Maybe he was just going round asking people if they would give him some help doing wheelchair pull-ups?
(Hey, its possible…)
“Where’s your wheelchair?”
“It’s out in my van… would you mind giving me a hand?”
Inappropriate cheap shot at someone not even participating in this thread. Do not do this again.
It wasn’t from gym station to gym station. Well, I guess from his station (weights machine) to her station (cardio machine). It’s a small gym, with weights on one side, and cardio on the other. He was using the weights machines next to the central aisle. She went to the 2nd cardio machine along. When she moved further away, he didn’t follow her.
I had the impression it was meant as a friendly shoulder bump, as performed between guys who know each other. Why he performed it with girls he didn’t know, I’m not sure. My current hypothesis is that he’s weird.
It seems to me that people know what kind of shoulder bump it was, but it doesn’t make any sense for him to have done that, so they think it must have been something else.
If you want to simulate what happened, stand near something next to an aisle. When someone walks past you, bump your shoulder against theirs. When they turn around, smile and say something. Decide if you were being aggressive or friendly.
So, if I’m interpreting your prophecies correctly, by your own account, the people you’re insulting in this post are usually right in their interpretations, while you, being I’m guessing male, are invariably clueless, but you’re insulting them anyway?
As the father of two young daughters, I view every male on Earth as a potential child rapist, so I say do whatever the hell you want. If musclehead doesn’t like it, too fucking bad.
They found Jaycee because her kidnapper visited the UC Berkeley police office to get permission to host an event for his invented church, the “Gods Desire Church,” and he explained to the person there that he had the power to control sound with his mind.
I guess we’ll never know what made her spidey sense tingle.
Would you also agree with the validity of statements such as:
[ul]
[li]“I view every muslim on Earth as a potential terrorist, so I say do whatever the hell you want. If raghead doesn’t like it, too fucking bad.” [/li][li]“I view every black man on Earth as a potential mugger, so I say do whatever the hell you want. If [I can’t bring myself to type the particular insult that fits in here] doesn’t like it, too fucking bad.” [/li][/ul]
Because to me they’re very similar. We’ll all agree that rapists, terrorists, and muggers exist. But blanket statements such as yours (and those I just used) sound just as dangerous to me.
Dude, pay attention. I actually said it has happened to me and that the OP should try talking to the girls at the gym to see if they are in fact weirded out before doing anything.
Username/post combo FTW!
I believe point 8 is meant to suggest that the shape-shifting nature of the complaint (as, for instance, in the current thread where the dudebrah complained of was, in the OP, talking to patrons of both sexes in a “friendly/non-aggressive” way, and who, by the time the OP clarified the account, was limiting his interactions to young women only and in an aggressive fashion) diminishes the credibility of the spiderwomen, rather than bolsters it.
Or maybe it’s just that the spiderwomen’s spidey senses are so astonishingly well-calibrated that they transcend time, space, and the internet. That, after all, is the only other reason I can think of to explain the fact the “clarifications” always explain that the SDMB spiderwomen’s speculations have been spot on. Despite their apparent obstacles of (1) not having been there, and (2) having been contradicted by the now-repudiated OP.
Hopefully your betters aren’t making the same assumption about you, with respect to your two young daughters.
Female spidey sense, explained for the gentlemen;
Every woman was once a innocent developing young girl. And though her Mom and Dad told her to, ‘take care’, ‘be aware’, etc, etc, she’s just learning to move freely and independently in the world at 12yrs of age.
She climbs into an elevator, one day, with a man who smiles at her, and seems no more threatening, than her own Dad. She smiles back. When the doors close the conversation starts and it’s all innocent enough until he gropes her. She jumps back, exits the elevator and loses a little innocence. It will be some time before she just smiles back at someone. She won’t tell anyone because, well, teenagers are cruel, and her parents may limit her freedom and independence, as a result. So she just takes the lesson on board and moves on wiser and more aware. (If you don’t believe this happens to every woman, ask the one sitting next to you. Ask her how many people she told, while you’re at it.)
She is more cautious, but, with each passing day she moves back to that smiling innocent. Then she’s on a crowded bus one day, she sees a fellow get on who makes immediate eye contact with her and smiles, she breaks eye contact and her spidey sense tingles. But now she’s an idealistic 16 yr old, and he hasn’t done anything. She doesn’t want to become like her horrible neighbour who thinks all Latinos are criminals, or her Auntie who doesn’t like Cubans because she was once mugged by one. She tells herself, he hasn’t done anything, actionable or overt. So she overrides her own spidey sense with her idealist sense of fairness, as he makes his way to the seat beside her. And then, he starts rubbing up against her, she jumps from her seat and exits the bus. And again she tells no one, because she feels such a fool. She didn’t trust her own instinct, she feels complicit.
If this is your daughter (and by the way, it’s all your daughters, sorry to tell you!) what do you want her to do when her spidey sense goes off next? Get into that elevator? Look the other way because she’s not the intended victim?
Women develop spidey sense from life experiences as young girls. If you’d like to stop it work on the man side instead of the women who have been groped.
This mans actions set off this woman’s spidey sense. That’s enough for me. No one wants him hung, evicted or tainted. But it is not unreasonable to say something to someone, in confidence.
If it was your gym, and you were the owner, you wouldn’t want to know? Seriously? Until he actually gropes somebody, he’s a okay with you?
Yeah, we know. We just usually call it “borderline personality disorder.”
Pathologising awareness might be valid if street harassment weren’t so common.
No, and No again.
When come back, bring reading comprehension.
Weedy Still thinks that the bump was friendly, she just doesn’t understand why he was doing it. Also he didn’t “follow young girls around”, He followed one girl to one station, apparently chatted he up a bit and went back to his station when she moved off.
SecondJudith and Mswhatsit, no matter how hard you protest, most normal people would not view a person chatting up another person at the gym as creepy in and of itself, even if the ages are a bit weird. If you don’t want ever deal with a male in conversation at the gym, join a women’s only facility where your delicate sensibilities will never be trodden upon by mongol hordes eager to pillage your charms that no doubt lie in wait at every free weight station. :rolleyes:
+1 Elbows, and thank you for taking the time to type that out. So true!
I just really think that the people who demean these hard-won instincts have no idea, and never will, and don’t want to know. Women who are afraid to be rude, afraid to act on insinct, afraid to trust themselves are victimized in ways alrge and small until they learn to stop being afraid.
Then we become b1tches.
Where did I say that chatting up another person at the gym was creepy?
Right here after you quoted me about talking to women at the gym.
You then qualified your statement, I’ll grant.
I quoted this:
I said, “Yes, it is.” You said nothing in that quote about chatting girls up. I was very specifically responding only to your statement that following girls around wasn’t creepy. For someone who has been bitching about other people’s lack of reading comprehension, I’m a little surprised I need to explain this in such detail.