When I was 16 years old, I worked in a book store (Books-A-Million, to be precise) as a cashier. I cannot tell you how many skeevy old men, or even young men, would bring copies of Hustler, Penthouse and any other porn they could find to my register, ask my opinion on it and ask if I’d be interested in meeting them after work. It was absolutely disgusting. A couple told me they’d be thinking of me when they read their new purchase, or offered to read it with me. Getting hit on working retail happens a heck of a lot to varying degrees.
That said, my impression of this girl is that she’s either:
“insta-rejecting” to avoid having to deal with being hit on;
trying to sell you clothes. I’m a woman and whenever I shop somewhere for clothing, the lady at the register usually tells me that she either really loves whatever it is I’m about to buy or tells me she’s planning on buying one herself;
The concept of a woman, or anyone, feeling “guilt and shame” is totally off my radar. I don’t know how I possibly conveyed that possibility.
I’m here to defend those who are hors de combat in the battle of the sexes: women in service jobs who are held captive at their workstation at by “the customer is always right” dictate; and men who are preemptively reminded by young women that they are unappealing, even though they’ve made no such appeals.
It’s not gender politics, it’s just good manners. Flirting is a pleasant activity that considerate people learn to do. They know when it’s OK and when it’s inappropriate; how to deflect flirtation without getting nasty, and how be deflected gracefully. But that’s hard to do in an era when the relationship between the sexes is fraught with a so many of ugly issues, as they have been in the last few years.
No there is not. Again, that’s a graceful deflection. It doesn’t even have to be true.
But please remove the aspect of being hit on out of the discussion for my point: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about guys who know they don’t have high dating capital, whose love lives never involved cold-call pickups of strangers, but who still on occasion encounter mean women who get an ego boost by saying “in your dreams, loser!” It really happens, jsgodess. I’m not accusing you personally. In fact, since you don’t readily see what I’m talking about, it probably means you never treated guys cruelly. You don’t define yourself by how hot or successful your boyfriend is, so you’ve never told a guy, a guy that wasn’t even hitting on you, that he’s a creepy nobody compared to the real man you’ve landed. But it’s happened to most of us guys, and it’s just as unfair to dismiss our experience as it is to dismiss a woman’s complaint of harassment. Sure, bitches like that are as rare as they are acute, but then so are the real hardcore sexual harassers.
On balance, yes us shlub guys do have it easier than women who get hit on at work, but also on balance, we get labeled as unmasculine whiners if we complain that our feelings are hurt to an extent that no woman’s femininity is compromised in comparison.
I don’t see any reason to call your masculinity into question, but you probably get called a whiner because you’re being kind of whiny.
The thread is about women bringing up their significant others either for no reason in particular or as a kind and gentle way to let a man know they’re uninterested or unavailable. It’s about as far from “in your dreams, loser” as anyone can get.
I’m sorry people have been cruel to you in the past, but it says more about them than you. You found out those women are unkind nasty people you wouldn’t have wanted to date anyway. You’d be better off focusing on what you think of yourself and what good and decent non-crazy women think of you than worrying about nasty people.
I am absolutely not dismissing that experience. I’m sure it happens. But I’m not seeing evidence that it’s what happened in the context of the OP. I’m only referring to the OP.
The OP shouldn’t necessarily assume that the sales clerk found him creepy. She may just be in the habit of mentioning her boyfriend with customers as standard practice for not getting hit on. Or her boyfriend may legitimately have a pair of pants or whatever like the ones the OP was looking at.
What makes someone “creepy” is when they either read too much into an interaction or they don’t read the interaction correctly.
The Op is at the STMB? Well, why is he posting here, Boom!
Girls at work don’t like getting hit on.
Neckbeards who loiter at Mall shops to mumble at and annoy saleswomen are Pathetic.
(Doesn’t matter if they smell like Cool Waters or 3rd-try microwaved fish)
These are Given Facts (no matter how someone else might mumble them)
If a girl says to every male customer she has a BF, its probably because the store frowns on her putting up a sign that says:
“Fuck Off, I’m Not Interested.”
"Now Serving No. 136 "
Women are absolutely far more insecure about not being in a relationship. They are programmed to seek stability, even if it’s with major clowners.
The easiest way to deflect attention from a guy is to mention the boyfriend. A woman working in sales likely gets hit on very often, and may have to mention the boyfriend frequently to keep guys away.
It’s entirely possible the saleswoman doesn’t even have a boyfriend, but knew saying she did would get you to back off.
Way too many women on this board are quick to call any guy initiating conversation as a creep. It’s actually hilariously sad that they are quick to call out men for judging women, given they just did the exact same thing to us.
This isn’t a man versus woman thing. It’s a basic human being thing.
The OP took an innocuous, probably meaningless comment from a store clerk and decided it was actually some kind of emotionally loaded secret code that’s really all about him. And that secret message happens to be about how amazingly attractive he is that he stops strangers in their tracks with guilt about how much they secretly want to bone him.
When it was pointed out that “I have a boyfriend” usually means “I don’t want to have sex with you” rather than “I really want to have sex with you,” the OP went on a classic, passive aggressive whine, throwing in a few comments that show some pretty classic “issues” with women.
This isn’t about hitting on women or not hitting on women. This is about projecting self-absorbed fantasy and then defending that fantasy rather than listening to people.
I think that people of either sex can be quite obsessive about relationships and people of either sex can be quite dismissive of same. And everyone else falls somewhere in the middle.
Thanks for those who have provided further advice and some support against the haters and invalidaters.
“Creep-shaming”: Yes, I’d heard that term before but forgotten it. Thanks for reminding me. It seems that some people enjoy it so much that they will creep-shame strangers on the Internet with whom they haven’t even interacted (vicarious creep-shaming?).
One poster I’ve seen rant against guys elsewhere on the board; it seems to be hobby of sorts.
BTW, I didn’t think the woman at the store perceived me as a creep. Yes, I see now how I described things in the OP was teeing me up for the hostiles, but I wasn’t necessarily thinking she found me ultra-hot or anything. There could have been some very subtle, unintentional primate eye contact/interaction that caused the phenomenon I described.
The hostility toward/issues with women thing is funny. I guess the hostile in question would see any guy describing any negative dating/mating issue as such. I am not butch at all, basically a metro, and most of my friends are women and gay guys.
It’s been fun. I guess I’ll talk about “stuff” on the SDMB instead of myself, seeing as lots of people have the time and inclination to shit-pound anybody who dares to open up.
