When men ask you to be their friend

[PuertoVallarta]

I’m sure this is a common thing. I’m middle aged and work with the public. I’m outgoing and okay looking.

I’ll be making small talk with a man in public and I’ll get a vibe, like they have been starved for female attention. I can tell they want to hug me and snuggle me, not in a scary way but I’m not interested in that.

They’ll say, please be my friend. They are so needy and I have trouble explaining this but I think we are all familiar with it. Lonely men.

I don’t want to be responsible for them or their happiness or filling whatever void they have in their lives. There is also this low-level coercion thing where they are being quietly relentless, but I know they are not bad people. They’re lonely and legitimately don’t understand that women are independent humans not all waiting to be rescued and cuddled by random men.

Am I making sense? How do others navigate this? To be honest I am worried about hurting their feelings too much and pushing them over into the hateful incel/red pill/mgtow territory. Not because I’m afraid for my own safety, but because those sentiments are dangerous for society.

I understand in society we are all sort of responsible for each other’s wellbeing. I guess I’m resentful that I have to be more responsible than a man would have to be. I suppose women also have their ways of making men responsible for them.

Any of this resonate with anyone? Or is this just a problem with my personality/thought processes?

[WatchingPaintWet]

Yes, I recognise this. I'm not as nice as you, though.

I actively resent random needy men trying to emotionally manipulate me into taking care of them (however little they may frame it as such in their heads). I actively let go of the guilt about not filling that role for them and walk away. They can stew about it if they like. I am not responsible for making sure that they behave like - and treat women like - human beings. I'm not responsible for fixing their lives. I have no obligation to provide friendship or anything else that they can't get in their own terms in a reciprocal way. I have my own life to lead and things to do (they can take that as Lesson 1 of Women Are People Too!).

I also don't have any time for implicit threats, whether that's "do this or I'll kill myself", or "do this or I'll become an incel/red pill nut and become a danger to you".

[Sittinonthesand]

Are these men you’ve never met before? And they actually say ‘will you be my friend?’, are they 5? If they are strangers then I find it hard to imagine how that happens. Lots of men do interpret normal friendliness and small talk as flirting, though. I’ve given up being friends with men as they all try to make a pass eventually, and it’s such a shame. Although now I’m older I guess this issue will be receding 🤣

[PuertoVallarta]

Yes, they are actually people I’ve never met before. I’m quite sure this is a common enough phenomenon because it has happened to me many times over the past decade or so and I am not doing anything in particular other than being friendly, often when I am working in my retail job where I am supposed to be friendly.

However, longtime male friends also sometimes expect me to be their emotional nursemaid. It is easier for me to get across to them that that’s not on, because they know me.

I suppose a big part of why I feel guilty is because I absolutely treasure my female friends and I do feel sorry for people who don’t have that in their lives.

[shakeitoffshakeacocktail]

Hmm I find this odd as I would support a woman who was a friend but would feel more uncomfortable to do this for a male friend (I have 2) mainly as I would feel vulnerable to be their crutch. I think it's a subconscious behaviour from when you're a teenager and told 'boys will be boys' 'boys only want one thing' 'did you initiate?' The onus is on females to protect/ distance themselves and not get in these situations. Wrongly I should state its the males who have issues with being rejected or have this subconscious belief that 'nice guys finish last' ie. I'm nice why would she not want me... she must be a bitch.
They never are nice guys when they did ripe themselves as so they are entitled males!

Anyway not sure about you but this doesn't happen to me as I don't make connections with strangers. I can understand where you're coming from but I think it's a male psych thing. She's being nice to me therefore she owes me as I'm 'nice' and a male so my needs trump hers

[Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep]

Stop making small talk with strange men in public. I don't know why any woman would want to do that.

[shakeitoffshakeacocktail]

Asking to be you're friend is also the first step in an emotional/ sexual affair. They 'just' need a friend. No they want a pretty face to whinge at (about the wife)have their ego stroked by your attention and risk/ hope they get a drunken shag at some point or a long term affair. A lot start with 'my wife doesn't understand me anymore' 🙄

[Fucket]

Yes I think that you don’t need to be anything more than cordial and polite to anyone you meet. Friendships build up overtime. Perhaps you are giving out the wrong signals. What sort of questions / answers are you saying in your conversations with these men?

It seems strange that there all these random lonely men lining up to be your friend, I don’t doubt such men exist but you are perhaps giving off the wrong signals. A pretty woman, who seems to care about them? If these aren’t people you’ve known a long time, and you don’t want them as friends then just chat about the weather and politely divert the conversation away from anything personal.

Perhaps you are not British, or maybe you have not been brought up in a traditional British way. Talking about the weather is pretty much how people talk politely to one another without getting emotionally invested. If anyone started talking to me about personal stuff I would assume that was code for wanting a more friendly or intimate relationship.

[AuntieStella]

I would guve over on the vibes that they have been starved of female attention etc. That's a narrative that you have invented.

What is happening, from a different narrative, is that there is a subset of people who really try it on. And for some men in that group, it means they become overly forward in interactions and are selfish enough to assume that anyone would be glad to be their friend.

[Finfintytint]

@shakeitoffshakeacocktail

Asking to be you're friend is also the first step in an emotional/ sexual affair. They 'just' need a friend. No they want a pretty face to whinge at (about the wife)have their ego stroked by your attention and risk/ hope they get a drunken shag at some point or a long term affair. A lot start with 'my wife doesn't understand me anymore' 🙄

Crikey, I have one of these at work. I’m always his “pal”. He moans about his wife a lot. I’m going to be the first one he’ll cuddle when we’re allowed and constantly makes sexual innuendos. I’ve dipped out of a works do next month because I know he’ll try it on when drinking.

[justawoman]

How old are you? I got this a lot in my 20s and 30s but now I’m in my 40s it seems thankfully to have dropped off a bit. Though come to think of it a needy colleague did ask me to go on holiday with him recently. I don’t know if it’s the increasing invisibility of middle age or if I’ve learned to put out less accessible vibes. I’d say as others have that you need to be very clear about boundaries in your own head. No guilt: you are not responsible for looking after this man or any other; you are not their mother and if you’re not interested in them you’re not obliged to spend any time with them. And then be clear about saying no.

[Clarice99]

It's happened to me in the past and it's never turned out well (the men thought I was fair game/made a pass at me).

Not now though. I'm nowhere near as tolerant and my capacity for small talk is zero. I'm older and wiser and with age comes a level of invisibility. It also helps that I'm not a people pleaser and I don't care if people like me or not

[PuertoVallarta]

I work at a cosmetics counter and sell both men’s and women’s fragrances. So yes, part of it is that there are some stereotypes attached to women in a uniform etc. and I’m helping them pick out a fragrance, I’m sort of trapped there while they’re shopping.

[PuertoVallarta]

Thanks @AuntieStella. It helps to think of them as just trying it on rather than feeling sorry that they are lonely.

@shakeitoffshakeacocktail I do think they just want a face to whinge at. Not necessarily a pretty one. Any female face will do. At times I get so tired of it and I really think they’re beyond hope.

I’m middle age. I think men over forty are the worst. They are more desperate and they are also probably more confident around older women thinking we can’t do better than to listen to their shite.

Thank you all for putting up with my attempts to put all this into words. I really needed to get this off my chest.

[MrGHardy]

Reading your posts, do I get this right. As part of your job you have (short) interactions with men. These random men ask you to be their friend?

Wtf? Even if they did this with other men, that would still be weird. Not that you can't make friends at work, but the specific scenario, going up to a store employee talk to them for a few minutes about their product and then "oh btw wanna be mates".

[YourSexNotGenderIsOnFire]

I've had this. I think I have a resting smiley face, and it makes men think I'm approachable. It always seems to be men who want to ask you out but are too shy to do it directly, and normally a bit weird or desperate too (eg I've definitely had at least a couple who mentioned that their wife had just left them).

My experience is that the men who do this tend to be the type who don't take "no" for an answer easily. The best thing I have found is to say that I'm married and my husband doesn't like me to make male friends. I don't know if that's the best response from a feminist perspective but it does usually do the trick and get them to back off, and allows them to blame the unseen husband rather than me for not fulfilling my support human/future girlfriend duties.

[Novelusername]

I've had public facing jobs and get where you're coming from on this. It's fine as part of your job to be expected to chat with people and be friendly, but these men are taking advantage of that and looking for more, because they're lonely and don't have much luck with women for whatever reason. They have you trapped because you're at work. I've had male friends like this too, one of whom, upon me becoming single, started telling people I was his girlfriend, when absolutely nothing of that kind had ever happened between us. It's difficult to establish boundaries in a job role, because you're there to be friendly, but I think you'll have to be firmer. I've got no time for this kind of thing any more.

[MoltenLasagne]

I've seen this across a number of retail environments - working in retail, pubs, even in a bank branch. There's something about women having to be friendly as part of their job that some men will latch on to.

It's definitely not just young women who get targeted either - the worst I've seen was in a bank branch where an older white man latched onto one of my colleagues who was a married Asian woman in her 40s. It started off as polite convo, he'd always wait for her counter to be free, we also were expected to remember the names of regular customers and I think he took it as more than it was.

He started coming every day, would chat as long as possible before she could politely move him along, made some borderline inappropriate comments about how "her kind" knew how to look after their husbands, but never anything expressly sexual. It wasn't until she was covering at another branch for a few weeks when we realised how bad it was - he went round all the branches til he found where she'd transferred. Think management had to step in in the end but it was very strange and he always said he just wanted to be friends but it wasn't healthy.

[Timestablesaretables]

This is beyond creepy. When at work I would lightheartedly say "oh I can't be your friend as I'm at work!" And change the subject quickly.
Honestly, it sounds like you've become some sort of well for emotional vampires to dip into.

[NotDavidTennant]

There is psychological research that has found that men tend to overestimate the extent that women are interested in them and women underestimate the extent that men are intersted in them. So it is sadly common for women to a view a particular man as nothing more then an acquintance/colleague/customer but for the man to think, "she's into me".

I imagine it's particularly hard when you're in a sales role, as presumably you have developed a warm and chatty persona to help draw people in and make a sale. But a warm and chatty persona can also be interepted as flirtation and many men will incorrectly "code" what is hapening in the interaction (i.e., they'll think "she is flirting with me" and not "she is trying to butter me up to make a sale").

[Novelusername]

I do feel quite sorry for them, but they really need to take responsibility for themselves. If they're lonely they should look for opportunities to meet women or friends for themselves rather than taking advantage of retail workers who have got jobs to do. I feel sad for them at the same time I see it comes from male entitlement. You just need to look at online dating websites and how little effort most men put in on there - no profile information, unclear photos, copy pasted messages - and how bitter or aggressive they then get when they get no response. They seem genuinely ignorant as to why a man with no interests, no ambition, can't look after himself very well, doesn't take care of his appearance and whines a lot is not a particularly appealing prospect for a woman to take on. Men aren't raised to have empathy for women, but to objectify them, and I think men like this are often genuinely baffled as to why they never have any 'luck'.

[WorkWorkAngelica]

I'm finding this whole interaction really hard to imagine. It's not something I've ever experienced and I'm really struggling with picturing it.

Do you have some stock 'get out' phrases, like a PP said 'oh this is just my job, I'm sure you have plenty other friends!' or something. To give them the brush off. What would happen if you tried to say something like that to them?

I do think people are conditioned to be polite, friendly, and essentially put up with situations that make them uncomfortable, and that our society doesn't equip us with the kind of direct-but-polite approach we probably need.

[Whyamiwastingtime]

in some ways i suppose the traditional japanese style snack bar has its place at least the women there are getting paid to listen to men moan and appear interested....

[coronaway]

@Whyamiwastingtime sounds like a slippery slope to prostitution to me

[Starling85]

I too have been in this position. It's gross and it's a form of anti-social behaviour as far as I'm concerned. I don't think that they would behave like this to other men so it's not just that they want a new friend - they want a specific type of friend, who's gonna mollycoddle them and because they are sexist they think that a woman (any woman!) will fulfill this role. It's especially horrible if this happens when you're in a customer-facing role (for me it was when I was working in a pub) as it changes the power dynamic. If you're seen as "rude" (ie show lack of interest), your job could be at risk. It's not fair and you have my sympathy!

[senua]

Can you get support or training in how to deal with this from your employer or union?