i really object when i am on a night out with just the ladies and men - or a group of men - decide to come and join us, uninvited. It's ladies night, we want to gossip and catch up, not spend our time making small talk with blokes we have no interest in....
i am usually very cold and unfriendly towards them, sometimes going so far as to say that we don't want to talk to them, we want to talk to each other. However, my pals nearly always chat, flirt, laugh, giggle - then complain that the uninvited fellows won't leave them alone... this has happened dozens of times, from when i was young and absolutely gorgeous to just earlier this year before lockdown (45years and counting..)
one of them once did the old 'can we pretend to be lesbians so he will go away' routine. I said 'no, you are flirting and chatting with him so he thinks you are interested, just tell him to go away and stop flirting!' a few minutes later, she said 'i have told him i have a boyfriend, he still won't go away.'
So i said, why are you still chatting with him, then. Tell him to go away. Be rude. You are acting as though you are interested and he is not listening to what you are saying, he is reacting to your body language.
She said that she was too scared to tell straight in case he got nasty.... this really concerned me ..... i am perhaps not afraid enough of men and will get gobby and unfriendly very quickly if they don't leave me alone..... but obviously other women are too timid, too scared of how men react, too polite maybe?
So we always react positively to unwanted attention. So that's maybe where men get the idea it is WANTED attention?
How many men have to negotiate this minefield on a boys' night out!!??