Enjoying quiet drink & elder man approaches

yes - I thought that creepy too.

in a way even my husabnd spotted my vulnerabilty I think

I think you have a point about people being able to spot vulnerability in others; I think that's a thing that abusers (of both adults and children) instinctively pick up on and leverage. I was abused several times in my childhood and I started to think that I was somehow sending out signals

I think anyone is entitled to try and start a conversation with anyone else; how would anybody meet anyone otherwise? But if you do that you have to be sensitive to verbal and non-verbal signals, especially if you're a guy approaching a lone woman.

The huge red flag to me in this story is him putting his jacket on the back of the OP's chair. That's creepy, entitled and worse, it's a form of 'staking his claim'. He's showing to her and to everyone else that this woman is his. He can get to fuck

So ignoring and blanking is now being taken as an invitation to further interaction? Wow.

in a lively pub on a saturday afternoon?

@BerryTwister

Exactly. You can't win. I've had this happen to me many times.

If you engage with them just to be friendly they take it as read that you fancy them and want sex with them and then when they find out you were just being friendly they get angry that you have "led them on".

If you ignore them, they either become rude or tell you that you are a "stuck up bitch" (which I have had said to me) who thinks you're too good to talk to them and they keep pestering you to get a reaction

If you tell them politely thanks but no thanks, they get angry that you've dared to turn them down and then you get told you are a bitch/cow/lesbian whatever it is etc

Not once in my entire life have I had a respectful response from a man I dont know trying to chat to me/hit on me. Not once.

Literally whatever response you give gets some nasty response back and people wonder why women dont know how to react to men trying to chat to them at times!

This!!
women don’t need to be polite to someone who is making them uncomfortable!

She DID make it clear by ignoring him. In which parallel universe would he not read the glaringly obvious signals that she didn't want to talk to him??

No, they aren’t! I don’t think anyone has said they are. But this one was. Because he persisted when it was obvious he wasn’t wanted.

I remember being out with some friends in my 20s, and a man (my age, and also out with his friends) came over and asked if he could buy me a drink. I politely said that it was very kind of him, but that I was out with my friends, and wasn’t in the mood for talking to a stranger. I also said I had a boyfriend.

He was very pushy, kept going on and on about buying me a drink, and that it wouldn’t mean I had to talk to him, he just wanted to buy me a drink. I kept politely refusing, and he kept pushing. Eventually I said OK, if you buy me a drink, can you 100% promise me you’ll just leave me alone and won’t try to talk to me, and he said yes, he promised. So I said OK, just a soft drink, and I went back to my friends.

Next thing I know, he appears by my side with a large alcoholic drink, with cocktail stuff in it, and starts to chat to me. I said thank you, turned back to my friends, and he proceeded to have a rant about what a rude ungrateful bitch I was!

I think generally, most people would recognise that if you try to start a conversation with a stranger you have approached and they completely ignore you that its best to just leave them alone rather than firing more intrusive questions at them.

Thats common sense to me. You know nothing about them or what they might be going through

Are all men automatically entitled?? This is what I am talking about. I have 3 sons and a brother and I personally don’t think all men are automatically bad.

What a pile of pish. She didn't want to talk to him and actively ignored him. That's your cue to fuck off and leave her alone. Stop making excuses for entitled men.

You misunderstand me. I’m completely on board with women being free to say no, all day long!! However, it doesn’t automatically make the man a creep either.

God forbid how you may be judged!

I would far rather women err on the side of being safe around
strange men they dont know than fret about men feeling butthurt a woman doesnt want to have a conversation with them.

As I said earlier in the thread - I have had men react really aggressively and curse at me when I have told them politely I dont want company. Sometimes you can't win- if you are honest but polite about the fact you dont want to talk to them you get a load of vile abuse back so its hardly surprising that sometimes women get flustered in the moment about what to do for the best in such a scenario

Blanking someone can be misinterpreted. It’s not clear. He may have thought she was hard of hearing or just distracted and hadn’t heard him, or any number of other things. Blanking someone is not clear at all.

In what universe is ignoring someone not clear and instead an invitation to persist? Blanking someone couldn't be more clear. It's got fuck all to do with judging.

She didn’t initially make it clear though, that is the point. She ignored him and blanked him at first. When she was eventually clear, he moved away. WOW this thread could make anyone scared of having any interaction with new people at all. God forbid how you may be judged!

And he wasn't being 'friendly' to the other lone men at the bar.

I think it's obvious why he approached her: "That woman's on her own. I'll try my luck."
He wasn't "being friendly" - if so, he would've taken the hint that she was intent on the game and wouldn't have stormed out. Wouldn't have put his jacket on her chair.

They would have kept speaking to someone who had made it clear he was just trying to watch the game? That's not a good thing.

Haha.. good one Dave 🙄

OP YANBU at all. You should be able to sit quietly in a pub or anywhere else on your own without some creep thinking it’s open season to start trying to harass you, and it is harassment if it’s not reciprocated.

i an actively teaching my daughter that she dies not owe anyone her time or a conversation if she feels in any way uncomfortable. I am from the generation where you were told as a female to ‘be polite’ .. bollocks to that if you don’t want some random man thinking you owe him a conversation.

I wouldn’t personally, no. But my Nan would have done if she thought a young guy looked lonely. My mum would have done if she thought there was a spare chair by him that she could have a good sit down on. And my best friend would do because she will talk to anyone quite happily. Stop getting your judgey pants so twisted.

I once had a terrifying experience when I met a friend for a drink and on closing we jumped in a taxi back to her place. Two completely random guys I had never seen before also jumped in the taxi, one in the back with us and one in the front. It was so quick, like what the fuck, and the amount of psychic communication between us and the taxi driver was insane. We were like who are you and what are you doing and they said something like, well nobody has been talking to you all night so we'll come with you. Not that it's relevant but we were both seeing someone at the time. The fact that they had been watching us still makes my skin crawl.

Very quickly we realised we couldn't get out the taxi or we'd be left with them on the street, and we obviously didn't want them to come to my friends place. This was the days before mobiles were common as well and it took us so much by surprise we didn't know what to do. It was I think a Thursday night as well and really quiet by closing. I very much doubt it was the first time they had done something like that either, it seemed smooth. My friend said we'd go to theirs instead so they gave the driver the address and the whole time there was all this eye contact going on so the driver was very clear we were a bit trapped. Once we got to the address they got out the taxi and the driver, thank god, slammed the locks down and got out of there.

But sure maybe we should have just spoken to them nicely and went along with them and invited them home.

Or maybe it's one incident in a long line of them why I have absolutely zero time or patience for the entitlement of men.

She said it's her local. She knows the bar staff.

I would also add that I am in a town where strangers say good morning to each other in passing, anyone who wants to chat lingers those who don't want to just smile, return the greeting and walk on.

Approaching a lone woman and forcing attention on her is not being friendly, it's creepy.