Reply to Is the line between "courtship" and harassment really that blurry?

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Reply to "Is the line between "courtship" and harassment really that blurry?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To the obtuse poster.

It costs you nothing to either 1. Listen to what many of us are trying to tell you, or 2. Just come out and say what you’re really getting at.

Either
1. “Yes, it does seem pretty obvious where the line is. Thanks for pointing out a few situations I’d never thought of before. I care about making people comfortable, especially when I’m trying to meet women.”
Or.
2. You all are bulls***. I specifically have the right to go around and lightly harass women.

Costs you nothing. It’s anonymous. Why pretend like you’re just not getting it?!?![/quote]

None of the above.

3. You're full of shit.  You have different standards for men and women, and quite frankly different standards depending on the context.  What you really want is for people to pay attention to you when you find them attractive, and to leave you alone when you don't find them attractive.  You refuse to communicate directly because you've been socialized to be afraid of anything resembling confrontation.  You are too insecure to acknowledge that you are part of the problem, and so you refuse to take obvious steps to solve the problem.  You'd rather whine about your plight than take easy steps to improve your situation.

You don't know me.  I'm happily married and haven't hit on anyone for well over a decade now.  I'm pretty careful about making people feel comfortable.  If I feel like striking up a conversation with a stranger in a coffeeshop (maybe because that person is reading a book I'm also reading), I'll still do it.  If s/he doesn't want to talk, I assume s/he can communicate that clearly.  If I notice a co-worker has a new haircut, I'm still going to compliment him/her, because that's what friendly and considerate people do in the real world.  If you really consider those type of normal social interactions to be "light harassment," then I can't help you.  I suppose we'll have to disagree.[/quote]

I'm not the person you've been arguing with.

It seems like you are having a hard time understanding the experiences that women on this thread are relating to you of how regularly they experience unwanted attention in public. If you are not comfortable with the term harassment, that's fine, but I do think that you should appreciate that when you strike up a conversation with a woman who is reading the same thing you're reading, it may be the first time today that you've done that, but for that woman, it's entirely possible that she's been fending off "friendly" approaches about the book she's reading, the shirt she's wearing, whether the empty chair at her table is taken, what strange weather we're having lately, etc. all morning. That's not your fault or your responsibility, but if you cannot understand why women sometimes seem to get easily upset by what you believe are routine interactions, consider that their experience is likely a lot different than yours.

Men talk to women sitting alone in public. Women who are sitting alone might as well have a big "OPEN" sign over their heads. Do you know what it's like to be a woman who goes to a bar at happy hour and sits alone, at the bar, with a drink and a book? You can't read that book. It doesn't even matter if you're not particularly attractive. At least one man will approach you and try to strike up a conversation. The reality is that if you want to be respectful, it's truly better to mind your own business. By your own statement, you're happily married, so you don't need to be chatting up women in Starbucks who are reading the same book as you. You don't need to compliment your colleague on her haircut. None of those things are essential to your life or happiness. When someone tells you that this thing you are doing makes them uncomfortable, and it costs you nothing to stop doing that thing, and instead of stopping that thing, you choose to argue self righteously that you disagree that they should feel uncomfortable and will continue to do the thing that is causing discomfort, that tells me that you are not a person who cares at all about the experiences of other people. You are attached to your own experience and screw what anyone else thinks or feels.[/quote]

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