I am trained in self-defense, specifically women's self defense. You absolutely did the right thing. When someone is harassing you like that public, whatever you need to do to get home safe is the right thing. You are absolutely correct, approaching him would have escalated the situtaitoin. This guy is an idiot who doesn't understand deescalation techniques. Sounds like that he's just victim blaming to justify that something like that wouldn't ever happen to him because he believes he would beat the guy up, which is a toxic-masculine delusion. Judging by how shocked he was at the story, if it happened to him he would probably be shocked and freeze with confusion that this is actually happening. He's struggling to comprehend something like this would actually happen, if it actually did he would probably be like "WTF? Is this real? What is happening?" before he could react.