took me a moment to figure it out, but then I was like :eek::eek:
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Those guys may have been expecting a drug delivery.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Those guys may have been expecting a drug delivery.
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Nah. They were all along this winding street, on alternate sides, in the shadows behind the streetlights. They'd step out briefly into the light as if to show they were there, then back into the shadows. Their clothes seemed like a sort of uniform. There was plenty of drug trade in that town, easy to find, but that was not the neighborhood for it.

As an aside, we could tell the town was really beginning to fall on hard times around 2009 when some of the female prostitutes began to move out of their usual space onto one of the highways at night. In that case the signal was the specific way they carried their purse. Obviously they were not going to go out dressed in scanty clothes, not with all the cops around.
 
A very intertesting story. I’m leaning towards the man had a mental problem such as a stroke rather than an attempted abduction. I know anything is possible, but I think if the OP was younger and/or female it would sound like a sketchy character up to some shady stuff.
 
WanderingFox said:
Two nights ago I had a most peculiar encounter, which I'm struggling to explain. It may well have a prosaic explanation, but I can't, as of yet, find one that fits. It happened like this...

I left my friend’s house a little after 10pm to walk home. It’s a short journey along an L-shaped section of the sole road through the village, my house at the end of the long arm, as it were. Not long after I’d rounded the bend of the L, and descended the short slope beyond it, a car slowed down as it approached me from behind.

It stopped just past me, opposite a house, making me believe it would turn in, but proceeded to do nothing, just sit silent and dark as I walked beyond it, no doors opening, no cabin lights turning on, no windows sliding down. I got about 15 yards further on when it moved again, rolling up alongside me.

This time I directed my headlight toward it – I usually avoid that, for fear of dazzling the driver – and saw an elderly gentleman, silver-haired and tidy, gesturing for my attention. Why he didn’t lower the passenger window and call is the first of many oddities.

I opened the door, and politely enquired if I could help. He told me he was lost, had been for a while, and wanted my help getting his bearings. I told him where he was – Bagstone – and mentioned other villages along the road to the north – Cromhall, Charfield, Wotton-Under-Edge, only the last of which gained any reaction, a comment about it “being too far” – and the south – our immediate neighbour Rangeworthy, and Iron Acton further on. His response to those was to ask a vague question about their direction, and then request I get in to his car and show him.

That’s when confusion really set in for me – who would ask someone, a total stranger, to do that? What, exactly, did he mean? I did sit, to try and make conversation easier, noticing how smart and modern his car was, but kept the door open. I asked where he was going, more than once, and got no answer, beyond needing to get to the main road. Twice during this exchange he moved the car forward slightly, startling me enough to exclaim both times.

By this point I was thoroughly confused and a little worried. His behaviour didn’t add up. His manner was pleasant and clear, he spoke well, but little I said registered, and the information he gave me was incredibly limited and vague. He didn’t seem confused or distressed. The best analogy I can give is a phone support operator with a thin script, who either ignore you, or pauses awkwardly, then just picks right back up with the same lines. He appeared unable to compute anything beyond a few simple details – lost, home, main road – which made it impossible to help him.

In the end, I got out of the car, apologising, and he started to drive off without closing his door; thankfully he pulled away very steadily, or I wouldn’t have been able to. I then stood, and watched, confounded and, I’ll admit, distressed, as he rolled out of sight, into the darkness past my house, wondering about his strange behaviour and if I could have helped more, if there was something else I could have done.

I can recall the last three letters of his registration, which I'll provide if requested, but have no idea as to the make or model of his car, beyond it being a hatchback, and of quality, and likely dark blue. It was notably quiet. A Golf, possibly? I can’t remember his face at all, except it being clean-shaven and maybe a little on the professorial side.

My personal, tentative leaning is to him having suffered a small stroke, but my personal experiences of such things - two elderly relatives suffered strokes shortly before passing - don't tally with this gentleman's behaviour. I'm certainly not about to entertain the wilder suggestions my friend had, but it's difficult for me to properly explain this. I open this to your examination and discussion, and hope something concrete comes of it.
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dementia. my aunt appeared very normal and social, but one day my cousin got a call from a stranger in a mall parking lot over an hour away. my aunt was there, lost.
 
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