Enjoying quiet drink & elder man approaches

I was on a group activity i was in 50's and there was a new man who started walking with me he was well into his 70's and the first question he asked me is 'am i married'? And then 'am i single'? Seriously!!!

I would have said this too. I used to work in a village pub and everyone would talk to everyone, especially the older men. He probably knew the men at the bar.
Depends on the pub. Some people will talk others they dont
He left when you asked him to so im not sure what more you want.

Me too, but people always think a woman alone must be lonely. I'm so glad i'm
older now as most of the time I can go into a pub for a small glass of wine and read my book or scroll through my phone and no-one cares 😄 although even now I do sometimes get approached by older men..I'm in my sixties!

Many men are predatory and entirely deluded. This old man probably thought a young woman might be open to be chatted up by him. Yet SHE is the one who feels embarrassed and silly for rebuffing him.

Men are just as adept as women at subtle social cues, it's just the arrogant pricks that ignore them until you state it unambiguously.

He sounds like an arrogant creep and he deserved the response you gave him. The people watching were probably just thinking what a nob we was being.

Try to think of the good things that happened that day and don't grace him with another minute's thought 😊

You think it's normal to put your coat on a strangers chair? you think its normal to stomp off in a huff simply because a stranger doesn't want to talk to you?

No- you are absurd. I've seen plenty of women and men quite happily drinking alone in pubs. Its a perfectly normal thing to do 😂

How fucking ridiculous

why has he become lecherous?

but op @IndigoBluey you werent rude, but this thread is ott

Shock horror, woman doesn't want to engage with lecherous old man twice her age!

How appalling - what is the world coming to eh? That poor, poor man can only find company in younger women - none of the other 70 year old men at the bar will chat to him 😭

You are totally right about a cafe but not a pub.

Some people seem so lacking in understanding of how society works and also totally naive
It's absurd to say that pubs are not for social mixing. It really is.

Read the fucking room, as they say.

Idk if you were rude without hearing exactly what you said. Maybe you were if he went off in a huff.

Maybe he was lonely and looking for a chat, maybe he was a perv, who knows. Personally I'd maybe have spoken to him very briefly, because yeah it is rude to just outright ignore someone, and then if it seemed like he wanted to keep chatting just say, "I'm so sorry, I'm actually enjoying some me time today and not really up for chatting, but have a nice day!"

If after that he's pushy or huffy then clearly he's not just a nice old man looking for some company and you can be ruder or more direct without feeling bad.

I don’t think his intentions are even relevant. Whether he wanted to chat her up or was just innocent chit chat she wasn’t interested so that’s that. If she didn’t want to talk for any reason that’s fine, just shut the conversation down and continue to enjoy the match.

shock horror
man spoke to woman in a pub
but hey, he was an elder whatever that means
how appalling
i guess alcohol might have been consumed, shock horror.
how dare an old man, spit, speak to the princess,
i wonder her reaction if he had been her age?
some people are so boring

No, the common sense should rest with the man who placed his jacket on a chair, invading the personal space of a woman sitting in/on that chair.

Can other women really not see what an aggressive gesture that is, before he even spoke a word?

No it isnt - what a bloody ridiculous notion.

If you go to a pub or a cafe or any social setting you dont immediately assume that anyone sitting alone in there MUST want to chat to you and you must sit down next to them- like, seriously?- thats laughable.

Thats not common sense at all. Also, your theory doesn't make any sense because this 70 year bloke was already alone so why hadn't anyone approached him for chats already if there is an expectation that anyone alone must have company?

That's different. I'll talk to anyone in a shop, out walking etc. DH always says I make friends everywhere I go.

The OP didn't want to stop what she was doing, he put his coat on her chair and asked her name. Why should she stop doing something she enjoyed because s random bloke decided she should, and then got cross when she wouldn't.

Anybody, female OR male, should stay at home and emphatically not go to a pub IF they don't want people attempting social interaction - as in an to converse- with them.

The onus is on the person to politely say they don't want interaction, to which the person attempting interaction should say, ' OK' and bugger off.

Nevertheless, the default, societal expectation is that you are going out for company.
If you want to be alone, you just stay in the fucking house.

Just common sense.

What was the problem then?
People shouldn't speak to anyone these days otherwise they're a nuisance, a pervert, a predator
This country is exhausting rjl

Anyone suggesting this was just a nice guy angling for a casual chat needs a wake up call. There are plenty of people who would talk to a brick wall, my mum of a similar age included, none of them would carry on speaking when someone didn’t respond or huff off when they said they didn’t want to chat. They’d just move onto someone else!

Read Fix the System, Not the Women by Laura Bates and think about your own ‘list’. It was heartbreaking to think of all the ways women accommodate the sexist world we live in without even realising.

Women, know your place. How dare you go into a space populated mainly by men.

Locals are more often than not very sociable drinking holes and his actions wouldn’t have been unusual or uncommon.

Nothing wrong with wanting to be on your own though, so good for you.

In your position, I would have politely but firmly told him that I didn’t want company. It’s just good manners and doesn’t cause needless upset or awkwardness.

He would probably have tried again after the ten minutes.

YABU if his initial questions were innocuous and you just blanked him. YANBU for telling him you just want to watch the match.

As soon as he started talking why not just say ‘I’m just focusing on the match, don’t want to miss it’ job done. THEN if he kept talking it would be perfectly reasonable to ignore him. It’s completely fine to not want to engage but just say so, there’s no need to be rude about it.

You could have just responded straight away saying "Sorry, I am trying to watch the last ten minutes of the game and not able to have a conversation while doing so." I think it is better than ignoring someone when they come up. Obviously if they press on then ignore, as you already told them.