Ladies, let’s be honest

In My Humble Opinion
121

The thing is …I don’t care what the poor zhlub thinks or doesn’t think. He is nothing to me, I owe him nothing. The fact that he is behind me in line for lotto tickets doesn’t entitle him to a “chance” or even a smile.

Some times it might take me a few seconds to respond but never more than that, but I find persistence in the face of refusal extremely self-centered and inconsiderate and I don’t find inconsiderate and self-centered men attractive regardless of their physical appearance.

And if the guy followed me for a few blocks I’d either knee him in the groin or call 911.

In my experience guys that are persistent in trying to pick up women off the street fall into one of two groups.

  1. Guys with an impaired sense of reading signals.

  2. Pros, so to speak. Guys that constantly try to pick up women. Some of these guys are attractive and can seem rather charming because they have a practiced act. One of these guys tried to pick me up on the “N” train, I almost caved and gave him my number and he was quite charming.

Then four times over the course of the next year I observed him using the same “stylings” on women riding the “N” train. He did not seem to recognize me.

The few times I decided to give a “marginal” but persistent guy a chance I suffered through one tortured seeming endless date then when I said no to a second date the guys reacted like I was breaking an engagement. I know several friends that had similar experiences …when I asked one friend what she did on her date she told me “I worked on getting back home”.

BTW, I had encouraged her to go out with him because the guy was good-looking and the boss’s son but she always reacted to him like he was fat, bald and clad in sweatpants. We are attracted to guys we are attracted to and if we aren’t…we aren’t… and sometimes there is no logical justification.
And another friend had a similar date with a guy that I had been dropping every YES signal possible to at the party where we met and he left the party convinced my friend was the girl for ( and he didn’t even notice me) him but she was giving him every NO NO NO signal she could muster but guys only hear what they want to hear. This guy was a looker, too.

In other similar situation a guy I was sweet on was crazy about my best friend who saw nothing in him and,she, wonderful woman that she was, went out with him a few times and spent those dates convincing him he should ask me out and she cancelled the third date at the last minute and told him to take me and he did and we dated for several years.

But, I am reminiscing, it seems that the miserable “pity date” is a universal experience and sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to attraction but if she’s just not into you that isn’t going to change.

In fact, I cannot think of any woman I know who went out with a guy “just to shut him up” and ended up falling for him. I can think of about a thousand stories when it led to one horrid wasted evening and we learn from experience and after a while we just don’t do it anymore.

122

Let me simply stick to this one item, since it may save you considerable trouble in working up enough outrage for a Pit thread-or it may not, of course, depending on eager you are to write one.

Now, in the above graf, notice please the word “may”–meaning it might, or as I somewhat redundantly go on to point out, it might not. Both are possible. If you’re determined to find fault, then you will. But if you’[re willing to grant me the possibility that I wasn’t saying specific things about you, or your honesty, but pointing out some alternatives, then maybe you won’t.

You entire lengthy post goes on, in much this vein, and it would be redundant to keep pointing out all the errors, which resemble the above error in form. You have some issues, I’m afraid, but I’ll see if I can’t straighten some out in this Pit thread of yours. I’d point out that you certainly don’t need permission from me to open one, but I can’t think of a way that you couldn’t construe as patronizing and hostile, so I’ll simply write this [generic patronizing and hostile remarks guaranteed to cause offense] and let you run with it.

123

To pseudotritron ruber ruber–what DO you think women should do when a guy whom they perceive to be creepy (whether it’s because he’s “ugly” or because he’s annoying or for whatever reason, shallow or not, they have) is hitting on them? Pretend to be interested because he might wear her down? Give out a fake number? I mean, what, seriously?

124

Pretty much the same thing I expect a guy to do in an analogous situation, which should be close if not identical with either an ugly or beautiful woman hitting on them in whom they’re totally uninterested: go “Huh. That was weird. Too bad for her. Where’s food?”

What I’m not getting is all the outrage, all the “Well, I never…” , all the “Just who the hell does he think he is,?” (Or “…I am?”). Do you suppose this difference stems from fear of rape? That these women are genuinely afraid, or are conditioned to react with heightened emotions? That’s the only big factor that would be different in the two situations, far as I can see.

125

So you don’t think that your hypothetical guy, if this hypothetical ugly or beautiful woman kept following him around and wouldn’t take no for an answer… you don’t think he might start to feel a bit annoyed, might think she was a nuisance? Because you seemed somewhat upset that I said the persistent guy in your scenario would be annoying to me.

126

Not upset, no. I just felt that you over-stated your case in some places, but I wasn’t upset. Maybe a little confused. A little irritated at having been understood so little, too, maybe, but nearly upset.

And the maximum annoyance of being hit on too persistently is, for me, definitely filed under M for “meh.” Women often seem truly angry or outraged, whch I have a hard time featuring a guy feeling in that spot. You certainly seemed pissed off, weren’t you?

127

Er… I said I’d find them “annoying at best and very creepy at worst”. That means that - assuming as per your OP that we were in a place where I didn’t feel threatened - I wouldn’t shout and scream and sob and throw things, I’d just be thinking “this guy is a bit annoying/a bit of a creep” in the privacy of my own mind. I think you’re reading quite a lot into what I said.

128

So you’re just annoyed that (some) women get self righteous when guys whom they think are unattractive hit on them? Because I’ve never heard guys talk derisively about a girl being too fat to date or how girl x is a total dog–no, men are never cruel.

Look, members of both sexes can be assholes about people they perceive to be less than stellar looking. Call it a “beautiful people” problem and move on instead of making women out to be castrating bitch goddesses.

129

Freudian Slit, just for the record, the post of mine that seems to have upset pseudotriton ruber ruber applied equally to unattractive and drop-dead-stunning men - in fact, my main point was that I’d find *both *a bit annoying and potentially creepy if they kept following me around after I said no. I certainly don’t intend to set myself up as some unattainable bitch goddess who none should approach unless they resemble a Greek god. (In fact, I’m nothing special looks-wise, and I’m not interested in hooking up with anybody currently, gorgeous or not.)

130

No, I didn’t mean to imply that–sorry if I did! I was just trying to make a parallel that I thought the OP might get. I’ve heard a lot of guys speak disparagingly about less than hot women, as if they have something to apologize for. I’ll stop here before I regurgitate the Beauty Myth again.

Anyway, you’re right. I, too, posted about how if a “hot” guy hit on me, I might be flattered, but if he refused to take no for an answer, at some point, hotness becomes irrelevant.

If the OP is truly just angered at the attitude of “How DARE nerdy guy X ask me out, does he KNOW he’s not in the same universe as me?” that attitude is obnoxious. But it’s not really a woman thing.

131

Maybe so, but I’ve hung out with a lot of guys and we’re mostly too clueless to tell who’s hot for us, or to care enough to want to dish 'em–nothing like the vehemence I’ve heard from women this week–or that I’ve read here, for that matter.

You’re using a pretty discredited rhetorical trope, by the way: “Senator, let’s discuss your embezzlement conviction.”

“I’d rather discuss your long history of jaywalking…”

Instead of copping to the cruel streak I’d noted in women, you’d rather discuss a similar trait in men? Okay, but are we going to bring up the cruelty of cats to mice next?

132

Well, you noted a few women who may or may not have been cruel. I’m saying I don’t think this is specific to women. I think some people get annoyed at people not in their “league” hitting on them in general, even when the “hitter” is being perfectly polite.

When we get into the realm of guys coming on to strong, most women in this thread have said it’s about the guys’ actions and vibes, and not really about looks.

133

It’s an angering experience because it’s a form of disrespect to have your wishes ignored, and by a stranger no less. Repeat any request enough times and it becomes a demand. I don’t know anyone who likes to have people demand things of them.

It’s also upsetting to be pushed out of your comfort zone by someone who won’t quit bothering you until you practically yell obscenities at their face. Most people don’t like to feel backed against that kind of wall. Most people don’t like to say harsh things to other people. Social graces exist for a reason. It makes you mad when you’re forced to abandon those because some clueless fool failed to get the memo that said that “no” actually means “no, and if you ask again you’re being rude, not cute”.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s uncommon for women to persistently chase after men in the way you described in the OP. So you don’t have a lot of experience with this and the only way you would know how it feels is through your imagination. But you’d be hard pressed to find a woman who hasn’t had at least one guy bug her in this manner and so knows first-hand that how it feels. There’s nothing “meh” about it. The same kind of guy who is too clueless to recognize a rejection when he sees one is the same kind of guy who is too clueless to recognize the inappropriateness of hiding out in the bushes to see what she’s wearing to bed and too clueless to recognize what non-consensual sex looks like.

134

Funny way to make that point, though, wouldn’t you say? Since I asked about hypothetical guys whose “actions and vibes” are different but whose looks differ, I’d have thought that these women would have simply said “I’d treat goodlooking and less goodlooking guys alike.” But instead several posters harangued me at length arguing that, yes, they do treat some guys differently but that’s all about… every category that I’d specifically stipulated would be identical in both hypothetical groups.

My built-in shockproof BS detector is still ringing.

135

This bears repeating. An attractive woman can be out for a jog or on her way to perform lifesaving surgery– if she’s out in public, she’s got a decent chance of being hit on or catcalled at (not that some guys don’t also like to tell women that they’re ugly or fat or that their tits are big). A man in a business suit? He commands respect– demands it. He’s got business to do and important things on his mind. Who’s going to get offended if he doesn’t feel like shooting the breeze with an unattractive stranger at a take-out counter? Who’s going to tell him he ‘should smile more often’? How about a few times a day, every day?

136

Oh, no, just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being unclear. (I think the “how dare that ugly guy act like he’s allowed to speak to me!” attitude is obnoxious, too, so I didn’t want to accidentally sound as if I was doing that myself.)

137

Well, obviously at first, if a hot guy comes up to me, I might be happier than if my idea of an unattractive guy came up to me. So I might not treat them alike at first, no. But after they became creepy in their actions after I make my lack of interest clear, I would feel the same way. But this is such an insane hypothetical because you never see two people acting exactly the same and projecting the same vibe but one is hot and one is ugly. Sometimes unattractive guys come off as creeps. Sometimes they don’t. Big deal.

138

Oooooh! You’ve hit on my #1 pet peeve. I hate that shit. It makes me feel like punching someone in the face.

The next time someone tells me to smile I’m going to promptly tell them to stand up straight and do something with their hair. If they get to critique my appearance, I’m going to critique theirs. See how they like them apples.

139

See, this is what gets my BS detector ringing so loud. ALL hypotheticals are impossible. If I specified two guys who were identical except that one weighted one gram more than another, you could make the same charge “This is impossible, insane, how would you ever find two such guys, never in a million billion years would these exact circumstances blablabla…” when it’s a hypothetical that doesn’t have to be imaginable in real life. “Let’s say you’ve got two guys, identical, but one of them is on Mars…”

So when I start hearing practical objections (and angry practical objections) to a hypothetical that doesn’t need to occur in the real world, it makes me wonder what you have against such a discussion taking place that you’re so eager to derail it. The answers I conjure up don’t do you a lot of credit, sorry to say.

140

I’m just saying that I don’t know how I’d react because there’s no way of ever testing this. The best I, and most people in this thread, can do is to state that obviously, getting hit on by someone more compatible with you in the looks department is nicer than getting hit on by someone they consider unattractive–at first. And then when you give him a polite, “Flattered, but no thanks” and he continues with, “Aww, come on, go out with me, I’ll be your best friend, I’ll pay you fifty bucks, why not? oh, you’re mean!” no matter what he looks like, he’ll be seen as a total cretin.

The fact that you’re so eager to paint women who complain about getting hit on as catty and superficial doesn’t do you any more credit, for the record.