"That Dude Is a Creep" — Woman Notices Young Girl FaceTiming Creepy Guy on Her Way to School
"You absolutely did not overstep."
Updated Sept. 28 2024, 9:03 a.m. ET
Bonnie (@bonniedoes) thinks she may've spotted a creepazoid trying to groom a young child during a morning walk with her dog. The TikToker detailed her sleuthing and eventual discovery that there was something amiss with the conversation an elementary school-aged girl had on her block with an online friend — and how she addressed the situation.
Bonnie begins her video by stating that nearly every single morning she takes her service dog out for a walk. And while out on these mostly daily walks, she sees her neighbor and her young daughter. Oftentimes, this child will be "zooming" by on her little scooter, and sometimes she'll be on her phone texting or video-calling with someone.
The younger girl will be doing this while zipping past the TikToker on her scooter, and Bonnie mentions that she can clearly see there's another person's face on this child's phone screen.
"With no helmet on," she adds, before saying that's "a whole other thing" and not the primary topic of conversation when it comes to her video.
Bonnie goes on to say that her neighbor's kid is around 11 or 12 years old despite being tall for her age, because the kid "looks young."
"But she is often video calling someone," the TikToker states, before going off and stating that she had always assumed the child was "Facetiming one of her kid friends."
However, Bonnie says that while the young girl was zooming past her on her scooter, she "kept hearing a man's voice." It soon became apparent to the TikToker that the person the young girl on the two-wheeler was speaking to wasn't one of her peers.
It sounded like a full-grown man, which, understandably, set off alarm bells in her mind.
"A definitely like a man, man, not a teenager. Definitely a man's voice. And I was like, maybe she's talking to her dad, I don't see like a male parent, so, I don't know, maybe her parents aren't together," Bonnie speculated upon hearing the man's voice.
She added that she "didn't think any of it at first," but that when she got up to the stop sign with her service dog, who was sniffing away in the area, she was able to "eavesdrop" on the young girl's conversation.
"It felt weird," Bonnie said, questioning why a little girl would be talking to a grown man.
"But I was listening to some of the things that man was saying and I thought it was very odd. He was asking her to show him her outfit," Bonnie mentioned, stating that maybe for a dad or grandpa to ask their daughter or granddaughter if they were were wearing their favorite shirt would be one thing.
However, the way this man said it, that it felt "creepy."
Bonnie pretty much got confirmation that this dude was creeping up on this child after he had asked her where she was at. As the TikToker points out, if the man was indeed a male relative, then he wouldn't known her whereabouts and precisely where she was located.
"If this is a male relative who knows this child, then he wouldn't be asking that question," she said.
The man went on to comment on the young girl's area, stating he thought it looked nice after also complimenting her outfit, which he called "cute."
Bonnie decided it was time to snoop on the situation. She walked behind the young girl, looking directly into her phone's video chat so the man could see her face.
The TikToker then asked the young girl who she was talking on the phone, which prompted the young girl to act secretively, stating that she was was just chatting it up with "her friend."
Bonnie's question seemed to strike a nerve with the child, who immediately began holding her phone lower in what seemed like an attempt to ensure that she wouldn't see the person on the other line.
She then asked the young girl if she was speaking to someone from school, to which the child replied in the negative. Bonnie thought that the entire exchange was a bit strange, but ultimately decided to cross the street and slowly walk away.
However, as she was leaving, she heard the man the young girl was on FaceTime with tell her that she can't tell anyone that the two of them were talking to each other.
"As soon as I heard him say that, hey does your mom know that you're talking to this friend? And the guy was just like I gotta go, I gotta go and then she was like don't hang up, don't hang up, just give me a second."
Bonnie then said that the young girl tried playing off her interaction with the older man, stating that her mother knew about their friendship. Bonnie, not letting up, told the child she was going to speak to her mom about the man, but not before asking her how she was able to meet him in the first place.
"On Instagram," the girl told the TikToker. Bonnie then heard the guy on the other line say that he was going to go, and that it did sound as if he ended the call.
The TikToker found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place: she says that she didn't want to risk coming off as the "nosy neighbor" which she definitely was being, had she decided to go straight to Bonnie's mother and relay the information to her.
So she opted, instead, to try and level with the young girl and ask if her mother warned her against talking with strangers online. The little girl said that her mother did, however, that the guy she was speaking with was really nice.
However, the girl did ultimately concede that she didn't know the man's age or all that much else about him.
Bonnie then informed the kid that she was going to speak to her mother anyway, which instantly alarmed the child and sent her into a panic. However, the TikToker assured her that she wasn't going to get into trouble, and that she was simply going to talk to the girl's mother to let her know who she's been video calling.
The story then takes a strange turn. After Bonnie reveals to the young girl's mother that she was talking with a strange, older man on the internet, she said that the mother's reaction was one of annoyance.
According to Bonnie, she said that it was almost as if the mom was upset that she was wasting her time by bringing it up to her.
At the end of the clip she wanted to know if she did the right thing, or if she was just being a "weird snoopy neighbor."
Numerous TikTokers who responded to her clip told her that she was doing the right thing, regardless of the mother's reaction. What do you think? Would you have reacted in a similar way to Bonnie?