How can I initiate a date?

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I completely agree with tarantella on this. Having a stranger come up to you and indicate sexual/romantic interest in you when you're just trying to go about your day is like getting a cold call from a pushy telemarketer wanting your credit card number. Except that you can hang up on the telemarketer and return to the safety of your living room.

When you're confronted with a stranger propositioning you in real life, you have to gauge whether he will cause you physical harm you if you reject him. This is not the sort of thing normal people want to go through when trying to buy a book. Just let us buy our freaking books without having to worry that we'll have a stalker following us! Creating anxiety about our safety is NOT romantic!

You might think, "Oh, it's just an innocent complement. Why get so bent out of shape?" Telling a stranger, "You look beautiful," with an expectation of reciprocal conversation (or even too much eye contact) isn't OK because women are smart enough to know that the follow-up thought to that is, "You look beautiful. I sure would like to stick my dick in you." It is not an innocent complement. It is really creepy.

Yep. That. Goldfish, apparently you're still a #yesallwomen virgin. It's almost like you've taken a vow of celibacy. But here, let me help you. You won't even have to wade through the whole thread:

http://time.com/114043/yesallwomen-hash ... -shooting/
http://sfglobe.com/?id=871&src=share_fb_new_871

The world has become so politically correct crazy that people can't even compliment others anymore??? That's just nucking futs, IMO.

Someone complimenting you doesn't mean they have any ill intentions. They're complimenting you. Accept it as the compliment it is. If you're interested in talking to them, strike up a conversation. If you're not, then simply say thank you and carry on with whatever you're doing. It really is that simple.

How in the hell does anyone make the connection from someone paying them a compliment to thinking they're in physical danger? A compliment does not create anxiety. Your own thoughts & reaction to it may, but those are yours and yours alone - they're not created by someone else' compliment. Thoughts dictate emotions. If you're feeling anxious it's because of what you are thinking, not because of what someone else said. Period. Compliments can certainly be romantic. If any anxiety is created, you create it yourself with your own thoughts. You may benefit from reading some books on the subject such as "Feeling Good," by Dr. David Burns, in order to get a proper understanding of how your thoughts create your emotions.

Um, they are just innocent compliments. You're the one assuming that a compliment = wants sex/is a rapist. Don't assume such things about people.. those sorts of thoughts cause anxiety. It may very well be the case that someone who compliments you has a sexual attraction to you, or maybe they just think you're pretty and would like to strike up a conversation, maybe get your phone number, and go on an innocent date sometime. Assuming the worst of people who say nice things to you is pretty awful.

And for the record, I don't often compliment strangers in public. Once in a blue moon I do, and it's just an innocent compliment. As for complimenting people I'm attracted to that I happen to see in public, I've never really done it because it's difficult to gauge what someone's reaction might be to it considering that I'm gay and some guys may be homophobic and react horribly to another guy telling them they look good or whatever. But I may make a point of doing it here or there just to find out sometime. What's more likely is that I'll just compliment friends and people that I know more often than I tend to now. As for mainstream hetereo society, I think it's really sad that people are expected by people like you not to compliment others because you assume a simple compliment means someone has bad intentions. I used to feel more for gay people who don't compliment others for fear of homophobic reactions... but right now I'm feeling for every guy out there who's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't thanks to ridiculous attitudes towards receiving compliments by people like you.

About the "go up to random woman and hit on her" strategy...it relies on a couple of ideas, both of which are pretty ugly if you stop and look at them.

The first is that women are anxious to get compliments from random men. I promise you, no woman you actually want to get into a car with is standing around wishing random men would compliment her on her bod. Unless you're in a pickup bar -- and you know it's a pickup bar, and I guess good luck finding one of those because why would you do that anymore if you could use online dating -- women aren't actually standing around hoping a man they've never laid eyes on before thinks they're attractive.

The second is that it doesn't matter if we're not anxious to get compliments from random men, because this game is a numbers game. What matters is not that the women are actual people; what matters is that at least one of them, within a given time period, will respond positively and have sex with you. So it doesn't matter that you upset or discomfit multiple women on your way there -- after all, we're not people, we're just stats. As is the poor woman who says yes.

Thousands of women have recently done you the favor of explaining this online. If you're going to refuse to go read what they've said, the problem is yours, not ours.

There's a place for women like you who want no interaction with men. It's playing croquet with these ladies:



The rest of the world will continue to interact with one another, give and receive compliments, flirt and communicate non-verbally, go on dates, form relationships, and perpetuate the species.*

*heterosexual people, anyways.

PS This thread makes me want to give random compliments to women in public just to see how they react. Somehow I doubt that any of them are going to turn and run screaming "Oh noes, a compliment!! Nice words are gonna git me!! !!"

I just skimmed some of it, and for the most part it's BS fears based on NOTHING but their own anxious thoughts and negative assumptions of others. You want to talk statistics? MOST women are not rape victims, because most men aren't rapists. I'm not saying rapists don't exist and some women aren't victims, but this mentality that everyone should live their lives in a constant state of fear of others is completely ridiculous. Just live and enjoy your lives vs. creating anxiety and fear out of thin air that accomplishes nothing but wasting one's life living in fear vs. doing anything more enjoyable.

yeah, how many times do you dumb women have to be told, street/public harassment is a compliment!

Just because you don't know how to accept a compliment doesn't mean that no woman does. Stop assuming that all women are as anti-men as you are.

It's a numbers game for women, too. The more men they meet, the higher probability that they'll find someone they're compatible with for whatever it is they're seeking, whether sex or a date or a friend or a relationship etc. That's just basic statistical math for you. I'm not sure what your point is?

And in case you've forgotten, I couldn't care less if women want to sleep with me or not. I'm gay. I don't sleep with women. I don't pursue women. I'm merely looking at this from a human interaction point of view and I think you're dead wrong.

Obviously at least one more time or until you get it.

Compliments are not harassment. What don't you understand about that?

You'd be the laughing stock of the day if you called the police to complain about receiving a compliment, I guarantee it.

Hi officer, I want to file a complaint.
For what?
Harassment.
What happened?
Some guy in the book store told me that my dress looked great on me.
...Seriously?
Yes.

US college women: 1/5 report being raped.
US women: 1/4 report being raped.
The recent street harassment study I posted which you didn't bother to read: 2/3 of women are harassed on the street.
The recent tumblr I posted which you didn't bother to read: story after story after story of women being murdered by guys they refuse
FBI stats on how women wind up dead: murder at the hands of an intimate partner is one of the top causes, and 91% of deaths in DV cases are women killed by men.

It doesn't matter that not all men are rapists and harassers and stalkers and perpetrators of domestic violence that'll land you in the hospital or kill you. Enough are that it's a legitimate fear, which is why alllllll these women take it seriously.

I'd be damned delightful if we didn't have to worry about these things, goldfish. Unfortunately, we do. Perhaps you'd like to do something about that and join a campaign against the casual victimization of women.

Actually no. You'll be taken very seriously if you don't want the guy around, particularly if you've already told him to go away, or even just moved away and he's followed you. The cops aren't stupid about what the compliments really mean, either. And around here they show up very quickly.

You can find fear inducing statistics about anything you want to obsess over on the internet.

If I googled for statistics on drowning deaths in backyard pools, I'm sure I'd come up with thousands of results. Heck, if the search engine works properly, 100% of the results would be about drowning deaths in backyard pools. That does not mean that I should start living my life in fear of drowning in a backyard pool.

No one described a scenario where someone was told to go away, or where you've indicated you don't want to talk to him, or have physically moved to avoid someone. Like I said earlier, say thank you for the compliment and carry on with what you're doing if you don't want to have a conversation with someone who has complimented you. Pretty simple.

What I described was someone complimenting someone else and then them calling the police to report such a "horrible criminal act," as making a compliment.. because you few ridiculous women seem to think compliments are terrible things. And any cop with half a brain would think it was ridiculous, too. They might not outright laugh in order to maintain a professional demeanour, but I guarantee you if I were that cop and the scenario played out exactly as I described I'd be doing what I could to fine you for wasting police resources that could have been spent assisting someone who actually required police services for something legitimately criminal.

Remember how we were talking about misogyny before? "She's anti-men if she demands reasonable, respectful treatment" is right up there. Again.



No, it's not a numbers game. Most people are not playing a numbers game in dating. That's part of why PUA behavior's so loathesome.



You can think what you like, but a tremendous number of people appear to think you don't have any idea what you're talking about. You know, I don't go around generalizing about what gay men want, or how to get a date with a specific gay man, either. Know why? I'm not a gay man. I have no idea what it's like to be a gay man. Any gay man. So I figure they're probably the authorities on what it's like to be a gay man. When they talk about their experiences as gay men dating, here's what I do: Shut up and listen. And consider that I may well be hearing a very filtered story, given that I'm not part of their community and there are still risks involved in being a gay man.

Why you assume you know what's reasonable for women to think and feel, and how you figure you're qualified to tell thousands of us how stupid we're being in overreacting to what you've decided is nothing -- well, that's something else.

(shrug) Then you'd be out of a job. You seem not to understand how these things work, and you're remarkably resistant to being shown.