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]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]

Thank you for your (mostly) thoughtful response.

I appreciate your point about how a woman sitting in a coffeeshop might've been chatted up by others, so she might not want to talk to me when I comment that I'm reading the same book.  But there are only two choices: (1) I just refuse to talk to women in coffeeshops and only talk to men, for fear that I might inadvertently offend a woman who doesn't want to talk, or (2) I make my book comment, and then only continue the conversation if she wants to.  If those are my two choices, I would rather choose option 2, because I'm a social person.  I trust if she doesn't want to talk, she'll just say" Yes, it's good," and go back to her pages.  I'm not going to be offended, and contrary to what some people on this thread seem to suggest, I'm not going to get violent.

I don't understand why you'd go to a bar to read a book, especially during happy hour.  Of course someone's going to talk to you at happy hour, whether you're a man or woman.  So maybe that's a bad example.  But I take your point that women probably get talked to more than men.

I hear your point that no one [i]needs[/i] to comment on a stranger's book, or compliment anyone's appearance.  No communication at all is [i]essential[/i].  But it's part of being social.  I choose to live in a world where people can talk to one another.

If I had some indication that my co-workers (male or female) do not want to be complimented when they get new haircuts, I'd stop.  But quite frankly, the response is usually something like "Thanks so much!" and then a few minutes of the person telling me about it.  People are usually pretty excited to talk about it when they get a new and different haircut. Don't you ever compliment people you don't know well?  Maybe you should try it sometime.  Believe it or not, some people (both men and women) consider it flattering.

As for the people on this thread saying personal interactions (conversations in public or hairstyle compliments) make them uncomfortable, I'd certainly take that into consideration if I considered their viewpoints accurate reflections of the world.  FWIW though, I consider most of the posters on this thread unreliable narrators who have messed up views of the world.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your comments.[/quote]

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