When a guy approaches you at a bar, club, or party, and you’re not interested, how would you handle it?
Would you talk to him for a few minutes, then excuse yourself to the “bathroom” or to “find your friends”? Or would you be blunt and give it to him straight?
IMO, I believe that the first method is the best way to handle a situation like this: by letting down a guy slowly instead of overreacting too quickly, unless if the guy makes you feel uncomfortable or continues to bother you. But, if he simply approaches you in a calm manner, then you may give him a chance, depending on the situation.
However, if the convo becomes socially awkward or if the guy makes a mistake, then you’ll probably excuse yourself from talking to him. And if the guy continues to insist, then telling him to back off is necessary. Even then, a direct statement towards a guy is still the mature thing to do.
It depends entirely upon what ‘approaches’ constitutes. If his opening remarks are simple chit chat, no indication of romantic interest, definitely the first.
If the ‘approach’ involves his putting his hand on my shoulder or hip, referencing how attracted he is, or is immediately about dating me, I’m not going to feel the need to be anything but direct. (‘Not gonna happen, I’m gonna go over there now!)
It sounds like you’re contradicting yourself. First you say it’s better to talk to him for a bit to give him a chance but then you say it’s more mature to tell him directly.
I’m divorced and not interested in dating right now so if a man I’m talking to starts heading in that direction I will say outright that I’m not interested so he doesn’t waste my time and his and he can look for someone else who might be interested in him.
[Moderating]
I can’t see how this is about the arts, so off to IMHO.
[Not moderating]
Speaking as a guy, I’d say that if I’m approaching a woman with romantic interest, I’d much prefer an unambiguous “I’m not interested, goodbye” to games like leaving for the restroom or “finding your friends”. Likewise, if I’m just generally socializing, and you’re not interested in that. And if I’m just socializing and you don’t mind just socializing, then you don’t need any excuses to get away.
As a guy, what I’ve seen is that often anything short of “Get the hell away from me!” is taken as “Why, yes, I would like to have your babies!” so I’m curious where this thread goes.
Guessing that you’re a man who has not personally seen how scary some men can get when they receive a direct statement that their attentions are unwanted.
It’s a Catch-22 setup for women. If they talk to a guy or act friendly then they’re “leading him on”. If they don’t want anything to do with him then they’re “overreacting” or “being a bitch”.
That’s why there’s no hard-and-fast rule about how a woman should behave to a strange man who approaches her, and trying to impose one by implying that alternative responses are “immature” isn’t going to fly.
I remember talking to a (platonic) friend of mine. I forget what we were talking about, maybe movies or something, when a guy a couple of seats down interjects into the conversation. To which my friend replies:
“Yeah, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to my friend”.
I just sat there in shock, staring at her with open jaw…
Her: “What? You can’t be nice to these guys or else they’ll think you want to fuck them.”
I mean, it just threw me for a loop. I’ve never seen her be anything less than nice. I get why she did it though.
I always think it’s better to be polite but direct and unambiguous - the last thing I’d want is to get chatting to someone who may then turn aggressive if they think I’ve been ‘leading them on’ (it happens, more than you’d imagine).
I’d simply say something like, ‘Sorry, I’m not available’ or ‘I’m sorry, I’m not looking for company’.
I’m gay, but depressingly some guys see that as more titillation or a challenge than a shut door. So I tend to keep that to myself.
One of my pet peeves is the idea that I have some sort of obligation to “give him a chance”. I’m not a freaking raffle ticket,
OK, I get it. I caught your eyes across the crowded grocery store/ subway car/ nightclub. And if you don’t act now you will lose that moment because you will probably never see me again. And all I have to do is “give you a chance”. Is that too much to ask?
Hell yes. See, I’m totally fine with a living a life in which I never met you. This temporal fantasy of yours means absolutely nothing to me, since you are and will always be a complete and total stranger to me. You need to heal from the heartbreak I inflected by crushing approximately 5 seconds worth of hopes and dreams and move on with your life. And maybe someday you will even love again.
I do not act “ladylike” or drop hints. I just say “Not interested.” If the idiot goes further, I say “I am not interested.” If he asks “Why not?” I say “I do not have to explain myself to YOU.”
Personally, I think “rules” of appropriate dating conduct should be discussed and hammered out without regard to which sex/gender does what, if we’re going to devise “rules” at all, and then discuss the heavily gendered environment and how that impacts what we’ve come up with.
Otherwise the discussions tend to get mired in “women should” this and “men always” that and implicit double standards and/or treating heavily gendered patterns as inevitable in one half-sentence and as character flaws in the other half, if you know what I mean.
People should be able to be out and about without being hit on, drooled over, their attention to other things interrupted by other people trying to pick them up.
And yet people also want to have some kind of opportunity in their lives to connect for sexual-romantic-flirting-dating purposes.
As a species / many cultures etc, we’ve had some modicum of success in creating specific environments where that’s sort of the purpose for being there; and, having done so, that puts more emphasis on the “opportunity” than the “freedom from annoyance”.
Be that as it may, “bar, club or party” (as per the OP) includes a lot of venues where there are other reasons to be present than desiring a flirt. We go to bars or get invited to parties to socialize and have fun and have conversations and whatnot without sex & romance being a primary purpose. At the same time, we don’t warm up to the notion that such places and situations ought to NOT be tolerant of flirting – in part because we don’t really like to stamp out sexual and romantic spontaneity by restricting it to designated singles’ bars, OKcupid dating events and mixers, etc. So there’s a lot of middle-ground and we use a lot of cues and subtexts to help shape the appropriateness of various things.
In that latter in-between zone, I personally think it is incumbent upon the individuals who are doing any form of conscious initiating to pull back without requiring a blatant “go away, it ain’t happening”, and reciprocally I think it is preferable that any individual who thinks that maybe someone else is approaching or interacting with them with that kind of agenda to not assume that they are indeed doing so and whacking them with a “go away, it ain’t happening” pushaway. I do realize this pair of “ought to’s” are like bookends and violations of one tend to feed the likelihood of violations of the other.
Overarching it all, I don’t think anyone is obliged to be friendly and conversational with someone with whom they don’t want to interact; and this, in and of itself, has nothing to do with flirting and sexuality and romance, it’s just about socializing and interacting in and of itself. That means no one needs to be “kind” to someone else out of sympathetic consideration for their need to be able to make flirtatious overtures without being shot down. If someone attempting to flirt can’t be at least as interesting as someone to whom such an agenda had never occurrred, they should probably rethink their strategy.
In my experience, guys on the make often act like panhandlers. They approach you, seeking something you don’t particularly want to give. However nicely you decline, the next words out of their mouth will probably be “lesbo bitch”.
Guys and panhandlers (no Dopers in that group, of course), every time you act like that, you make it less likely that a female will ever respond positively to an unsolicited approach.
“Excuse me” because he’s trying to get to the bar? An ass-grab? “Hey wanna go fuck”? “I like your jacket”?
Some of those warrant me getting out of the way. Some, a “thank you”. And some, a hit with the nearest available object and/or a Scream of Doom, depending on the state of my reflexes and on what the nearest available object is (I haven’t hit anybody with a fragile object… yet).
As one who is both married and male, I ask for clarification out of curiosity as opposed to education:
If I take those words at face value I get the impression that there is never a social situation where you find it acceptable for a man unknown to you to begin a conversation with just you (as opposed to addressing conversation to you but as part of a larger “mingle” group at a party, for instance). If so, then is there a social situation where it would be OK for you to begin a 1-on-1 conversation with a male that you do not know?
No judgement either way, but it seems like either I’m missing some context or if everyone followed this philosophy it would be exceeding difficult to meet anyone of the opposite sex.
[sub]Doctor Jackson, experienced in the field in question but with a with a 35+ year gap on his dating resume[/sub]