Men are nervous.

Across America, they are not just being more careful about how they act. But they are revisiting every past act, every conversation — in some cases, for years.

Jesse Hornbuckle, a Dallas real estate developer and professional photographer, said the #MeToo movement has him treating his life like a yearbook he needs to review.

“You’re recalling every incident, every conversation that you have had your entire adult life, and you're thinking how something, everything, could be interpreted negatively by another person.”

Jamaine Dickens, a Detroit-based public affairs consultant, said he has spent a lot of time in the past as well.

“I’m thinking back in time to every conversation and action since I was 12 years old, looking at what kind of behavior there is in the past. It keeps me up nights.”

Neither man, both respected in their fields, neither ever accused of behaving badly, has gotten that phone call that could change, and possibly ruin, their lives. And they know of no instance that should.

But that doesn’t stop them from being concerned. They were concerned even about speaking out this week about their fears after continuing revelations and accusations regarding sexual harassment, abuse and assault since October when the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine reported that more than 12 women allege that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein either harassed or raped them. Weinstein was fired from his own production company. His wife left him. Hollywood denounced him. And the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating him.

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But since then, more than 100 public figures — and dozens of others — have been accused of sexual misconduct by both women and men identified by the movement whose Twitter hashtag became #MeToo but whose history was revealed to have stretched back decades.

But the question of what comes next, which has arisen more and more in recent weeks, is giving way to these: What will this mean for women? Should there be growing concern about a backlash, and I don’t mean victim-shaming.

I mean Mike-Pencing. (The Los Angeles Times reported last April that the vice president told The Hill “that he never dines with women alone, nor does he attend functions without his wife if alcohol is being served.”)

I mean CEOs privately using the #MeToo movement to change the way they work with female coworkers and employees.

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I mean women being left out of meetings or unable to have one-on-ones with employers who will use their fear of being wrongly accused to change how they work with colleagues and employees.

I mean, worst-case scenario, that corporations and companies across the board begin to use fear of being accused to hire men rather than women.

We may already be there.

A colleague reached out to give me a hug of congratulations and stopped short to ask whether it was OK.

A friend reports feeling left out of some work conversations she would have been included in months ago.

And men are looking for explicit rules.

"It’s hard as a man to say (this could go too far) because a woman who has experienced something like that — how could you ever doubt her?” Dickens said. “But there needs to be some type of line, some type of rule, some type of standard that we go by. It’s almost as though people are guilty until proven innocent. And there is concern.”

And Hornbuckle? He already made one phone call to a friend because of a conversation years ago, way before he was married, one that had nothing to do with work, just to make sure a woman wasn’t feeling some kind of way.

She assured him that he was fine, he said, but “Is this how I’m going to approach everything now. I was with a colleague in a professional setting, and we were getting ready to make a presentation. I said “You gonna drop it like it’s hot?’ meaning ‘Are you going to do well on your presentation?

“I suddenly stopped her and said, 'Look! This is what I meant: Are you going to do a good job?’ She laughed. But I didn't want her take it the wrong way.”

As the country faces a righteous reckoning over the mistreatment of women, we must make sure courageous action does not lead to erasure of hard-fought gains.

We cannot turn back. We just cannot continue the way things where. Both are possible, and both are necessary.

Women should be able to work in safe environments where they also can excel, can achieve, can lead.

But we better pay attention to make sure the #MeToo movement doesn't become a #NotYou one.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Order her book "The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery" (Wayne State University Press, 2018) from Wayne State University.