Meh, I was born and raised in the Southeastern US. Small talk with strangers of either sex is a daily occurrence - albeit somewhat less today than in times past, AFAICT. Trolling for a date, OTOH, is an entirely different story which, all to often, includes a chapter or 2 on jerkitude. I was interested in where and how different people draw the line - or even how one can tell where the line is. It’s interesting ground to explore, at least to me.
Eh, they always were. It’s just that you, as a guy, used to have the privilege of never having to notice it.
Women have always been mentally juggling the complexities of “is this guy hitting on me”, “is this guy going to get ugly if I turn him down”, “should I just say I have to go find my friends”, “he seems a little sulky since I told him no, will I be safe going out to the parking lot before he leaves”, and so on and on and on and on.
But it wasn’t openly mentioned, because women were conditioned to believe that not hurting a guy’s feelings (as long as the guy wasn’t being openly abusive or physically threatening) was more important than their own security and enjoyment.
There, there. What you’re encountering is simply your first recognition that women are always having to confront the possibility that the male stranger who’s approaching or talking to them may be an asshole, and quite possibly a dangerous asshole.
You were generally shielded from this knowledge in the past because our culture socializes women to try not to make men feel bad, and not to hurt their egos by candidly saying things like “Look, I really have no way of knowing whether or not you’re a dangerous asshole, and nothing about you is attracting me enough to suggest you’re worth taking that risk for, so leave me alone”.
I was going to reply, but Kimstu nails it. What complainers of how “PC” the world has become don’t realize is that the thing that has changed is the groups who were on the receiving end of bad behavior are now beginning to be empowered enough to say “this is not okay”. Get on the bus or get hit by the bus.
You phrase that as a reductio ad absurdum but IME you’ve nailed it. Inigo has always gotten the girl by outwardly not wanting the girl. And it is not enough to merely display “Do not want the girl”. “Do not want the girl” must be a force that comes from deep within. At bowling, at work, at softball, at bar, at beach–there is no girl, just other people bowling, working, playing ball, drinking, sunning. In fact, “Do not want girl” can also be interpreted as “Girl? What girl? What’s a girl?” Were I to interact with MoonMoon in what would outwardly appear to be “Inigo picking up a chick in a bar” the actual interaction would involve me 1) positioning myself in such a way that I have multiple egress routes so I don’t feel threatened, and affording MoonMoon multiple egress routes for the same reason; 2) The pickup line: “That’s a killer Dollyrots hoodie, where’d you get it?” {whatever chatter that happens} “OK, next band’s up, later. Keep an eye on your hoodie, because I’ll steal it.”
If she’s interested in the person who just offered to steal from her, that’ll be her business. If not, I’ll never know because I’m already into the next band. Either way, she knows what I’m about, that I have the soul of a cat, and that I’m into Dollyrots and so am exceptionally cool. As a strategy for not dying alone: I’ve identified someone cool enough to be into what I’m into (that hot chick sipping the cosmo at the bar? Dunno what she’s into but probably not my scene) and I’ve made myself known to that ultra cool person as being similarly cool and not completely at the mercy of my wedding tackle, and…well, that’s it. She’s got lady parts, and she knows I know that; I’ve got dude parts, and I know she knows that. We can talk about that if it becomes time to, well, if it becomes relevant. So there’s no reason to even play that card. I’ve made friends with dudes in basically the same way–just being me, not looking for a new friend.
actually bar staff are getting more on the ball for being able to spot situations like described …
I’ve seen several responses here i agree with, but i want to address this one area. Why would you believe that the passive aggressive approach is the best way to deal with such a situation? Why can’t a person just say what they think? Would you advise a man to go guide on the bathroom if a woman he was not interested in tried to talk with him?
I detest this approach as a woman and as a former bartender. Hell, I’ll admit to starting up some conversation in a bar with a guy I didn’t know. Sometimes with romantic or sexual intent. I don’t blame anyone for the initial conversational gambit. But if you’re going to put yourself out there, get your Teflon on. When someone decides they aren’t interested in your conversation, it’s a done deal.
As a bartender, I’d have guys tell me to give a woman a drink. My policy was always to say that this person has offered to buy you a drink; would you like it? I had one guy argue with me: I bought her a drink so give it to her. She didn’t want to feel obligated to talk to him, so no. How hard is that to understand?
And why on earth would anyone think that talking to a woman in a bar would be different from talking to a woman at a grocery store? I promise you that most of us are the same person buying tomatoes as we are having a Lone Star. If you’re counting on the alcohol to make a difference, then you need to take a long hard look at your motivation for the conversation in the first place. Seems you think that women in bars or nightclubs are there for the picking. So wrong.
I detest this approach as a woman and as a former bartender. Hell, I’ll admit to starting up some conversation in a bar with a guy I didn’t know. Sometimes with romantic or sexual intent. I don’t blame anyone for the initial conversational gambit. But if you’re going to put yourself out there, get your Teflon on. When someone decides they aren’t interested in your conversation, it’s a done deal.
As a bartender, I’d have guys tell me to give a woman a drink. My policy was always to say that this person has offered to buy you a drink; would you like it? I had one guy argue with me: I bought her a drink so give it to her. She didn’t want to feel obligated to talk to him, so no. How hard is that to understand?
And why on earth would anyone think that talking to a woman in a bar would be different from talking to a woman at a grocery store? I promise you that most of us are the same person buying tomatoes as we are having a Lone Star. If you’re counting on the alcohol to make a difference, then you need to take a long hard look at your motivation for the conversation in the first place. Seems you think that women in bars or nightclubs are there for the picking. So wrong.
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See my post right above yours.
TokyoBayer, was there a point?
Sounds like we need to start training men what no means starting in pre-school.
But, as others have pointed out, it’s pretty easy to go someplace to just talk to others. I’m not a great chit-chat person at all, and kinda awkward around people, but I’ve not had an issue with striking up a conversation with men or women. So, the rest of you guys are simply doing it wrong.
Some men don’t understand why women act like this. Some women think that all men are creeps/weirdos, for no reason at all. IMO, there’s no reason to judge someone UNLESS if they do something that makes your feel uncomfortable. Just because they’re ugly in your eyes doesn’t mean that they’re creepy/weird. Personality makes or breaks a person…
On an extra note, this thread should’ve been called: Why are some people more judgmental than others? There’s also several social experiment videos on YouTube about meeting/talking to strangers, and some of the people are comfortable enough to respond back.
So, you missed the points of every woman in this thread. No one said they were judging the men (beyond the judgement that they’re a pain in the ass for turning every public encounter with a woman into a pick-up opportunity) and not one woman mentioned the looks of the men hitting on her. That’s your projection. Several of us also said that we’re very comfortable with small talk with strangers. 
Hmm, I often start minor conversation on elevators. I’m a middle-aged woman wearing a wedding ring, so I doubt anyone feels threatened by me, but my feeling is that the elevator ride will end very quickly, and we will go our separate ways.
Of course elevators vary. I’m thinking of the elevator at work, where we are all heading off to places full of people who know us. And anything that sounds like a pick-up line on the office elevator seems pretty out-of-line.
Elevators in hotels (especially if there aren’t other people on it) are different. It’s certainly a little threatening if a guy follows me out of the hotel elevator. (Even though he might be innocently going to his own room). If you are guy sharing a hotel elevator with me, please do me the courtesy of getting off before I do (even if we are going to the same floor) and heading directly to your room, and not lurking near me. I will linger by the elevator until you walk away, but please don’t make me do that for too long.
On public transit most people are reading or wearing earphones or otherwise have obvious “do not disturb” signals up. I rarely say anything more than “gee, I hope this train will start moving again, soon” to anyone near me. And it’s rare for someone I don’t know to say more than that to me.
I do engage in chit chat at airports. Often, some guy will start it. It’s usually something that happens when a flight is delayed, and we both have time to kill. And it’s never been anything more than chit-chat, I’ve never felt threatened, and I doubt the people I’ve chatted with felt threatened. But I suppose airports have lots of egress and excellent security. (And zero privacy.) I’m a fairly sociable person, if you offer interesting conversation I am happy to spend some time listening to you at the airport, unless I’m obviously busy.
Anyway, I think the idea that we can have this conversation without referencing gender is misguided. Men are often physically threatening to women. Women are rarely physically threatening to men. That makes pick-up situations (and potential pick-up situations) between men and women innately unequal, and of course the participants will behave differently. Pretending that is inappropriate or rude or immature is misguided at best, and actively misogynistic at worst.
(I’m now curious about what’s considered polite and appropriate in homosexual pick-up situations.)
You’re not afraid the she’ll kick you to the curb?
As a person who has never once in my life been inside a bar, it’s my understanding that bars are, in general, considered to be a place where people who do want to hook up go in order to do so. So while they might not be interested, it’s not considered inappropriate to politely ask.
A person buying tomatoes, on the other hand, is not on the prowl and it would be unambiguously inappropriate to even ask. If a bar becomes too uncomfortable of an environment due to creeps you can just stop going to the bar, but everybody needs groceries and it would be horrible to make a woman feel she couldn’t even buy food in peace.
We both know that’s what I’m needing. 
Question for Women:
Would you label a man as a creep/weirdo for no reason at all, just because you weren’t interested or didn’t like him?
I don’t know. Did he do something weird or creepy, like continually ask me out after i failed to show interest the first time, or act stalkerish?
Despite all the associated complexities in degree and situation, this is the basic simple fact seems to me.
I think OP’s assumption is that the ‘gambit’ is a reasonable conversational one. It’s not assaulting, it’s not touching (in real life it could be, but I don’t think that’s what OP is talking about). I think OP is also assuming it’s not crude, though that would involve the question of defining what constitutes ‘crude’ in a fractured society which no longer has as clear ideas as it did how people are supposed to converse in a given situation (which isn’t always a bad thing, it includes discarding different standards for what different kinds of people ‘can’ say, still a byproduct is added uncertainty in social interaction I think).
But even if the gambit is a reasonable non-crude conversational one, the woman it’s directed at still has an absolute right to shut it down. There’s no argument I can see against that. Or accept it, and take it wherever she wants to go with it. There’s no need for consistency. However, there could still be cases where the woman is more rude than the situation calls for, and the failed gambiter then has his own right to quietly judge her a bitch. But not a right to call her one, IMO.
No.
Would some men who are behaving (intentionally or not) as creeps complain that women called them creeps for no reason?