Leaving everything else out of it, if you wanted to avoid him, you should have left first, and had the bartender/friend detain him until you could get a head start. That way, you would know where he was while you were en route home, and it wouldn’t have been waiting “at the diner” or anywhere else.
You know, if you had used some paragraph breaks and attributed the quotes, that would have been a pretty good post. I could practically smell the smoke and taste the grenadine.
I’m under the impression of having been to a bar before and understanding the protocol that happens there. Guy buying woman drinks is considered to be one step in the process of trying to lead to further contact of some type. It’s a behavior that’s common enough that anyone who goes to a bar more than once should be familiar with the general idea.
The person who repeatedly accepts drinks from someone and even pursues that person for further contact (going to ask for a cigarette twice, even after he has refused the first time) is behaving in a bitch-like manner. She started treating him badly while having him continue to buy her drinks and then pursued him later in the night after their conversations had already ceased.
And you don’t think she deserved to be called a bitch?
what cuauhtemoc said…
Yes, chula, you’re right…it’s still not safe to be a woman. But I hope you read…really read…the comments that have been posted here. It’s bad enough that the guy was a jerk (making a big deal out of you telling him that you don’t want him touching your leg, etc) but really…if he WAS such a jerk, then DON’T GO BACK TO HIM, asking for a cigarette and continuing to interact with him. Tell him to go away…and then stay away yourself.
I’m confused. You start off with “It’s still not safe to be a woman” and end with something like, “I could’ve kicked his butt- no problem”. We’re you ever actually afraid of this man?
I also think you sent mixed messages to this guy, whether you meant to or not. If I was at a bar and a stranger I didn’t know (male or female) started buying me drinks, I would think their goal was to get more friendly. If I wasn’t interested, I’d either decline straight out or make sure the next round was on me and decline any more offers to buy drinks.
so it’s chula’s fault, huh? If someone buys you drinks, you are obliged to go home with him, or at the very least, put up with his boorish behaviour? It’s the woman’s responsibility to make sure the man doesn’t get the wrong idea?
FUCK ! I hope I never meet you people in a bar.
That is UNACCEPTABLE for anyone over ten years old. Goading women into arguments is not a viable strategy for getting them into bed. Nor is insulting them. Nor, even, is buying her drinks. If she doesn’t want to go home with him, that is entirely her decision, irrelevant of the number of drinks he had bought her.
Does the amount she drank affect her right to decide not to go home with someone?
Why should she have to leave the bar before she’s ready because there’s a nasty guy there?
Why shouldn’t she try to make nice with him?
Why isn’t she allowed to make a misjudgement because of her drunkenness? Why does that misjudgement excuse the boor’s behaviour?
Why is it her fault he was buying her drinks? If he wasn’t willing to invest his drink-money for anything less than a sure thing, he should have gone and found himself a sure thing.
Yes, she did send out mixed signals. But that in no way excuses verbal abuse and physical threats from him.
I understand why this encounter could make you feel less safe as a woman: it is a common experience (at least among the women I know) that a night out, alone or with friends, usually at some point requires ‘fighting off’ unwelcome advances. Why can’t we just go out and expect people to respect our space without forcing us to play their little game of ponytail pulling and drinks-for-sex accounting?
No, what people are saying is that since he was an asshole-which has not been disputed-she should NOT have tried to continue to bum drinks and ciggies off of him. She’s just continuing her own torment, so to speak.
I’m with chula and Toffe. She didn’t ask him to buy her drinks, that was his idea. And even at the price of today’s cigarettes, I don’t think she incurred a debt from bumming a cigarette substantial enough to have to put up with this shit.
As per the scene from French Kiss, Kate (Meg Ryan) trying to bribe the George V hotel concierge into telling her what room her fiancee is staying in:
Accepting a gift from someone doesn’t entitle them to more than courtesy and the privilege of asking (not demanding) a favor in turn. If he’d given her a pound of diamonds, that would not excuse his behavior, which exhibited not-particularly-nuanced threats of physical coercion in the name of “I get to get my way”.
Whatever gender you folks call him, please consider me to be a different one.
Y’know, there’s an old fable about a man and a snake. The snake convinces the man to do him some favor that requires the man to pick the snake up. The snake repeatedly promises the man he won’t bite him.
The man picks the snake up, and does what the snake wants. The snake then bites him.
The man cannot believe this, and starts to complain. The snake says, “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”
If you spend several hours in a bar and see the type of behavior a particular person exhibits, it would behoove you not to continue to interact with that person if you don’t like their behavior. I would think this is basic common sense.
After the first time he was an asshole to her, she should have reduced all interaction to zero, but instead she badgered him for cigarettes and had no qualms about accepting drinks from him.
I’m still missing how bumming a cigarette off of him was ‘doing him a favor’. Is it that much of an honor to be in the good graces of chula?
No, having drinks bought for you and getting free cigarettes from someone does not mean you owe him anything, and yes he was a dick. But when I encounter dicks in bars, I generally find ways to DISENGAGE them rather than make third and fourth connections. If I guy calls me a whore once in a conversation…I don’t give him a chance to do it again.
I agree with Twist. The man is an embarassment to the gender/sex, but assholes, once revealed, should be kept away from, not engaged. If an evening in a bar with a stranger starts to turn sour (arguing with a nitwit would qualify), walk away right away. Do not engage any further. Anyone who forms an opinion of you based on a nitwit’s rantings are not people with whom you wanted to be acquainted anyway.
You are right chula. The world is not a safe place for women. This shouldn’t really be a shock by the time you are old enough to be in a bar legaly. This guy had no right to treat you badly he did, but if you are going to survive much longer without being badly hurt, you are going to need to learn a modicum of self preservation. The only good choice you made from the time you said no thankyou to his hand, was not walking out alone. I am not suggesting that all those rules our mother taught us about protecting ourselves will keep us entirely safe, but ignoring them is bound to get you in trouble.
Shall we review
Don’t talk to strangers…(ok this isn’t always practical, but certainly dont talk to them after they have proven to be an asshole.)
Don’t walk alone at night
If you must smoke, buy your own damn cigarettes. (This goes for drinks.)
Keep five bucks on you to call a cab (ok, up it to twenty) Don’t accept gifts from strangers. (This includes drinks and cigarettes.) I am by no means suggesting you owed him sex because you accepted drinks, but you know there are men who see it that way. It is one thing to let someone you know buy you drinks, but there are men out there that drug drinks. Buy you drinks don’t let anyone mess with your glass. You are smart enough to have gone to law school, use the brains you came equiped with.
I am sorry, I am new here, but I have a 9 year old daughter, I am working out how to explain to her that the world isnt fair and she needs to learn to protect herself.
I don’t see where most of you are coming off with your resentment towards chula in this scenario. Do you people even go out to bars? Guys buy women drinks all the time, but that NEVER means the guy has the right to scream shit like “Whore” to her, or threaten her with physical violence. From what she said, she knew the bartender, so she probably got free drinks anyway, so he was simply wasting his money.
It seems things started off simple enough…the guy came up, bought her a drink, they started talking, drinks continued, everything’s simple and standard. Still, even at this point, she doesn’t have to like him, or have ANY intent on doing anything more than saying “Well, thanks for the drinks” and going home. Women do this shit all the time! Just because a woman excepts a drink from a man doesn’t mean she likes him, or has to like him. They’re strangers in a fucking bar! He jumped off the handle, PUT HIS HANDS ON HER, and when she “politely” told him to remove his hands, he throws a fucking hissy fit. And you people are crucifying her actions?
His behavior from this point out was just completely unnacceptable. I admit, I’m at a bit of a loss as to how requestinc a cig from the guy was “doing him a favor,” but this behavior is not unheard of. The guy left, and persisted to come back and try and talk to her. She didn’t rope him in as he “tried to get away.” He wouldn’t leave! He had a conversation going with two other women, which was directed at chula, and he repeatedly left them to linger by her and harrass her some more.
And I’m sorry, no matter how much of a bitch a woman acts towards a man, in a bar scenario, simple because she accepts the drinks you buy her and takes the cigs you offer her, does not, EVER give a man the right to threaten a woman with physical violence. They shouldn’t have just hung out and waited for him to leave, they should have called the fucking cops and has his ass thrown in jail. His lingering around for an extra hour or so just shows that this guy was intent on doing something stupid besides verbal insults, and I’m sorry, nothing she did warranted that.
If you’re bitter because you feel some woman somewhere treated you like an ATM machine, well then, deal with it elsewhere and quit projecting your bitterness on someone else. Learn that you DON’T have to buy women drinks, and if you do, that’s your choice and you should take it as money out the window, and not a deposite on an easy lay.
Not ONE PERSON HERE has suggested that his behavior wasn’t reprehensible…we’re just suggesting to chula that while it may not ‘be safe to be a woman’ we can act in ways to make it safer. Let me state my case clearly:
INITIATING CONVERSATION WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS YELLING AND CALLING YOU A WHORE EARIER IN THE EVENING, AND REPEATEDLY REQUESTING THINGS FROM HIM WHEN HE SAYS NO IS UNSAFE BEHAVIOR
El Elvis Rojo, I think many people are wondering why she continued to try to socialize with the man in the first place. He was way out of line fairly early in their interaction, as you noted. His behavior was inexcusable. But the other times they spoke, according to the OP, chula initiated it. In my view, you lose the right to complain about idiotic behavior if you continue to voluntarily hang around the idiot exhibiting said behavior.
