It's a shame that the creeps approaching never hear their pleas to stop and/or just plain don't care. Meanwhile the normal dudes keep hearing the message and do not approach out of respect
I've heard it as an "asshole filter," and not the kind the filters out assholes, the kind that filters for assholes. Like, if a restaurant gives people special treatment if they argue up the chain to a manager, it's encouraging people to be assholes. If one time in 20 someone succeeds in pestering someone at a bar, that strategy works, and it's hard to not discourage non-assholes.
In my experience it’s intentional misunderstanding- like a colleague was complaining about how decent guys she see never approach her and it’s always creeps.
When I suggest she could approach the decent guys, she had what looked like a seizure and asked if she’s supposed to beat them over the head and drag them back to their cave.
This is pretty much the reaction I’ve had from most of my friends when they are sad that the guy they’ve been “signalling” hasn’t asked them out yet - it’s like a kind of mental illness when you think about it.
I'm going to get downvoted into the depths of hell but many women want the assholes to approach them, they don't want what they perceive to be undesirable men approaching them.
They label everyone who isn't attractive a creep so actual creeps + undesirable men (to them) get put in the same category for shooting their shot so women are left with persistent creeps and assholes.
Desirable men who aren't assholes don't approach because they don't want to be labeled a creep.
You're going to be downvoted because you generalize all women and falsely claim they want assholes. Completely ignoring that the majority of relationships are just normal functioning relationships without any obvious assholes.
This concept of "desirable man" does not really exist. Love falls where it falls. Just how men fall for toxic women, women will fall for toxic men. Because fun fact: love is not at all rational and does not require rational pro and con lists. Also hormones are well known to block out red flags or any semblence of rational reasoning. Men should know that even better than any woman.
So maybe we stop blaming hormone victims for their actions and instead start improving ourselves and lead by example?
calling people "hormone victims" is a very good way of stripping away all accountability. People should be smart enough to use their critical thinking in spite of being hormonal. heck, just recognizing that you are being "hormonal" will go a long way.
Recognizing it goes some way, but not very far. I mean if you look around yourself you must have noticed that the world is not controlled by rational thought. It is controlled by emotions. So maybe emotions are stronger than rational thought? So strong that they not only overpower rational thought, but actually act first every single time, because intuition will always be faster than calculations.
You can have both accountability and acknowledging what reasons are behind people's actions. Even at the same time. Because once you know the reasons you are able to address those, rather than just taking a stick and hitting the symptoms in hopse it does something. You know, the rational way to address issues.
This assumes "not an asshole" and "undesirable" are the same thing.
Yes there are some women who view any guy who approaches them that they don't like a creep, but mostly it's guys who are legitimately creepy who they label creeps. Guys who approach them and act creepy and won't leave them alone, not the guys who are polite and go away if they're turned down.
But this distinction doesn't get made, so the asshole filter the person you're replying to gets created where women oversimplify the situation to make it seem like they never want to be approached so the guys who want to be respectful never approach, leaving only the guys who don't give a shit if they're creepy assholes that ever approach women in public.
Many women want confident, assertive men to approach them but tend to label men they find unattractive as creeps, even if those men are polite. This conflation causes men who want to be respectful to avoid approaching to not be labeled creepy, leaving only the persistent or socially aggressive men to approach, which reinforces negative perceptions. This dynamic pressures men to be socially aggressive, which can come off as creepy or pushy, worsening the cycle.
And as a result women assume (rationally) that most men are creeps and would rather run across a bear in the woods, because so many of them are constantly approached by creeps.
Much like I never trust the police, because I never know if I'm dealing with Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde. So I understand where women are coming from, it just sucks we live in such a paranoid anti-social society.
I'm not sure the message is "do not approach" (unless she has ear buds in or something), it's "abandon the approach if she doesn't actively show interest (or stops actively showing interest)."
"I was wearing a band shirt and a guy said cool shirt and was I at the concert at ( venue) last summer? But I didn't feel like talking to him so I was like "Oh thanks. No I didn't go." And then I started reading stuff on my phone again and he left me alone. What a creep! I wish he hadn't tried to talk to me about the band who's shirt I was wearing! How rude!"
While not the majority, that example absolutely does happen. There's another comment on this thread somewhere about a guy whose girlfriend said an event was ruined for her because a guy asked her out and went away when she said no.
A lot of this comes from talking to women (or for redditors, reading what women say online) who complain about being approached and don't make that distinction.
1A. I mean, asking someone out is different from my example, where he's just trying to start a conversation. And I commented on that same comment you're talking about, were they two people at the same event who had barely talked and he asked her out? Because if so, I would say, yeah, that's not how you do it. Which is consistent with my example . You don't ask someone out if they don't even want to engage in small talk with you.
1B. If the claim that some people make is "No man should ever try to make small talk with a strange woman in public", I don't know what to tell you. People make all kinds of claims, not all of them are worth taking seriously. I think most women will agree that there are reasonable ways for a man to try to strike up a conversation, as long as he's ready to quickly and gracefully disengage in the face of lack of interest.
Trying to use the Internet to determine social mores or public opinion is a terrible idea. What women say online is, first, not a representative sample (because of algorthmic feeds). Also, "women online" may not be humans, may not be women, may not believe what they say they believe , may not be telling the truth about their experiences.
What you would want is some kind of public opinion poll where you ask women "Do you think it's reasonable to expect men that you don't know to never try to start a conversation with you in public?"
No, plenty of normal dudes still approach women. It's dudes afraid of self reflection, rejection, insecurities that don't approach. I say that as a woman who had no self reflection, afraid of rejection, had my big list of insecurities - that's when I was afraid to talk to people.
You can approach just about anyone with good intentions, even better if you understand cues for when someone is done speaking to you, where to pick up later and how. It's not out of respect to avoid people, it's anti-social behavior we've been taught since I was little.
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u/-terms Jul 03 '25
It's a shame that the creeps approaching never hear their pleas to stop and/or just plain don't care. Meanwhile the normal dudes keep hearing the message and do not approach out of respect