Woman sparks debate after viral ‘overreaction’ to man approaching her in parking lot

A TikToker went viral after recounting the time she went off on a stranger for approaching her in a parking lot, sparking a debate.

In a 90-second clip with 2.1 million views, Danielle (living.transparently) detailed the encounter she had with a stranger, which left her “shaking.” The mother described how she was alone with her son in the parking lot when a man approached her and said, “Excuse me, miss.”

“I didn’t know why in the hell he was approaching me or what he was trying to do,” Danielle said. She explained that the man was about “30 feet” away from her.

“I turned around to him and I literally yelled at him and I said, ‘Do not approach me!'” she recalled. According to the TikToker, this caused the stranger to immediately walk away. All the while, she kept repeating this command “over and over.”

“No male should ever approach a woman in a parking lot. Ever,” Danielle concluded. “And if a male does approach you, you need to turn around and use the strongest voice that you can possibly use with him. Don’t be polite. They can literally screw off. Nobody should be approaching you in the parking lot.”

In the comments, many TikTok users were confused and thought Danielle was ‘overreacting.’

“So he said ‘excuse me’ and you yelled at him?” one user wrote. “You have absolutely lost the plot,” another added.

“This was a little extra. How do you know he wasn’t trying to tell you something?” a third commented, to which the TikToker replied, “He wasn’t.”

Others sympathized with her methods of avoiding potential danger. “Better to ‘overreact’ and live than be ‘polite’ and end up dead,” one said.

“If you feel unsafe for you or your child, absolutely throw courtesy out the window,” another shared.

In response to critics, Danielle posted a follow-up video to provide more context. She said that she was in a “completely dead” parking lot, and the stranger was the “sketchiest-looking guy” she’d ever seen.

The mom said she didn’t have any form of protection, so she didn’t want to let him get anywhere near her to where he could “knock me out and rob me.” She also clarified that the man wasn’t trying to help her as she hadn’t dropped anything, and was buckling her son into his car seat.