How to deal with unwanted attention?

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well, yeah, she doesn't know him either, but she didn't approach him right? he put himself in a position where a bad outcome is possible.
In an ideal world people would have perfect lives and no one would have a bad day and tell you to f**k off, in this world people have problems and being on a bus or walking down the street is not an invitation to being flirted with.

Again, body language please! I would say that if you have not made eye contact with a girl, and she has not smiled or something, don't bother trying.

mds 02; please, you have taken my comment completely out of context. I was not advising on how to respond to nice men who approach for conversation. I was advising the OP, who is clearly being troubled by strangers hitting on her. Strangers who don't take no for an answer.

Men, do not assume that many women are going to react well to total strangers approaching them with comments about how good they look. You know this already, surely.

Guys who approach beautiful women (who they've never met before) with any kind of talk about her physical self, are not trying to be nice and develop relationships. They are being crude.

My friend had enough experience to know that and she cut it short by responding in kind. It was verbal shorthand. Everyone was then able to go on with whatever they were doing.

I hardly think this kind of crudity has anything to do with the kinds of challenges faced by earnest men who are looking to date women and are struggling with poor self image due to inate social awkwardness.

Last edited by MountainLaurel on 12 Oct 2012, 8:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I trust people to use their individual judgement on whether or not someone is sexually harassing them.
Believe it or not I can tell the difference between "whoops train jolted" and a dick intentionally rubbing on my ass. Creeps rely on our self doubt and unwillingness to make a scene or hurt feelings to get away with being creeps. They exploit the social pressure to be nice.
And if sometimes someone feels a threat where one wasn't intended, well I'm not too concerned with that.
Because even if someone slips and accidentally punches you in the face, your face is still punched. If you step on my foot, I'm gonna say "ow hey" even if it was an accident.
There is a difference between action and reaction.
Also, let's not pretend that men and women are on equal footing in society. Because it's very silly, whether or not an individual views me as a collection of holes, the culture we're in does.
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as I've said already, my personal opinions do not match the rest of society. I do not claim to be more informed. I only mentioned the effort I've put into understanding social mores to refute your claim that I am simply assuming that society's opinions match mine. Unlike you, however, I do give more weight to what society as a whole considers acceptable (even if my understanding of it may be flawed) rather than forcing everyone around to go along with the way I prefer to do things.



i'm saying there are certain behaviors that are acceptable and certain behaviors that are not. Regardless of an individuals past experiences. Period. You're the one going on about how different people have different experiences so they should all just act however they please.



And what kind of arrogance makes someone think that they are above being spoken to when out in public? So much so that they feel the need to insult anyone who tries



Guess that's the difference between you and me. I see my fellow human beings as, you know, human beings. Deserving of respect and courtesy until they demonstrate otherwise. While you apparently see them as insects to be swatted away.

DogsWithoutHorses;

For every example of "male privilege" you can give me, I can give you an example of the opposite. For every disadvantage women face, I can point out one that men face.

society views women as a collection of holes, it views men as walking wallets. it considers women to be useless, and men as expendable objects to be used. women are more likely to be raped, men are more likely to be murdered. women have a much harder time getting high prestige jobs, men are judged far more harshly when they can't get one. women are looked down upon for having sex, men are looked down upon just as much for not having sex. I could go on and on.

women's position in society sucks. but so does men's. i get that men have advantages in certain areas. but so do women. i reject the idea that one gender or the other is privileged.

Ooh, good argument. World ain't fair. Never heard that one before.

Hey! Don't like being approached by strangers? Tough s**t, world ain't fair.

See, I can do the same.

Don't like being called an as*hole when you act like one? world ain't... oh wait, that actually is fair.

You yourself said she did it immediately. Not giving the guys a chance to be either nice or dicks. Your friend made assumptions about people she'd not met yet, then said hurtful s**t based on those assumptions.

edit: unless you weren't being literal when you said "immediately." i do have a problem with figuring that out sometimes. If that's the case, then nothing I've said applies to you or your friend personally, and I apologize. though I do stand by what I've said in a more general sense. unfortunately there are people who really do behave the way I've interpreted your friend as behaving.

unfortunately, women's responses to the shitty guys does impact the decent guys. because those responses are not directed solely at the shitty guys. they're directed at every future guy, decent or shitty.

I could just as easily say that, when one goes out in public, they are putting themselves in a position where they might be approached. that is, she put herself in a position where an undesirable outcome is possible.

if he has a responsibility to not be offended when things don't go the way he'd like, then she has a responsibility to do the same.

I don't think they have a responsibility to not be offended, they can if they want to of course. If that's how they like to live.
Who said girls get offended by guys approaching them? some may, but I'd guess most of them are just fed up.

I agree, when you go out in public anything can happen, but again, that is still not an invitation for anything. And if some guy "invites himself" well things will happen, and he may not like them.

It's hardly an issue of feeling offended, it's an issue of my safety being at risk.

When a guy tells me I have a nice chest whilst placing an uninvited hand on my shoulder, he's making me question my safety and he's violating my personal space.

Then I have to decide whether to keep being polite or to loudly call him a creep. And the whole time I have to consider that he might be really unstable.

This happened and the guy moved across the row. Within a few moments he started shouting at me and telling me to... we'll it was graphic, and the bus driver warned him and then made him get off of the bus.

I don't know what it is about my milkshake that is bringing all of the crazies to the yard... or... yeah. It's not a matter of attractiveness, something about me is making me look like a suitable target lately.

And there's a fear/reluctance to call them out that's fed by attitudes like the ones posted here, that we're being meanies if we don't get their life story before we act to remove/protect/assert ourselves.

What's with placing misogyny on women's shoulders? How men react to poor treatment is their responsibility. If someone beomes a racist after a dark-skinned person does them wrong, they are still wrong for being a racist.

This was why I pointed out that people weren't taking your recent experiences into account. This was supposed to be a personal thread and while I understand natuarally that it is going to evolve into social constructs at some point, those posting still need to respect that this is a personal thread.

Exactly! While totally irrelevant to the main conversation, I've experienced many things in life that would lead me to believe women have the upper hand in several circumstances - especially when it comes to the workplace and HR and the entire family court system. Heck, many, many years ago I was accused of a crime I didn't commit and while there was zero evidence (only "he said she said") the court system favoured her "to set an example for others". (Good thing it wasn't too serious of a charge and the charges were later dropped... those 10 days in prison were a bizarre experience into how twisted and psychotic some MEN can be!)

Last edited by BlueMax on 13 Oct 2012, 6:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

Given that this entire thread has been me on one side, and a whole bunch of people on the other, I'm gonna assume that when you say "attitudes like the ones posted here," you're talking about me.

I never, not once, said not to call the guys who'd actually done something offensive on their s**t.

In fact, I said outright that women should call them on it, if they actually do something wrong.

I interpreted a post to mean that a member was advocating being unnecessarily cruel toward guys who'd not yet done anything wrong. I argued against doing that. I did not argue that women owe the men who approach them their time. I did not argue that no men ever act inappropriately toward women. All I said was "Hey, maybe saying 'you're ugly' to a guy who'd done nothing wrong was needlessly harsh."

I turned out to be mistaken about what that member was advocating but, in the meantime, another member came in to argue that it is perfectly acceptable to say things like that to people just to get rid of them, whether they'd done anything to deserve it or not. And a few members who argued that, when stuff like that happens, the guy should just suck it up because the woman was probably frustrated at how other guys had acted toward her.

At no point ever did I say that women should put up with actual harassment. All I said was "even if you're annoyed, try not to be a dick."

How, exactly, is saying that guys who've done nothing wrong don't deserve to be s**t on the same as saying women are being mean when they protect or assert themselves?