Exactly. You’re not “helping”, you’re lecturing, and if you want to be a self-righteous busybody, the least you can do is own it.
Well fortunately I don’t think this, and haven’t asserted as such.
All I’ve said is that there is a chance that a person might not be aware that smoking has more effects than just leading to a low birth weight.
If you guys dispute this, then go ahead and ask some people “What specific effects can smoking have on a developing embryo, besides low weight at birth?” and see how many correct answers you get.
OK, but that’s not what I meant. I meant whether there’s a weird idea of what “rudeness” is, where it’s not based on intent, words or actions. Like:
WTF?
I can only hope that Dangerosa is assuming I mean sitting next to a woman uninvited and saying something like “Hey, I can tell you want me. Let’s get to it!”
When of course I mean just trying to find out if she is friendly and wants to talk by politely asking some sort of context-specific question.
…Or maybe I’ll just dive in with a compliment. It’s a strange world where I’d feel “Oh I can’t talk to her because I’m not in a specifically designated pick-up zone”.
No, I mean that when you see a hot woman in a grocery store, you cannot approach her to find out if she is friendly merely because she is hot - well, again, you can, but its rude. You can make small talk with strangers - say on an airplane, or even in line in a grocery store - if you are aware of the subtle and not so subtle “go away” signals. Sometimes, such small talk leads to lasting friendship (or a quickie). But if your motivation for small talk is “she is hot” that’s skeevy.
So it’s ok to try to make small talk with anyone at any time except if I’m attracted to them?
Because being attracted to someone that I find attractive is skeevy?
And since my motivation for speaking to someone attractive is “skeevy” (which I take to be creepy?), that makes the action rude?