It started like any other night. My roommates and I were too lazy to cook anything and too cold to leave the house for carry-out, so we ordered in some good greasy Chinese food. As the eight of us gathered around our kitchen table to dig in, I looked outside and noticed someone standing in the dark out on the driveway we shared with our next door neighbors.

“Look, Matt’s outside on the phone,” I called the rest of my roommates to the window.

The next door neighbors were a group of 8 boys that we were really close to. Seeing neighbor Matt outside, my roommates and I immediately started banging on the window and waving at him. Matt turned to look at us and we screamed and knocked a little harder. I started laughing; Matt was staring at us pretending to masturbate. [No, there is no really fun way to put that. And yes, it was really funny at the time.]

“I don’t think he’s pretending, Lauren” My roommate looked at me, concerned.

“Um. I don’t think that’s Matt,” another of my roommates chimed in.

“Obviously it’s Matt, guys.” I waved my arms frantically and pounded on the window, laughing.

And then I heard screaming. Two of my roommates had run outside to investigate and found themselves face to face with a large man – pants around his ankles, sweater pulled up over his eyes – pleasuring himself on our driveway. As soon as he saw them, he picked up his pants and ran off.

My roommates came back into the house and we didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, it was so absurdly hilarious; how the hell did this guy think 8 girls eating fried rice was a turn on? (And, how did I ever confuse my 6′4, built and adorable friend Matt for a fat, balding masturbator?!) On the other hand, though, it was really scary.

Here we were eating our dinner and some disgusting pervert was outside our window doing dirty things. Who knows how many times he had done this unnoticed before?

Our “friend” was eventually caught and taken off the driveways of Ann Arbor, which was comforting, at first. But now I realize he’s not the only creepoid doing things (flashing, rubbing, groping) like this. There are men like this all over the place. All kinds of men. Men we see everyday. Men that probably look a lot more like my friend Matt than this old, bald guy ever did. And, unfortunately, short of walking around with our eyes closed or staying home (which actually didn’t work for me and my roommates) there is really no way for women to protect ourselves from these creeps.

It seems the only thing we can do is be prepared; with a bottle of Purel, a sense of humor and some great friends to share the story with.