In a bar on vaction a woman with kids telling me that her husband is in jail for DWI, and basicaly come on over to her tent with them about 15 miles away. I had the feeling the teen age kids were to be watching or participating while she cheated on her husband. A sad case to be avoided at all costs.
You know, that works in all the movies…
And this thread goes a long way to explain why I don’t try to pick up women. I really haven’t a good idea how to approach a stranger without insulting them or creeping them out… so I don’t.
I find it helps to leave my axe in the car.
I can even picture this.
I used to have a semi-stalker back in my first couple of years of college. I was very naive and had no idea how to deal with it. He was an Arabic man, and - I see no reason to respect his privacy - his name was Fahdi. But he went by Fred.
I was going to a college nicknamed DCCC, a local community college. It was a summer class - I really used to take those for fun. Anyway, he followed me everywhere and came on way too strong and scared the hell out of me. I comforted myself with the fact that he was going somewhere else - Cornell, perhaps? - in the fall.
In the fall I went to SUNY New Paltz. And one day I was standing in the library chatting with a friend when I feel big hands on my shoulders and I turn and - there he is! :eek: To this day I don’t know if he was lying in the first place or actually changed his mind to come to Cornell. I don’t even remember what he said but my look of horror convinced the girlfriend I was with that I wasn’t happy with him around, and off we skedaddled, and she gave me some tips on getting rid of him next time.
It’s hard to explain how creepy he was and how much presence he had. I do recall signing up for self-defence classes the following semester.
Well, you raise an interesting question - what’s the difference between making your interest known in a tastefull way and asking a total stranger if s/he’d “like to touch Mr. Pickle”? 
[yes, that’s now a catchphrase 
]
To my mind, aside from the obvious, the key is to make advances in situations in which you have good reason to believe they would be welcome - and to withdraw gracefully and without dramatics or hurt feelings, if you have reason to believe that they would not be welcome.
No-one (in their right mind) resents a smile or a little extra attention from someone who could be interested, if circumstances warrant (obviously it isn’t as flattering if you are there with your wife/husband, unless you swing that way, and never appropriate where the person is underaged!!!). If that interest is returned, it isn’t IMHO “creepy” to then ramp up the interest … if it is reciprocated, then you can get more serious. If not, you can have a nice conversation or move on.
The mistakes all these “bad hitters” make are, as I see it, the following: (a) hit on someone where it is obviously inappropriate from the start (underage/with SO); (b) to hit on someone who is displaying zero interest in them; (c) to move immediately into explicit sexual passes. rather than determing if there is any reciprocal interest first; (d) not backing off when the person implicitly or explicitly lets them know they ain’t interested.
If you don’t make these mistakes, there is no reason to ever be thought “creepy” or “insulting”.
Almost as importantly, leave an ‘out’. Don’t hit on people while they’re working service jobs (ie, they’re being paid to be nice to you). Don’t hit on people when you’re obligated to stay there with them for a while–in line, etc. Basically, Sunspace, most of the horror stories here aren’t about somebody using the wrong approach or somehow not magically capturing the right moment–they’re about some combination of fundamental unattractiveness (ie he just didn’t match her tastes and it didn’t matter how he hit on her) and inappropriate persistence (hammering away after being told ‘no’). There really isn’t a right or wrong way to chat people up in general, other than the blatantly offensive. The thing to keep in mind is that she’s a person like you, not some Goddess impervious to human attraction. Just say hi like you would to any other person and let it go from there. There isn’t necessarily any science to it. I mean, the human race survived this long somehow, right? It wasn’t by men coming up with complex game plans like football coaches. If she isn’t digging it, stop and walk away. It’s that simple. It’s not like you’ll go to jail.
I was 16, working at Six Flags Over Georgia as a kiddie ride operator one summer. I was taking care of customers, piling the little kids into the mini-ferris wheel cages and giving them all a good whirl, when all of a sudden it started raining. Everyone in my line quickly dispersed since the ride I was assigned to was out in the open, except this one family. A mother, a couple of kids, and a man whom I am assuming was the father/husband. The kids wanted to ride the ferris wheel in spite of the rain pelting down, and since they were the only ones in line, I let them stay on it to their heart’s content. The mother and father stood to the side watching.
The dad made conversation with me. Light stuff. “It must suck working in the rain like this.” “How long you been working here?” That kind of talk. Nothing heavy. I thought he was just being friendly in a typical Georgia suburbanite kind of way and I got no pervy vibes from him. His wife stood near under her umbrella (seemingly) not paying any attention to him or me. So I continued talking to him. Not in a flirty way, but I wasn’t exactly monosyllabic either.
The kids got tired of going around and around in circles after a bit, so I let them off. The wife tells the husband that the kids wanted to go see what the Hanson cars were all about, let’s go. And the dad tells her “You guys go on ahead, I’ll catch up later.” She seemed to hesistate for just a second before walking off with the kids. My spidey sense went off like a fire alarm at that point. I kept waiting for her to look back to see what he was doing. I can’t remember if she did or not.
The father then commenced to chatting me up some more. He was all leaned up against the rail beside the small covered area I was standing under, and for the first time, I realized that he was getting seriously rained on because he didn’t have an umbrella. I still had my eye on his family walking away, and all I was thinking was that there was something seriously wrong with this picture. I’m a good conversationalist when my heart is in it, but not that good. Not good enough to cause a normal person to A) temporarily abandon their family and B) let themselves be rained on like a blooming idiot.
“You know what?” he said, after his family was well out of earshot. “You sure are pretty.”
“Uh, thanks,” is all I could think of saying. I suddenly became very self-conscious. My little cheap ass uniform was soaking wet, for one thing. And even though I had on a raincoat, I had the distinct feeling that he could see through everything that I was wearing.
“Are you a good kisser?” he said.
I’m not exactly sure what I said at that point. But as I recall, his wife suddenly grew some balls and called her man over (the other ride was only an arm’s throw away from where we were), and he went away. Thankfully.
Back when I worked in the drive-thru at McDonalds, there was a guy who used to come through and ask me out every couple of days. I would always smile and say no. One day he came through with a couple of buddies, asked me out as usual, I politely turned him down as usual, and he then proceeded to ask for a “furburger”. Ew!
There’s a guy here at work who’s been hitting on me for years, although I’m married to someone else who works here. I almost always wear skirts or dresses to work, and this guy will go out of his way to pass my desk every day. He then gives me the big, obvious once-over, and says, “Oh yeah! Thank you” in that slavering Homer-Simpson-eating-a-doughnut way. If he catches me alone at the copier or something, he’ll put his hand on my shoulder and say, “Hey, let me know when you get tired of Dave…” It’s pretty icky, but it doesn’t seem worth making a fuss over.
Not that this is a competition but **AuntBeast ** is winning by far!
if you mean piccies, every japanese on Miami Beach for Halloween 2002 took pictures of me (big front and hairy back), they shouldn’t be hard to find on the blogosphere.
My two stalkers were pretty creepy, and bad experiences, but they were so pathetic I don’t think it ever even got to the “being hit on” level. Just sort of following me around, trying to violate my personal space, and leaving creepy gifts or such. Me = man, both stalkers = female, BTW.
I think the winners for me of bad come-ons have all been lockerroom experiences, though. In particular, the time when my swimming buddy and I were chatting getting dressed, and a pudgy guy we now call “Chubby” – who was always hanging around in the lockerroom – but never seen in the workout areas – walked up and suddenly interrupted our conversation. And started in on the sexual innuendos, and started moving closer and closer to me… at which point we noticed he was semi-erect.
Fortunately, before I could tell him to sod off – I can be rather rude, when required – my buddy loudly said “Kid, he’d rip you up. Go hit on someone else.” Resulting in Chubby hurrying away, red-faced.
And that’s actually not when we started calling him “Chubby”. That was from noticing him in the weeks to follow, spending too much time in the showerroom. Semi-erect, while other guys came in and showered (and left). Cree-pee.
Good point about the work situation/space and leaving an “out”.
Yes, that makes sense. Be aware of the other person, always give them an out.
Knowing what the appropriate situations are is a bit of a poser, though. One can elimitate the obviously-married, people walking strollers, etc. And of course people who don’t want to be disturbed, such as when they’re reading books.
But people by themselves? You say, “No-one (in their right mind) resents a smile or a little extra attention from someone who could be interested, if circumstances warrant”. But how do you know whan the circumstances are good? It seems that 99% of average run-of-the-mill situations are not good: on a crowded bus, waiting in a lineup, on the subway, etc.
Once you’re interacting, being aware of the reactions of the other person is necessary. I am convinced that that’s what a lot of these creeps don’t do: perceive the other person as a person. They just have their own goal in front of their mind’s eye and don’t see the other person at all.
Damned difficult social perception and communications.
Just remembered another one: There was a guy who attended to all phone service requests for our building. All these requests flow through me, so I would talk to and see this guy quite often. He was very tall and good-looking, and when he came to fix the phones he’d spend far more time than was necessary hanging around my desk, to the point where other people would jokingly refer to him as my boyfriend. However, we were both married, and all our conversations revolved around our spouses and children, so I thought nothing of it…until the day he called me up with a very direct offer of oral sex. I was totally flustered and horrified, he was embarrassed.
It was even more embarrassing the next time he came to do something about the phones, when we both had to pretend it never happened. Thankfully, we’ve got a different phone guy now.
How so? Bus stops, coffee shops, bookstores (“Are you reading So-and-So? I read his last book before that and I thought this, this and this about it–how do you think this one compares?” If she wants to talk to you, she’ll happily put down her book.)
I’ve had problems with this myself. I was so jaded when I met my last GF that it took two months of her bending over backwards to demonstrate her feelings for me, and I still didn’t get it until she spent half the night in my twin bed two nights in row (totally platonic). Finally the second night she turned the light off and she asked me how I was doing. I went into 12-year-old mode and stammered out “I…I…I like this.” (And I had been so cool, too!) Then I nervously asked her how she was and she said “Why do you think I’ve been giggling like an idiot every time we’ve talked for two months?”
I guess it can be nuanced in some ways, but the basic point is that if she’s smiling, laughing and having fun, you’re doing well. If she’s obviously not enjoying herself, it’s time to go. Simple as that, really.
I think some gay men need to meditate on the fact that homosexuality is a minority inclination, a small minority and their courtship behaviour should reflect that.
Ohh, I just thought of a creepy experience I had once! A girl, whom I considered my stalker, because she’d often wait at my house for me to get home and otherwise run into me more often than I’d expect, found out I got a .38 special for Christmas. The next semester, she took a reloading class, and gave me a bag of rounds on Valentine’s day. That was weird!
I’ve been hit on a couple of times by men… I was flattered but politely declined, because I’m simply not interested in that direction.
Telling whether the other person is likely to be interested before you make your advance is …problematic, whether you’re straight or gay or something else. Maybe it’s better to cultivate an attitude of non-attachment.
What would you suggest that they do, exactly?
This is rather like saying that the majority of people need to meditate on the fact that they’re just not that attractive, and that their courtship behavior should reflect that.
There’s a whole lotta people who’ve hit on me – men and women – that I had absolutely no interest in. It was only a bad experience when they couldn’t understand that a simple “no, thanks” should have put an end to them hitting on me.
Heh, you sound like me. I never have any problem meeting women (when I was single), but I was a real dunderhead in terms of realizing they were interested …
I think this is just something one has to learn by doing. The big hurdle to overcome is to get over fear of rejection and humiliation, feelings of being hideous, and other such impediments to happiness; plus not to take it very seriously. Flirtation can be fun in and of itself.