It’s all about looks. I’ve had a few excruciatingly good-looking buddies in the course of my life, and it’s been my experience that they do very well chatting with or flat out coming onto just about any women they want. In fact, most of 'em light up before the guy even says anything, they just see him coming.
Most guys are average-to-not-that-great-to-dangerous looking however, so it annoys women to be approached by them. But let the guy be hot enough and suddenly they’re not so aloof or annoyed anymore.
Oh, yeah, the appearance of money counts for a lot too. I spent an evening driving around in a friend’s little BMW convertible sports car one night. It needed a tail light bulb replaced and she recruited me to fix it. Anyway, I couldn’t believe all the smiles I got from women at stop lights or walking down the sidewalk, and the cute, smiling girl at the window at Burger King made sure I knew she put extra salt and ketchup in my bag and eagerly asked if she could get me anything else. (If anyone here regularly stops at Burger King they’ll know what a rarity this is.) Driving that car was like an instant facelift!
A hunter/ gatherer society is a thing of the past. Many ,many women are the only hunters (bread winners) in the house. Lose that crap and maybe we could all be happier!
While I’m not a woman, my disability gives me some ability to commiserate. Using a wheelchair, I can’t go ANYWHERE without someone either asking me if I need help, or making a point to engage me in small talk or just saying hi (typically, that “hi” is immediately followed by some sort of condescending nickname, “Champ” being the most common). And I am NOT a social person, I much much prefer to be left alone. Alas, a man can still dream.
My default position is nobody wants to be bothered (women or men) in public spaces, so I never initiate. If the other party initiates, and I feel like chatting, I will. It does bother me when I see women getting bugged like this. I know my daughter (at college) has a good “fuck-off” face. That needs to be taught in school.
Jtur88…my son learned to take care of himself in the Marine Corps. He irons, sews and cooks. My daughters have been taught to work hard and they can be anything they want to be. So ‘no’ I won’t be hoping for things to change. If you are not part of the solution, please don’t add to the problem by suggesting old school stereotypes that are seriously outdated! And offensive!
Large midwestern city with well over a million population. I can assure you every word is true. So true, in fact, that I thought about buying one of those little cars for myself, but had to abandon the idea once I discovered I had to scrunch myself down so much I could hardly breathe when the top was up.
Just this evening I was at a burrito place, alone, and reading a book. I do that rather often. I’m usually the only one, but tonight there was a woman a couple tables away also eating alone and reading a book. Oddly, the book seems like it could be an icebreaker; I’m dreadful at talking to someone about nothing, but if they’re reading something interesting that might actually give me something to talk about.
I didn’t talk to her, of course, but it seemed like an interesting coincidence after having read this thread.
I know plenty of couples in which neither of them can cook, and are probably challenged by anything more culinary than prying the lid off a chicken bucket and unscrewing a two-liter lid. To put it mildly, there are household things that simply go undone, because modern mothers cut the crap, and didn’t teach gender-traditional skills.
The older I get the less this is true, although when I was 20 it was pretty damn common.
B & C
Some days, no. Now that I look like in my 40’s I get some peace, although a lot of guys still find that age group acceptable for “hunting”. It’s almost enough to make me wish I had grey hair.
After just one encounter? Hell, no!
Now, back when a regularly rode the same commuter train 5 days a week, seeing many of the same people every day, after multiple conversations… yes, then I’d *consider *exchanging contact information.
In the sense of men seeking potential mates? Yes, I’d like that to stop completely. I don’t mind actual conversations.
The problem is that once you set up such a situation there’s a category of men who then think it’s hunting grounds and aggressively pursue women there, and then get pissy when there efforts don’t work immediately.
It can be very frustrating.
I’ve found in recent years that as I age younger men have less tendency to see me as a sexual object and actually listen when I say something. It’s refreshing. Some of the older guys, though, still act like they’re chasing a bitch in heat and I expect them to attempt to hump my leg or a handy object like a chair or trash can or something. They think they’re being subtle but they aren’t.
What a sad, lonely world we seem to inhabit. I don’t have a broad social circle. If I don’t talk to people I don’t know and who aren’t introduced to me by my friends, I’m going to spend a lot of time alone. I’ve met a lot of really cool people by just striking up a conversation in a boring setting. I really don’t get this taboo.
> Well, back in the day, when the birth rate was pretty high, men and women got together by men asking permission from a woman’s
> parents to court her.
How old are you? This has never been true in my observation, and I’m 65. The people I know who got together did so by being in the same school or college or working together or one being a customer of a business the other worked at or both belonging to some organization like a church or a club or someone who knew them both introducing them or meeting and talking at some place where it’s expected that two people will meet like a bar. One of the couple asks the other for a date (or if they’re the sort that does this, they ask them to come back to their place). I don’t know of anybody who asked the parents of a person for permission to date that person. I’m sure it happened somewhere at some time, but that’s far beyond any time or place I’ve observed. In general, the couples I know didn’t even meet each other’s parents until they had dated for a while.
Incidentally, here’s a chart of the birth rate in the U.S. and some articles about the birth rate:
I don’t know what you were implying, but the birth rate doesn’t seem to have anything to do with people having to ask parents for permission to date. Basically, the birth rate was dropping from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II. It began increasing during the war and took off after the war. In the early sixties it dropped quickly, but the drop slowed down in the late seventies and now is either flat or is slowly dropping, so the birth rate is still slightly above replacement level in the U.S. The only real difference from those times at the beginning of the twentieth century is that the average age of the mother (and of the father too) has gone up considerably.
One thing my wife told me is that if a man has actually READ the book in question, that can pique a girl’s interest even if it’s a stranger. Whereas, “What’s that book you’re readong?” is generally just standard pickup line 101.
If I do see someone reading a book that I’m passionate about I may start a conversation, just because avid readers are so rare these days.
I see where you’re coming from here. I agree that a world in which strangers can’t be genuinely friendly with each other, as opposed to just following standard rules of interaction(“Damn the weather is something, ain’t it?” and “This bus sure is late.”), is a very sad world.
But we actually do live in a world where if a stranger talks to you it’s in one of a few categories:
Sexual advances
Wants something, usually money
Is a crazy person who wants to rant about something. In my younger days when I didn’t know how to escape I ended up listening to an hour long monologue about the gay agenda from some random dude outside an Arby’s.
Just wants some information.
Since the vast majority of encounters in non-social situations involve one of the first three and the fourth is pretty uninteresting, most people are suspicious and on guard towards strangers striking up conversations with them. It’s sad, but it is what it is.
One thing that would help, IMO, is for more people to actually live more of their lives outdoors. We live in a society where the vast majority of people’s experience with the outdoors involves walking ten steps to their vehicle, which they drive to a building, and never spend more than a minute outside in the wild.
If the average guy waits for women to approach him, he won’t get any dates. Very attractive or very high-status guys - sure. Not the average guy. (Yeah yeah, cue all the women saying “I always ask first” or listing all the creeps who harassed her or whatever.) The fact remains that men are the pursuers and women are the pursued. It’s not PC to say so, but that’s how it works.
Therefore men need to pursue, but to be gentlemanly about it. Take No for an answer when appropriate.
Part of the problem is the breakdown in the code whereby men and women know when it is OK to approach a woman, and the social signals by which the men (generally) signal that they are non-threatening but interested. Catcalling women on the street is not part of the code, but “the roof constitutes an introduction” is. Remarking to the woman sitting next to you on the bus “I see you are reading An Introduction to the History of Cuff Links - what do you think of what he says about short sleeves” is a marginal case. If she says “Mm” you leave her alone. If she says “I haven’t got to that part yet - what does he say?” then you can pursue the conversation and then ask her if she wants to go to the museum with you and she says Yes and you wind up dating and then have wild sex involving Jell-O and feather dusters and then she cheats on you with the security guard at Wal-Mart and there is an ugly screaming match between you at Denny’s and you break up and go into a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol and self-loathing before hitting rock bottom and then writing a tell-all book about the experience that winds up on the remainders shelf at the local self-help bookstore.
You can add me to the list of sociable women who don’t mind chatting with strangers. Of course it depends on context, and what else I want to do. But, say, when waiting for a delayed aircraft, I’m often happy to find a bored stranger to chat with.
no, but I’m now in my fifties. This was a problem for me when I was in my teens and twenties. And I don’t like catcalls, and even find it uncomfortable when strange guys hit on me “politely”. But sometime in my early twenties I learned how to mostly avoid this. I think it’s more about wearing baggy, masculine clothing than about wearing a “fuck off” face, though.
mostly fear and being polite.
yes. A book or a phone is a fine way to put up the “do not trespass” sign.
no way in hell. If it’s someone I see regularly, at the commuter rail station, say, I might eventually come to feel I knew a guy well enough to exchange information.
well, if you define “prince” as someone pleasant to pass the time with while waiting for a plane… No, I don’t need guys to stop approaching me, so long as they are polite and go away when I indicate I’m busy.
No idea how that would work. But there probably are some rules that we recognize without explicitly knowing.
This response resonated. I may have just missed it. On the other hand, if it was subtle enough to miss, it wasn’t threatening or annoying. So there’s that.
