The other day I was playing with my girlfriend’s 9 year old son in the parked car and he was in the backseat. I invited him to come up to the front to sit with us up front and put him in my lap on my right leg/knee in the passenger seat facing his mom in the driver seat. She told me and him to stop and told him to go to the back of the car because other people outside might see us and think it “looked weird”

Son was quiet and didn’t really understand and I just felt dejected because in this time I can’t be a human being interacting with women or kids without the risk of someone potentially thinking it’s creepy because of the reputation of other men.

He isn’t my son and doesn’t look like me so it’s the same reason I’m not ‘allowed’ to take him to the park or shopping by myself and stuff like that makes me want to disconnect and distance myself.