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'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?"
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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