How can I initiate a date?

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Who ever said that I don't thank people for unwanted compliments and/or pull a weapon on them? That's a pretty extreme assumption. Just because other people lack manners doesn't mean that I do, too. Doesn't make the encroachment any more desirable just because *my* manners are still intact.....

I would be creeped out. I get creeped out every time this happens to me.

if you can't have a civil discussion without constantly putting words into people's mouths that they didn't say, then why do you bother wasting anyone's time? you are being rude to eureka and she has done nothing but politely try to have a conversation with you. learn when to walk away, if you can't politely disagree.

Who said anything about pulling a weapon on someone who paid you a compliment? Only you.

Um, people who pay others compliments don't lack manners. In fact, they likely have better manners than most considering they're considerate enough to say nice things to others even though they're not obligated to do so.

Yeah, all that.

Also, as someone who does spend a lot of time in gyms, and used to work in them...please do not use gyms as places to pick up women. It's pretty horrible for the women, nearly all of whom are actually there to exercise and do not care or want to think about your needs. Women already have to deal with being evaluated physically all the time and stared at, many show up at the gym insecure about both their bodies and their ability to be athletic, and to have that confirmed at a gym -- that a guy is staring at you and watching you work out and sweat -- is degrading and scary enough that many women just won't do it, won't keep going. And that affects our health and our self-confidence; if you're physically fit, in general you also feel better about yourself, stronger, and have more of a sense of what you can do. (And then of course if we don't work out we also get guys criticizing us for being "lazy fat cows"). Yes, in some towns women-only gyms exist. In general they're more expensive than regular gyms and poorly equipped. There's no reason why we should have to use them.

I've been harassed only once at a gym, and it was by the gym owner. He pulled me aside to talk to me privately, and at the time I really needed a job and was looking, and I thought he wanted to offer me a job. Wrong. He wanted to date me -- apparently he had a habit of using his own gym as a meat market. And, as it happened, he was a raging homophobe who withdrew two lesbians' memberships because they were using the sauna. Like, to sit in. I went to my city's human rights commission and talked to the lawyer there about filing a sex discrimination complaint: if the gym owner wasn't busy trying to date his male customers, too, that's discriminatory. The lawyer said yes, we can do this if you want, those are adequate grounds. And she'd have been happy to have any reason to go after him, had had enough complaints about him. In the end I didn't, because I was economically vulnerable, and I needed not to be blacklisted around town. If it happened today, I'd file the complaint.

Till that guy did that, I really had had no idea how creepy it felt, how bad it could make you feel. Even though I'd been going to gyms for 20 years. Every time I went to that gym afterwards, I knew that guy was checking me out. And I had no way to stop him. Before, I used to go for a run and enjoy it. Now I knew he was watching my ass, watching my breasts. I knew that the things I was doing because they were awesome and felt good were being sexualized for that guy's enjoyment. And I had no one to complain to, because he was the owner. I ended up canceling my membership, which cost me money, and leaving that gym, which sucked, because I really liked that place, and I used to work out there and then go get work done at the coffeeshop next door, one-stop shopping. But I was the one who had to be inconvenienced and degraded, all because he couldn't refrain from seeing his women customers as a sexual opportunity.

Goldfish wins the "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" award.

when a guy tells me "you're in nice shape, do you work out?" in the hopes that will get him into my pants, he's not being polite, ffs. and yeah, we can tell when it's just a random compliment from a stranger (because yeah, i get those too, even from other women sometimes about my hair or something i'm wearing) and some dude hoping to score. we are observant enough, most of us, to know the difference in intent. because the random compliment person pays their nice compliment and then goes on their way--the dude wanting to score, if you respond politely or otherwise encourage him, will press for further conversation and a date/phone number. the former is very nice when it happens to me--the latter is not, especially as i'm not in a bar trying to pick up dudes when this happens to me, i'm out getting my groceries or otherwise going about my day.

Right. We "weak women" have been told to go out and take self-defense lessons and/or carry a weapon by other posters in this thread, so that we won't be "intimidated" by men. Selective memory is sooooo convenient!

^^And all of this, too.

Even if they're sexually attracted to you, it is a compliment. You should feel flattered and attractive.

As for the repeated suggestion that the only appropriate place to compliment a woman on her looks is at a bar... that's a load of crap. If I were heterosexual, a bar is one of the last places I'd be trying to pick up women. I bartended for 5 years. I don't particularly care for the class of people that spend all their free time drinking in bars and wasting their lives like that. I'd compliment people who made healthier better more forward progressing choices in places like the gym where they're working out or in a grocery store where they're making healthy food choices. This whole "the bar is the only place you're allowed to give/receive compliments" is absolutely ridiculous.

Do you seriously not get the difference between "when I go to a bar, it is because I am in the mood to socialize [i.e., a social setting] or possibly even to pick up guys, and therefore getting hit on by strange men in bars is to be expected" vs. "bars are the only places you can compliment a woman" ??

I'm not being snarky here, I'm asking in all seriousness because it seems I (and others) are typing in one language and you are reading in another.

Last edited by Eureka13 on 01 Jul 2014, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

any time you find yourself beginning a sentence with "You should feel..." you should probably just leave off the sentence entirely. telling other people how they should feel about things that happen to them=poor manners.

edit* to include: i really don't care to be attractive to men with poor manners. i don't need (or want) that kind of external validation from rude strangers, thanks.

Yup. I've never had much trouble meeting men with good manners. Why would I need or want to hear compliments from men with poor manners.

So far that is the only place you strange women have stated that it's acceptable for a guy to compliment a woman.

I should have said "people typically feel" instead of "you should" to point out that your attitudes are not typical, probably because you're not neurotypical. Which brings me back to my point that your anti-social anti-people anti-men anti-compliment attitudes likely have a whole lot to do with your autism traits.

Compliments aren't rude.

no, it is the only place we have mentioned that it's acceptable to compliment women with the intent of hitting on them. if you just want to compliment them and then walk away, that's a different story. i just talked about instances in which strangers have complimented me and i felt fine about it--because they weren't trying to get into my pants, they were just giving me a nice compliment because they felt like saying something nice, and then they went about their business. are you being intentionally obtuse? as has been suggested to you, try reading what we are actually typing and not responding to straw man arguments in your mind that we aren't making.