This is gonna sound stupid, but...

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If looks could k... topic

I practiced in front of a mirror a sort of hate stare i would give someone if I were being harassed/hit on by a stranger. It worked.

Now at my age I no longer get hit on, but I have my stare ready, just in case.

Welll, in the past I was always nervous about hit on and never reacted well to it when it happened. I'm 40 now, so thankfully the odds of it ever happening again are slim to none.

It always freaks me out when a guy is hitting on me, stranger or not. The thing is that I need to first get to know a guy as a friend--it seems so weird to date a guy you barely know, suddenly be committed to this total stranger, and sleep with him on the third date, as the social norm prescribes. Most men freak me out, I try to act like one of the guys with the hope that they'll treat me like I'm a guy. It works 90% of the time.

yeah i panic too, but usually the people who hit on me are never my type. Usually happens when i go to buy somthing at a til (well it happened today)
i acidently made eye contact with the guy behind the til and quickly looked away and he goes "you aright? " in a flirty type of way i just quick sed "yeh" and went out of the shop..
but usually when it happens i raise my eyebrow in a evil sort of way, like "seriously are u making fun of me? or are u hitting on me ? "
i dont deal with it very well :S

Yes I panic, and can be outright rude to them.

For a while, I was naive and stopped to talk, then panicked when they asked strange things. (I seem to be rather noticeable-looking.) But now I feel it's completely within my rights to be rude to any male who talks to me on the streets, because there is such a high probability that the conversation will go like this:

Guy: Hi there
Me: Hello
Guy: You're pretty
Me: Thanks
Guy: Wanna come back to my place now?
Me: *freak out and run*

So now I go everywhere with earphones in, even if I'm not listening to any music, and any perfectly nice person who just wants directions or whatever will just have to be inconvenienced by the large percentage of a**holes out there, just like I am.

I guess it doesn't help that I live right next to a homeless shelter... the people who hang around here are quite strange in a scary way.

Usually my 'freak out and run' doesn't occur until the first date. But I'm so clueless when it come to knowing if guys are hitting on me, I joke that the only way I'll know for sure is to be hit over the head with a 2x4. I did have some guy walk up to me in a grocery store one time, but he was talking so fast my brain froze right then and there. He looked at me for a moment, and then he walked away. Don't know if he was hitting on me, but it was a strange way of doing so.

I used to get "hit on" all the time too before I had a breast reduction; it hasn't happened very often since but it has happened.

I think the most bizarre one was the guy who hit on me at a funeral home right in front of the casket holding his dead wife's body. I mean my God what do you say to that?!

I don't trust men any more, even the older ones--especially the older ones. They think they can get away with it because everyone chalks it up to them being "senile" but believe me they are not senile.

The last time I was hit on, it was by a fellow Lions Club member, a senior who had just lost his wife (not the same one as at the funeral home). I made the mistake of going over to his house to work with him on a Club project and he was all over me. I could not get rid of him either. He started calling me, sending me bizarre letters. None of the other club members took me seriously, except one of the women, after I pointed it out, she said yes, she could see how he was. Thank God he soon decided to join another club, because if it had kept on, I would have transferred out. Needless to say, this has adversely affected my relationships with the other male club members, because I can no longer trust them, I work with them but I do not allow myself to be alone with any of them at any time.

So yeah, I freak and run when a man shows interest, because in my experience it has NOT been a good thing. I have also been hit on by a lesbian and I had the same reaction. I am leery of lesbians as a result, unless I know they are in a solid partnership.

hell yes, I panic and usually I don´t speak to them at all and go away.

Just yesterday when I and my female friend were going from the opera at night, we were waiting on an empty street for the bus and a guy came and he tried for verbal contact ( I didn´t react but my friend did and then he became more annoying so she told him to go away and he started to touch her and suddenly I didn´t know how to react!! ! Luckily she used her skills she has learnt on self-defense course and then I told him we´d call the police and got on the bus which luckily came in the right time.
so this is how it can end so therefor I don´t communicate with any stranger who wants me to.

i yes i get panicked a lot, so it never got to a point of a decent conversation.

if and when i do notice someone hitting on me then i do things like freak out, become mute, run away and hide or go home, tell them to get lost, become generally rude or unresponsive, or just sort of slide away....
it's not like i want to be rude or unfriendly. (well, sometimes i don't care). it's just, what the f@#k are you supposed to do? i am rarely, if ever, attracted/or interested in someone that i don't know well or have only just met. if they're hitting on you, then they obviously fancy you, yes? or just want to get to know you more. if you be friendly back to them then they'll take it as a - yes, you are attracted to me/interested. so, because i never am, asides from being freaked out etc, i don't want to give the impression i am interested.
i wouldn't mind if i were able to just talk to someone a bit, but be able to walk away without ever seeing them again or going through that whole we should get together sometime/exchange numbers etc.

oh yadda yadda. i don't get it.

I used to panic, and when I get hit on (must be my appearance), I still experience a WTF?!? Is he REALLY talking to me? moment. Then, my Evil Middle-Aged Polar-Bear persona kicks in, and it's the guy who ends up running off in a panic.

I call it the Polar Bear Stare. It's a flat, emotionless, unsmiling, and most important SILENT stare. The silent and unsmiling part is important- guys can't take that, and tend to go away and find easier game.

Until I made it a point to learn body language and concentrate on the 'noise' NT people make, I was a naive target, and found myself in a few harrowing situations. Now I can read people like a book- including micro-expressions. It is still hard to look people in the face, and very hard when it's a guy, because of all the misinterpretations of my attention in the past. When I am in a position of power and authority, it's one thing (and it is polite to address people and look them in the face), but I tend to avoid situations outside that 'safe' place because of that problem.

Now that I am older, it is not such a problem, but if you are a young woman- beware. Learn how to 'read' people. It might save your life. Learn self-defense, too- all women should know how to take down a guy.

It annoys me terribly most of the time. For the most part though, I'm passive aggressive - I blatantly ignore even the most obvious of overtures, continuing to act as if they're just making small talk. If they're direct, I usually smile tightly and say something ridiculously rude and patronizing. Yes, it's irrational, but I don't care. Go away creepy stranger. <__<

Oh, thank goodness! I wondered if it was just me...!
I never notice someone flirting with me, even if it is really obvious to others....
I usually get told by a companion "That guy was really interested..." and I think "Why?" (I look like what I am - a clumsy, socially-inept geek) and then "How can you tell...?"
It can be really inconvenient, and sometime flat-out dangerous - some people seem to get quite aggressive if you don't respond in the way they were expecting... I have been in some nasty situations as a result...
If it gets too wierd, or gets to the point of physical contact, I have been known to just do a "vanishing act", but it can be quite frightening.
I always wondered, though, how I was supposed to tell that someone was interested in the first place? Can they not just say something (obvious)? But I tend to get involved with someone I already know, not some random guy I've never met before...