The other day, my parents asked me (22M) if there were any women that I find attractive (I guess because they’re paranoid about me being gay lol) and I told them yes, there’s a fair number of women that I’ve seen in public that I’ve found attractive.
They asked me, “Do you talk to any of them?” and I said “No??? It’s inappropriate to approach women in public unless you have business with them.”
I told them that it is only appropriate for a man to talk to a woman he doesn’t know when the social situation is explicitly designed for meeting strangers—dating apps, hobby groups, meeting friends of friends, etc. In my view, cold approaching women you don’t know just because you’re attracted to them is harassment.
My parents told me that I’m being ridiculous and making excuses because I’m nervous. They are adamant that I need to learn to approach women or else I will never find a partner. I told them that times have changed and this is disrespectful and potentially predatory behavior along the lines of unsolicited flirting and catcalling. Approaching women is a violation of their personal space and could make them feel very uncomfortable, especially if they feel like they don’t have an easy way out.
My parents are almost 60 and they are very conservative, so they don’t exactly follow progressive discourse, and I feel like they’re super out of touch on this as a result. Particularly, my mom tends to strike up conversations with other women in public, and she’s skeptical when I tell her that I can’t do the same thing because I’m a man and would be viewed as a potential predator.
But I also don’t get out much, which makes me second-guess how distorted my understanding of the social world is from reality. My parents are like a broken clock, and sometimes they DO have a point about something despite 90% of their opinions being insane. Maybe there is a more nuanced reality that I’m not picking up on.
So I wanted to ask here. Are my parents out of touch? Am I out of touch? Are we both wrong? I want to know your opinion.
Your instincts are probably well placed. Obviously different people will have different preferences and reactions in this regard, but you’re better off getting to know people in a friendly manner than just for the sake of finding a partner. Learning how to strike up conversations with strangers and leave them wanting for more is useful, but that’s about all I’d say your parents are right about.
I’m forty, so a different generation than your parents, but I still grew up and had my first dating experiences before the internet. Online dating wasn’t really a thing here until I was in my early twenties.
At least where I grew up the guys who randomly approached girls to ask them out were seen as creepy even back in the 90s. I and everyone I knew met partners through activities like sports clubs, parties, bars etc. (I’m not from the US, so people from my school started going to bars pretty early). While there wasn’t a big discourse around men approaching women in public (or none that reached my little town), we did have some guys in town who’d just walk up to girls on the street and ask them out and the consensus was that they were weird and should be avoided.
I met all my partners so far through activities. My first boyfriend was a regular at the same student café and we ended up sitting next to each other during quiz night. I met guys I had dates with in uni - sitting next to each other during lectures and talking about the Prof, going to the same presentation or cooking night etc. None of them “approached me” in the sense of coming up to me and asking “can I have your number” with zero context. We chatted, had an interesting conversation. At the end we exchanged contact information to meet for a coffee, usually without any expectation of it being a date. When coffee went well, someone would ask the other out on a proper date. No approaching, no deciding within a few seconds wether you want to date someone. Just casually getting to know each other before asking for more.
I also met my husband that way. We went to the same event, talked, had a lot in common. We met the next day to continue a discussion about a certain topic we were both interested in. That’s when things started getting flirty and by the end we made plans to meet for a real date. I don’t even remember who asked whom, we were both heavily flirting with each by the time we talked about seeing each other again so it was very obvious the next meeting would be a date. He didn’t ask me out out of nowhere or hit on me, we were just getting to know new people and eventually we started flirted somewhere along the line.
I’m like a dozen years older than you, and still have this conversation with my parents about jobs. They want me to cold call people and stalk them and stuff. Really wild stuff.
Your parents are wrong in basically every way. Except, yeah, you should be capable of cold approaching anybody. Not to sexually harass them, but for normal things like, “excuse me have you seen a grey glasses case around here?”
Your parents are not out of touch entirely, as this is a culture thing. Largely a generational one, but still, an existing culture. I personally do not believe it good, but I’m also somewhat like you, except 3,000% queer, poly, and engaged. Sometimes I wish guys would just show up and shoot their shots. Be respectful and accept defeat, but still shoot them. Years ago (when I was about 25), I used to work sort of near a bar and this random dude from a bar somehow made his way to me, working, which was, again, fairly far away by foot. And he REALLY wanted to take me home, putting on all the charm and offers. Which was flattering and all, but I wasn’t interested and was forced to steadily increase my level of rejections, plus I was still working. My really cool boss apparently overhead and saw a bit of it, and after the guy finally left (honestly like 30 minutes of him trying), we talked a bit about it and had a good laugh. The guy really just couldn’t take a hint. Luckily though, he was a little guy and where I worked was very open and very well lit and so there was no threat.
I think that there’s a time and place for everything. That you need to be comfortable in being yourself, and have your own drive and reasons for the things you do. Your parents ARE trying to help you, but often exacerbate their kids by pushing too hard or not putting ANY effort to learn or meet their kids even halfway.
And then you have to take into account that, yeah, people really ARE all different. I know girls who wouldn’t want to be cold approached at all, for any reason. I know guys that way, too.
But I also know people that wish they’d be swept off their feet by a price charming or hulk or something. Honestly, I’m kinda that way, but with the duality that as much as I fantasize the forceful, having it be by somebody I don’t accept is terrifying and horrifying. And that’s not on any one specific thing - people are weird and have all their own unique, weird, internal, intuitive flags and needs. Be it a political alignment, a philosophy, an interest, an appreciation, an open mind, wanderlust, a sexual dynamic, a certain look, a certain feature, a familiarity, an unfamiliarity, for them to be monog or poly, a smell, certain kinds of armpits, tabs vs spaces, etc, whatever.
We are all different, is my point.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. And you, as it seems, are not a seeker type. So, you should focus on what you want in a partner and who you are and want to be. You can listen to your parents a little, but realize that, they, too, besides from being your parents, are just some random ass people with some opinions they’ve formed by their own unique vision, through their own unique bodies and personalities - what works/worked for them may ONLY work for them, and that’s fine. It doesn’t make it better or worse than what works for you. I say, try it, at least once, and be prepared to apologize, and then learn from it. You’re only young once.
The key is to be respectful.
Also, have you tried… 🫴 femboys? ;)
Woman here who gets approached from time to time… casual chats are fine and low-key expressing interest is ok. The least stressful approaches I’ve had are when a guy sends his buddy over to expression interest. So you can appease your parents by asking a friend to make the approach on your behalf, maybe.
Some people enjoy casual chat with random people, and some people find it annoying. There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s definitely not the only way to meet romantic partners, though, especially these days.
If you wouldn’t strike up a conversation with a guy, don’t strike up a conversation with a woman. Be comfortable with conversations with strangers of whatever gender with no ulterior motive, and you’ll meet more people.
If you meet more people, your likelihood of finding dates will increase as a side effect.
If you are only approaching women, particularly women you find attractive, in places that are not generally for that purpose (bars, parties, swingers clubs), then you’re being a creep.
But regardless, it’s better to have interests, pursue those interests, and meet people with similar interests. Because when you have interests, you might become interesting, and someone might become interested.
I agree with everything else but the starting bit about only starting conversations when you’d also do it with a guy: if you’re not into guys… like on a dating site you’d not equally talk to the men, why at a sports club if you’re wanting a relationship with a woman? If you think someone’s fun and attractive in a way you’d simply not have with a bloke, hecking yes talk to them where appropriate and be friends (if they also want to be) and see if they really match and are also into you etc.
Yes and no. Now I’m not an expert womanizer by any means, but you kinda just gotta treat attractive women like regular people.
You can’t just walk up to somebody and go “ooga booga, wanna go out?” It’s gotta be a little casual. So you’re kind of right. But to go as far as to say you can’t strike up conversation with somebody will be insane.
Now am I going to strike up a conversation with an attractive woman? Nah I’m go pussyshit to do anything, I’ll partake in my recreational activities and hope for the best, at least I’ll die doing what I like.
There’s a difference between “approaching women” and “APPROACHING WOMEN.”
You should be comfortable interacting with women in any environment simply because a) they are human beings and b) they’re over 50% of the population.
You can’t go outside and just never talk to women, that’s actually creepier.
You don’t have to be trying to pick someone up to, you know, treat them like a human being and talk to them.
I can chat up an old grandma but an attractive person will make me shit my pants
Instead of making a move or straight up asking the out on a date. Just strike up a convo. You can really tell when someone doesn’t want to push a conversation. Maybe they find you attractive and keep the conversation going?
If you want to cold approach, go to the club.
Yeah I find that if the other person gives some dry responses in your conversation and you’re still trying to throw tinder making the conversation going, then they’re probably not interested.
I think there’s a lot of nuance that both sides of this are missing. There’s a lot of middle ground between not talking to women out in the world at all, and going up to random girls and saying "nice shoes, wanna fuck?
You absolutely can approach people, strike up a conversation, maybe even hit it off and spin it into a friendship or romantic relationship.
I’m far from the guy to tell someone how to do that and try to pick apart the it’s and outs of what makes some things ok and others not, but it is something that absolutely can be done.
“nice shoes, wanna fuck?”
Gotta say, if you are a bit spicy and they are too, if your shirt matches their shoes this might result in a date.
I think the bigger issue here is that you are obviously uncomfortable with the idea of approaching people in public and your parents are treating this as irrelevant and something you are supposed to just force yourself to do it anyway despite feeling like the situation is wrong and threatening. You shouldn’t need to justify not wanting to do that by appealing to some kind of cultural authority about what is acceptable to society.
Personally even as a man it normally freaks me out when strangers approach me in public. It just feels like a very unusual, unexpected and potentially unsafe kind of circumstance, almost never something positive, there’s no way I would trust such a person, so I’m not going to do that to others because it’s like I would be inflicting that on both of us simultaneously, and that would of course come through in any interaction I attempted. How could I expect them to be receptive to that when I would never be myself? People may argue, that’s the wrong way to feel and so it doesn’t matter, replace that attitude with a better one, as if they themselves could easily substitute a totally different way of being for how they are.
If you need an invitation in order to feel safe in a social situation, I would say it is ok to demand that people respect that and not mock you for it.
I think the bigger issue here is that you are obviously uncomfortable with the idea of approaching people in public and your parents are treating this as irrelevant and something you are supposed to just force yourself to do it anyway despite feeling like the situation is wrong and threatening.
Unfortunately, this is normal behavior for them. They exhibit virtually no empathy and constantly talk trash about what expectations I don’t meet. They would rather laugh at me and insult me for having issues than actually help me. I’m on my own. They will spew the most vile filth imaginable, and when I insult them back, they suddenly get all pearl-clutchy and tell me that the Bible says I have to respect them no matter how awful they treat me. I tell them “Respect is a two-way street. You don’t have to be nice to people who make your life hell” and they go “B-but the BIBLE!!” They are cry-bullies. And their parenting was so psychotic that it radicalized me into becoming progressive. My brother, devout follower of their teachings, grew up to become a literal cat killer. And they treat him as a perfect child and ask why I can’t be like him. Yeah, uh, no thanks.
As a defense mechanism, I eventually learned to be contrarian. Whatever my parents said, I would take away the opposite lesson. Where they were rude, I was kind. Where they were discriminatory, I was inclusive. Where they promoted certain kinds of people as superior, I believed that no kind was inherently better than any other. Instead of ignoring suffering, I believed in helping those in need. The person I am resulted from my survival of this environment, not an embrace of it.
But this contrarianism prevents me from taking away nuanced lessons, and that means I need to intentionally seek that nuance. By asking about this issue, I hope to gain an understanding of some of that nuance, at least enough to help me continue to grow instead of falling into defeatism.
If you’re not dependent on your parents, think about cutting them out of your life or at least strongly reducing contact. Trust me, mich less stress this way, choose people who are good to you to keep around.
Do you talk to men you don’t know in public? Small talk, or jokes at a bar? In the grocery store? Why wouldn’t you talk to women? I am a woman and have daughters and none of us is offended by this, nor even the hypersensitive one, not even the lesbian. It’s friendly talk.
It’s harassment if you don’t stop when you get a rejection. It’s harassment if you sidle up with some horrifying personal comment about her body, or grab her arm and make her listen. You aren’t going to do any of that. Small talk is not harassment, flirting is not harassment.
You are right in one way - it was bad that guys used to be able to say anything with absolute impunity, and women couldn’t stop them, I was around for the end of that. Those guys didn’t treat women like people, but in a way, neither are you, right? We are just people, talk to us like people.
I mean I generally don’t talk to strangers in public unless I have a specific reason to. Why would I talk to someone I don’t know in a supermarket? They’re just other people doing the same thing I am
I don’t talk to anyone in public because I have historically considered it to be a violation of their right to be left alone. I believed that people stick together in groups of their friends or family, and those groups don’t want to interact with each other. Solo people are a group of one. If everyone follows those rules, there will be no unplanned or unwanted interactions with strangers. Given the current state of the world, the constant phone usage, and general social unrest, it made perfect sense to me that nobody would want to interact with anyone that they didn’t already trust. Based on the responses to that post, it seems like that mental model is flawed.
But this is why I assumed that the discourse around sexual harassment extended to approaching women at all. It was because I already believed that talking to strangers in general was an act of violating their space. So, I assumed that the discourse around guys being creeps was also talking about that. After all, I’d probably get nervous if someone randomly started talking to me, so of course it would make sense for other people to feel super uncomfortable from it, especially if you don’t know if the person talking to you is a predator.
This is an example of how wanting to do the right thing, combined with my limited social understanding, leads to weird and extreme takes.
This ^ I was at the hospital today getting some lab work done. Another guy was sitting across from me, head down, in his hands, breathing heavily.
“Hey man, you OK? You don’t look so hot, can I get you some water or something?”
He was OK, 81 years old, he was just upset from being jacked around by the hospital administration. We had a good conversation. I think he was fine when I left.
Those guys didn’t treat women like people, but in a way, neither are you, right? We are just people, talk to us like people.
This is probably the best advice you could give tbh. All the relationship stuff can’t be forced anyway but you can at least practice not freaking out and fumbling the bag around women. Not everything has layers of double meaning, romantic tension and secret motives. Sometimes you just wanna approach someone and tell them something because it’s fun to talk to strangers.
It’s ok to talk to a woman. But judging by your wall of text… maybe it’s not ok for you specifically to talk to a woman.
Just learn to talk to all people in social situations, and don’t make it transactional.
The right people will just drop into your life naturally.
Great advice. The bit about it not being transactional is very important. Go live your life, chat with everyone to connect to other human beings.
The unsatisfying answer: you’re both a little bit right.
You’re correct that times have changed somewhat. But I think it’s overkill to say that “approaching women at all unless you have business with them is disrespectful and borderline harassment”.
Of course, context matters a lot. Don’t bother women at their jobs, the bank is not a lady zoo. But in a social situation where you would expect to meet other people, it’s fine to strike up a conversation with strangers or even ask them out.
However, by your own admission you don’t get out much. So I’m assuming you don’t get a lot of situations like bars or parties where this would happen. So I would try networking in your community, develop some hobbies, go to functions where you might meet someone in this manner.
OP already accounted for social situations where you would expect to meet people, though, and his parents seem to think that he should be approaching people in other situations—like in a store, or on the street. I’d be very cautious about that.
Yeah, I specifically mentioned to my parents seeing an attractive employee stocking shelves in the grocery store, and they said that I should have approached her. She was clearly busy when I passed by her. I just kept my distance and casually thought, “Wow, there are plenty of fish in the sea. I’ll definitely find one eventually, in a more appropriate social setting.”
Not once did it cross my mind to strike up a conversation with a busy employee, but they insisted that I should have. In my mind, the fact that it’s easy to find women that I find attractive is proof that I don’t need to go out of my way for one. Attraction is not a quick time event; to me, it’s a reminder of abundance, of just how many chances I have to find someone. I don’t need to do silly stunts or disrupt busy people. I just need to keep creating social opportunities for it to happen organically, and eventually it will. I think my parents saying that I have to chat up every woman that I find attractive no matter where is silly and neurotic. I believe being patient and not stressing over every “missed opportunity” is the best way to go.
Besides, this thread is proof that I’m not ready for a girlfriend in the first place. It would be great for me to practice talking to strangers casually and making some friends first. That way, I can get comfortable talking to people in general and build my confidence.
As usual, the nuanced answer that doesn’t oversimplify the complexities is the best one. Good answer.
I bet women 30-40 years ago would have loved to see this answer too. It’s a good thing that the world has changed in this regard.
Also, if you’re ugly or poor, it’s always unwanted and disrespectful. Whether or not you’re ugly or even poor is up to them not you, so you have no way to ever know beforehand.
Women in general have made this so fucking difficult for men that it really should be mandatory for them to approach us at this point just to avoid issues.
I’m married, but worried about my sons getting in trouble for ever trying to approach a woman outside of a bar at this point, it seems the only place where asking a girl out randomly is still allowed at this point.
I do want to be sympathetic, but I have to be honest in that this seems like incel rhetoric to me.
Women are under no obligation to accept the advances of any random person in public, and framing that as a “them” problem is super disrespectful.
Nobody said they have to accept the advances. I’m saying that by restricting those advances in general, it should put the onus on women to make the advance. They can’t ask men to stop asking everywhere, then complain or be confused when men aren’t asking them out and this is something that is actively happening right now.
I’ve never heard a woman complain or be confused about not being asked out by strangers.
It seems like your sources are a fair step into the manosphere, and you and your sons would have a lot to gain by distancing yourself from that kind of influence. Nothing is as unattractive as bitterness, and you are sounding dangerously close to bitter here, and your attitude will influence your sons approach to life and relationships.
It’s been showing up on YouTube a lot in my feed all of a sudden. Like, past two weeks… some blonde lady men’s advocate trying to explain male behavior to women. She’s an interesting watch, seems more often correct than not (anecdotally).
There was a woman actually complaining about not getting cat-called anymore too. That one was a jaw dropper; but people like that are absolutely out there.
The Dadvocate? Sounds like the YouTuber you’re describing.
Emily W. King.
You’re using anecdotal data, I have actually heard a woman say “why won’t he just ask me out” and that isn’t useful data either.
It keeps coming up in dating studies though, which are useful, and frequently point out that women are complaining or confused about why it’s happening.
I think you will find that “why won’t he just ask me out” is not said about total strangers on the bus etc.
I dunno, this may just be my own sensibilities clouding reality, but I don’t think the “onus” should be on anyone.
Men are more and more frequently getting in trouble for even just asking, which means they need to stop entirely or risk getting in trouble.
Either women take responsibility for asking the men out, or accept that they’re not going to get asked out except by assholes who ignore the risks and are statistically upsetting a lot of women before they succeed.
Totally disagree on so many points. Women haven’t made things difficult, if anything men (historically) have done so because women haven’t been given a choice.
But the narrative that if you’re ugly or poor anything you do is unwanted is just not true. It’s an idea pushed by those in their parents basement justifying why they don’t have a girlfriend.
Teach your son that no means no, and when an uncomfortable woman might mean “no” without saying it, and he’ll be fine. Respect for the wishes of others takes care of 99.9999% of any trouble.
You’re just plain wrong. I’ve seen men yelled at for asking politely in “acceptable” social situations.
You can pretend it’s not happening, but that doesn’t change the fact that it occurs regularly.
The problem isn’t that No isn’t being respected, it’s that women are getting offended at even being asked.
If someone yelled about asking politely in an acceptable social situation, then they were wrong. That is not normal. It’s certainly not a regular occurrence.
That being said, given your prior comment, which just screams “incel, mgtow, etc”, I’m gonna go ahead and doubt you saw what you say you did.
It is a regular occurrence. Regular enough that it’s been reflected in popular media for decades. They even make entire movies about “boy gets rejected by popular girl, boy transforms himself to win her over, boy decides he doesn’t need her anymore because she’s mean”
Are you honestly so naive that you think those initial rejections don’t happen in real life? Everyone saw them at high school, and everyone saw them even more on social media when said girl spreads it around to cyberbully the boy even more. It’s been more than 20 years since I was at high school, and even when we didn’t have cellphones that shit still happened, and it didn’t stop at University either.
So your examples are “things that happened to me in high school”, and “movies which are obviously real”?
Again I’m going to have to ask you to leave your basement and interact with real people. You are wrong.
Do you think highschool isn’t real?
We aren’t talking about 40 year olds dating here grandm.
Anyone, of either gender, would react negatively to someone interacting with them with the energy and perspective you’re displaying here.
If you think that type of reaction is common, I suggest looking at the common denominator.
What the fuck does my energy level have to do with anything.
I’ve never had to ask a girl out in my life, I’ve been married to only my second relationship for more than half my life, and both ladies approached me.
If you have to ask what your energy/demeanor has to do with women being comfortable with you, you should probably be quiet on this subject.
Or maybe you should stop, because you’re making about as much sense as a potato.
I agree. But the thing with women… Oh, I wish you could visit the post-Soviet countries. Especially Belarus, Russia, Ukraine… You would be amazed by what’s there.
Mr. Tate is that you?
Creepy
Oh and what’s there, subservient “trad wives”? Get out of your basement and stop blaming others for your problems.
How have women made it difficult for men?
The social expectation was that the man approaches, but now enough women have said that isn’t acceptable in so many situations that it’s no longer safe to do so in practically any situation.
Now men who want a relationship can essentially only find one by either being an asshole and asking when they shouldn’t, or using a dating app which is a massive waste of men’s time.
How is it unsafe for a man to approach a woman in a social situation?
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” —Margaret Atwood
I think the guy you’re responding to is well down the path of believing that it’s “unsafe” to be laughed at.
And you’re so far down a path that you think getting laughed at is an acceptable response to someone asking you out.
Which one is more toxic?
I don’t think laughing at someone is an acceptable response to any person being respectful to another person, and your assumption that I am saying that from my comment shows more about you than me.
Anyone who would laugh at another person just because of how they look or how much money they appear to have is a flawed, unkind person.
Anyone who approaches another person and doesn’t respect if they set physical or verbal boundaries showing they don’t want to be approached is also flawed and either socially unaware/challenged or themselves unkind. And sometimes an easy way to get one of those people to go away is to laugh at them.
It’s unlikely for a cold approach to anyone asking for a date to be successful. Unlike 80 years ago, people aren’t looking for their first romantic connection to turn into life-long marriage; they actually want to have an established rapport with a person before the first date. So if someone just asks another person out with no lead up, or in certain settings, sometimes that will be so disconnected from social realities as to be absurd.
Anyway, regardless of the social intricacies of appropriate places to approach and/or ask out another, believing that women (or men) are a monolith who all will react the same way in a given situation is out of touch, disrespectful, and points to a lot of deep-seated sexism. I hope you can work that out before you pass it onto your son or he’s likely to have a much harder time finding a relationship.
I get the feeling old mate here does not find himself in actual social situations with women very often.
The social expectation was that the man approaches, but now enough women have said that isn’t acceptable in so many situations that it’s no longer safe to do so in practically any situation.
AKA, “A, B, and C aren’t appropriate, so D through Z aren’t safe either!”
Dude rather than accept some much-needed constraints, you’re having a hissy and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
There are people in this thread saying even doing it as a bar isn’t okay anymore. Name one place where a man would be safe asking without potentially being called a creep even just for a polite inquiry. It sounds like there isn’t one anymore.
Not all women would react that way, but it sounds like there are enough women who think that’s an acceptable response even in a bar that it’s nonlonher longer viable.
I’m married
That poor woman.
This is Ask Lemmy not Ask Incels.
Bars are for hanging out with your friends now, it’s weird to hit someone up at a bar.
I disagree. Although I’m taken I was at a bar hanging with friends and, when I was getting a drink alone, a gal at the bar was totally giving me the “hit on me” eyes.
10 years ago I wouldn’t have seen it or acknowledged it, now that I’ve built more confidence with women I see it more often. That and, anecdotally, when you’re in a relationship women seem to come at you more often.
That makes it worse.
men* have made this so fucking difficult
for menFTFY
Men caused the problem, women overreacted.
As is tradition.
Sexist comment.
That sounds like some incel shit right there. But since you said you’re married I’m forced to assume that you came by your misogyny honest?
Let’s not attribute this to all women. This is both imposed and from the consumer culture of the patriarchal system. Less often, when it is radical feminism - here it is simply hatred of a man simply because he is a man… I am a girl, and I often see radical feminism… Especially in the post-Soviet space… It’s a wild horror… Especially those raised by mercantile princesses… If I were relaxing in a bar, I definitely wouldn’t want to see a man I didn’t know at that time. Why do you need parks, cafeterias, libraries and just the embankment?
You just made it worse, you’re saying that there’s nowhere a man can ask safely.
Like I said, it should be mandatory for women to be the one to approach at this point.
"it should be mandatory for women to "
Is a wild thing to put in absolutely any sentence.
Why?
It’s mandatory for all men to register for the selective service system in the US, and women don’t have to.
Sometimes things be like that.
Where did I say that? There are drunk people in the bar, and they don’t always want to meet you. Yes, there are those who are only thirsty for acquaintances, but often they themselves will take the initiative. I suggested a list - cafes, parks, embankments, etc. It’s not always pleasant to talk to people who have been drinking, especially when it’s not part of the group.
If you walk up to random people in a cafe, park, or embankment (really?) and ask for their numbers, you could get a positive response, but it’s equally likely that a women (or even a group) will start yelling at you for doing so.
That’s what I’m saying about nowhere to ask safely. Some women will be totally fine with being approached, and others will not, but there is ZERO way to indicate to others that information.
We need to bring back the whole gay handkerchief system and adapt it to the whole population, If everyone wore an accessory or object that indicates your willingness(or not) to be approached it would make the whole situation 100% better. Like a stoplight party, but all the time and with slightly less impact on your whole wardrobe.
there is ZERO way to indicate to others that information.
Ah, you’re getting to a challenge that women have faced forever: “If I reject this man, will he decide to attack or kill me?” (Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6)
Or just in general the concept that’s been named “Schrodingers Rapist.”
It would be a whole lot safer for many people if there was an automatic way to see into someone’s soul to know what they are like and what they are capable of. Are they a rapist? Do they have the potential to be? Will they reject me violently? Will they publicly humiliate me?
None of us can know those things. The best we can do is to try to establish strong social skills and pattern recognition, and work to avoid the situations that put us in danger (whether physical, social, or emotional). It’s hard and there’s no silver bullet.
While you want to put the onus on women to minimize the risk of a man being publicly humiliated, you’re ignoring the realities that women are dealing with the exact same kind of uncertainties (except statistically speaking, with much worse outcomes). There isn’t an easy answer here and it’s not one that falls on just one gender to resolve.
Im not ignoring the problem women have at all, I’m suggesting that if they want men to stop asking, they take the onus upon themselves to initiate.
You’re the one blaming men as being rapists here, not me. Maybe go talk to someone, you clearly have issues.
If you walk up to random people in a cafe, park, or embankment (really?) and ask for their numbers
So I think this is the disconnect. This isn’t window shopping; you’re trying to connect with another human being. You need to take the time to talk with her, see if she shows interest by engaging and encouraging the conversation, and if there’s any commonality or chemistry between you.
Then, if you think there could be something there, offer to give your number rather than ask for hers. It will help her feel safer with you, and she can choose whether or not to accept and if she takes it, she can choose whether or not to follow up. It puts the onus on her to move things forward.
I’m 40, and married. This isn’t about me.
You still don’t get it through, you say talk to them first, but thay limits when you can even start a conversation to very limited locations and certainly doesn’t include your suggestions around a park or embankment.
