Right now I’m at a tiny corner Starbuck’s in my neighborhood, where they have a group of four easy chairs in one corner, next to an outlet (so I always try to sit in that area with my computer. I got the corner seat today, and about the same time there arrived a very attractive young woman who looked to be about college age.
Anon comes this guy who’s fifty if a day, and sits in the adjacent armchair to her, and tries to initiate contact by smiling at her. She’s clearly uncomfortable and looks the other way, out the window, away from the book she’d brought with her. That’s not clear enough for him, so he says hello how are you doing to her. Like, seriously. And I’m not being ageist. I’m pushing 51 myself, but I’ve got more sense than that.
So she leaves. And who could blame her? He might be a perfectly honest and kind old gent, but the numbfuck should have more sense than that. Or I don’t know, maybe it works for him every so often. But it’s damned rude and inconsiderate to the other 99%, who either have to (a) leave, or (b) make a scene. One has to feel bad for women in her situation who have to put up with this sort of thing, day in and day out.
I think there was just a Pit thread decrying the “poor me, I’m so beautiful people hit on me all the time and it’s just so annoying!” type of attention-whoring.
Not to start another wave of that, bu I’ve been in this situation many times. It sucks, and it’s nice that at least one guy out there empathizes.
Eventually the girl will learn how to be rude enough and/or ignore the guy completely. There’s really nothing else to do to dissuade these type of clueless dolts.
Like, OMFG, no way, he says, “hello, how are you doing?” Perish the thought.
There’s nothing particularly creepy about saying “hello,” even if you are a 50 year old hitting on a 21 year old. One isn’t required to carry out a careful Bayesian analysis of the likelihood of your intended liking you before offering a greeting (although it can help if your ego is readily bruised), and a “hello” alone doesn’t qualify as creepy.
By god, teach the man right for daring to say hello to a fellow human being. I mean, what the fuck is he thinking?!?!? HELLO?!?!? He actually said fucking “HELLO”??? Jebus, that’s half a step from just jumping on top of her in the store and raping the shit out of her! And at his age, attempting to communicate with a younger female AT ALL??? Miracle that she didn’t just whip out the can of mace and spray the fucker, then have him dragged off by the cops!
Seriously - when she’s deliberately turned so that you can see more of her back than her face, don’t bother. Age is immaterial. So the guy in the OP was almost certainly particularly clueless. And maybe about to be a jerk. But he hadn’t actually crossed the line yet.
Yeah, because the line is SO CLOSE to “Hi, how are you?”
Geez, I’m easily made uncomfortable, and maybe it’s because of the whole Southern culture thing, but this is stupid. You can’t stand having somebody say hi to you?
If you see someone with a book in their hand deliberately turn away when you sit next to them I think it’s a fair bet they don’t want to spend their coffee break in chit-chat with strangers, irrespective of gender.
