Judy: Paranoid? Sensible, I'd say. If I think I might be being
followed and it's dark I vary my pace, and if there are other
people on the street I slow my pace so the man has to pass me.
Eric: I didn't qualify this phenomena enough. These are usually
women in their twenties, and Manhattan is very safe (believe it's
55th in crime of any US city and this despite its size). Even at
night, Manhattan is well-lit everywhere, has flocks of
surveillance cameras, and is heavily patrolled by police. Plus
the streets are full of people 24/7 and people here DO help if
there's a problem.
I'm not trying to be insensitive to your experience, just to
indicate the circumstances are different here. If it were the
Bronx or parts of Brooklyn or Queens, the behavior could be
sensible. Here it's just plain paranoid.
And what would a cell phone do anyway? At the range where the
cell phone defense is employed, a male could grab the cell phone
before the woman could dial 911. Unless somebody starts making
call phones with tazers in them, they're no more useful than
prayer beads.
To me it looks like a symptom of further alienation from one's
environment. Fear of strangers abetted by the reflexive use of
electronic gadgetry.
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