And yet none of the other women seemed to spidey-sense any danger. Even the OP’s daughter didn’t want Mom to do anything. But I guess they just haven’t gone down the spidey-sense rabbit hole the way the Borderline Justice League has.
Wow. So not my point.
Ah well, never mind.
Let’s see, the OP didn’t do anything. And her daughter doesn’t want her to. Quite possibly the other women in the gym were feeling the creep vibe, but didn’t want to do anything.
Nah, that would make too much sense for you.
Once again, you have re-defined the scenario to a ridiculous extreme, and then seek to score points by declaring your ridiculous re-definition to be ridiculous.
Yes, you may compliment her hat without being creepy. No, you may not follow her from one set to the next continuing a one-sided conversation from which she appears to be trying to extricate herself. Especially if she is visibly underage and you are visibly overage.
And to engage your tangent briefly, I have actually known three late 20-year-old creeps who volunteered to teach bible classes in order to meet teen-aged girls.
Impeccable logic. Are you also available for witch dunkings?
I guess? Because that doesn’t make any sense at all.
But! It was close! Here’s what does make sense:
The OP didn’t do anything. And her daughter doesn’t want her to. Since nobody else reported him, we assume not that they were all intimidated and waiting for the Bordeline Justice League to spring into action, but instead, the more prosiac explanation that the other women in the gym didn’t notice anything untoward. OP posts on the internet, and in the echolalia of a dozen bunny-boilers, we get this:
Well gentlemen, the verdict is in it seems. Check your pants. If there is a penis down there, you’d best report yourself to the nearest police station, because if you haven’t done something yet, you almost certainly will in the future. :rolleyes:
I’d like to know the percentage of adult males groping tweens. I’ve never done that, nor do I know anyone whose behaviour even indicates that they might be such perverts. Those guys must be busy to assault every young woman multiple times during her teen years.
I’m a bit curious to know how many gyms even allow tweens to wander around unattended. Mine doesn’t, and there’s a clearly posted NO GROPING policy.
Yes, they probably are. I don’t imagine they just do it once, go “oh well, that didn’t work, she didn’t seem that into me” and leave off.
I still say that in my opinion there is no such thing as a totally innocent and non-creepy “shoulder bump”, at the gym or anywhere else. If someone has bumped my shoulder, I assume it was an accident. If someone’s doing this as a means of socially interacting with other people, that’s messed up and is a good indicator right there that this person is unaware of (or doesn’t care about) social norms.
Yeah, if I see someone rocking on up to people and shoulder-bumping them all the time I’m probably going to say something to gym management. No, this is not the same as saying, “OMG I DON’T WANT ANYONE TO EVER APPROACH ME OR TALK TO ME EVER.”
Also, yes, you can talk to girls. What you should not do is continue to talk to girls after they have indicated they are not interested. Failing to respond to your conversation, starting a workout, or moving away from you entirely are all signals that they are not interested. I am again slightly surprised that these things need to be spelled out, but I hope I have helped by providing this important service.
Again, the only people saying that in this thread have been those who are trying to re-define the situation and opinions in order to make them ridiculous. I think we’re all willing to stipulate: Ridiculous statements are ridiculous.
I’d like to know the percentage of adult males following t(w)een girls from one set to the next in the gym while holding one-sided conversations from which the girls appear to be attempting to extricate themselves. If you really want to throw your hat in with that crowd go ahead, but expect to be called creepy. If that doesn’t do it you could always accidently on purpose shoulder bump them . . .
I think that the percentage of men who are creeps/pervs is pretty low. I’ve encountered many, many men in my life, and only a few have actually groped or tried to grope me. The thing is, though, that even though it’s only a few men who do it, it seems to have happened to every woman that I’ve met. So there’s only a few men doing it, but often enough that just about every woman experiences it.
My own experience as a tween wasn’t just groping, it was an attempted rape. As in, the guy TOLD me that he was going to screw me, and I was going to love it and beg for more. Now, this guy in the gym probably intended to be friendly. But he was going about it in a creepy way.
There is one of these clueless guys in every gym and he doesn’t just follow around girls. He will talk to anyone about any subject for any amount of time. Tween girls just haven’t learned to say “Dude, I’m working out here” yet. This guy will teach them.
The girls are the lucky ones. Us guys have to listen to that guy’s long, rambling stories in the locker room when he is almost naked.
If you go by the Op then None. Weedymentions that the girl replied to him at least initially. He followed her once, after her reply to the other machine and chatted some more, possibly without reply as the OP doesn’t elaborate, (not that it matters) then she got up and went to another machine down the line and he didn’t follow her, but went back to his weights.
There is nothing creepy, illogical, or socially inappropriate about that exchange at all.
It reads : guy chats to girl, girl makes small talk or at least a pleasant reply. Guy takes that as a positive sign to keep chatting and follows her to her machine to do so (interrupting his workout, but not stopping her) He talks more (possibly with or without answer) and either is brushed away, finishes his conversation, or gets the hint. Anyway you read that he’s not being pervy, predatory, or even skeevy. Without more detailed information, (which I don’t think the OP could supply), its wrong to make that call or even assume he was hitting on her.
I agree that the shoulder thing has be perplexed. Possibly he read a book that suggested it as an excuse to talk to people? 
This.
C’mon, folks, how many times do you get shoulder-bumped when you’re not actually in a crowd? That is weird and socially abnormal behavior. From what the OP described, this isn’t agressive “trying to pick a fight” bumping, but neither is it friendly “hey there buddy (to someone you know reasonably well)” bumping. It sounds to me like “socially agressive” bumping, which simply isn’t normal.
The OP mentioned his talking to thirty-something guys and late-teen girls. If those are the ONLY folks he does this with, that too is weird. It’s not a range of various ages and sexes, it’s just two specific groups – males his age and females of significantly younger age. Sounds socially out of kilter to me.
There’s no call for the shoulder-bumping, and if it is indeed only those two groups he chats up it’s odd enough to raise a red flag.
It sounds like both, depending on which post you read. In one post it’s aggressive and threatening, in another it’s friendly like you’d do with people you know. At this point, I don’t think there’s any way we can guess; I’m beginning to think the OP was watching someone interact with a few people he knows well and wasn’t party to their social dynamic. But that’s yet another guess.
Who knows?
In other words, you didn’t really have a point. You just rolled out of the rack with religious descrimination and racism on the brain this morning, I suppose.
Your mother smells of elderberries!
Yay! I like the “throw out random comments with no intention of backing them up” game!
Is this really something people do? I’m asking seriously. The only time I’ve ever seen anything like it is between members of the same sports team, going on or coming off the field.
The OP didn’t say the guy chatted to all ages/male and female. She said he chatted to two specific subsets of people: males his own age and females approximately half his age. (Given her statement of his age as early 30s and the girls’ age as 15-20)
She further said he shoulder checked those same two groups, and possibly everyone who walked past him. Then proceeded to use the shoulder bump as a conversation opener and attempt to start conversations with individuals from the two groups.
To me, the parts where he talks specifically to thirtysomething men and teen girls/young women exclusively seems off. The shoulder checks also. I can easily imagine that while the initial shoulder bump seems aggressive, the fact that he immediately turns on the just chatting friendly look and vocal tone makes it describable as “friendly” and still seem nothing of the sort.
This is a really odd set of circumstances the OP observed, and I can see why she’d feel it was somehow off or wrong. I do not really have a good sense of what she should do about it if anything, though. I still want to disagree with the suggestions from the people who mischaracterized the original post so far though; how can you give advice if you skewed the question so much in your restatement? I mean, you can, but not credibly.