Response to men’s creepiness

I found during that, in a very polite office, male dominated. That lots of men I was friends with and even some i didn't know so well had a very urgent need to bring it up and 'have a debate' . One where they were going to merrily devils advocate at me in my place of work about male on female sex offences...

At the coffee machine. Oh hi! So. What do you make of this Weinstein thing? I find it hard to believe he did all that. What do you think?!!!

And most of the women on here can imagine how that went!

The one who bizarrely and literally said loudish and in an emotional way about not even looking any more is s nice man who fancied himself a bit of a feminist. He scampered off looking surprised with himself after. And apologised later

This is really interesting.

Sometimes men are honest which they often aren't with women tbh and you very the truth on how they feel.

It reminds me of when metoo came out at work.

My small team who were all blokes (that I liked and got on with) went like this in the space of maybe 2 weeks (genuine no exaggeration).

OMG that's terrible! Why haven't women ever said anything? (??!!?? erm we've gone on about little else for decades??!!?)

Hmm. That's a LOT of women. That can't be right. Some must be joining in/ exaggerating/ making it up.

WE CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT A WOMAN ANY MORE!!!

I would much rather never be approached by a man than have to put up with random creeps.

This. I would happily never ever receive an unsolicited private message from a man ever again.

Now, if I was on a website and it was posted by a 6'4" gay body-builder who knew my street and face I'd react much more similarly to how a woman might react... but even then my reaction would be much less visceral for obvious reasons (lack of years of conditioning to be fearful).

So JediGnot, how would you feel if someone from this site you had never engaged with before were to PM you and comment on and ask you questions about personal details you had revealed about yourself in your posts on MN?

Would that feel a bit weird or would that feel totally OK?

And if it felt totally OK, how would it feel if they had worked out the street where you live?

I would much rather never be approached by a man than have to put up with random creeps.

There are many ways to meet people who WANT to meet someone. When I’m out and about I usually have shit to do and I don’t care if some guy wants to talk to me. I’m not your friend, I don’t know you, why do I owe random men a chance to shoot their shot? I don’t need to hear the sales pitch to decide I’m not looking to buy.

I get this a lot in a ‘Wild Swimming’ Facebook group, constant PM’s always from men, never from women, not once. It’s everything from asking ‘innocent’ questions which I’ve already clearly answered in my original post or answered in the comments, to full on creepy leery invasion of my personal inbox.

I do generally go down the route of publicly calling them out/answering them on the Facebook page these days. I will tag them in a comment under my post “Dave Smith, I’m not sure why you’ve PM’d me, all the info you need about this swimming spot is in this post, please don’t private message me again”. I screenshot any openly creepy messages and report to admin. 9 times out of 10 it turns out the man is already on his final warning from admin and he gets removed from the group.

It’s exhausting. Men need to know that unless it’s some kind of dating site, or women have explicitly stated “feel free to PM me” they just need to stay the fuck out of their inbox.

Depending on what the person said, I would just message back in a way that was polite but didn't particularly encourage further discussion. Usually if they are not being creepy they get the message.

The thing about NextDoor is that it is meant to connect people, in a fairly personal way - they know who you are and so on and for many people it's a way to actually try and get to know the people, so you could even talk to them in person. So by joining you are going to see who people are and where they live and there is kind of an assumption there that you are ok with that, and for some that will mean they see you as being open to friendly overtures.

It's probably not a good choice if you really want to be pretty anonymous in your neighbourhood.

It means I live my life and do my thing, which is precisely what women should feel safe enough to do as well. It doesn't mean taking no account of the feelings of others. I really don't spend much if any time approaching women in public.

The problem here is much more about women not having freedom, not that men do. IMHO.

Obviously women would be more free if they never received unwanted male attention, and they'd be happier too. But it wouldn't in itself suddenly leave women thinking nothing of walking 3 miles home half drunk at midnight, or feeling that they're able to put their full name and address on a public website as part of a drive to help their neighbours.

Glad you liked some of my very late night thoughts OP!

Group innocent accidental DM thing seems to get a popular vote.

I still like the idea of saying my DH knows better and getting dh to contact him and go on and on in boring detail and message him like 3 times a day. Saying stuff like. I heard they're going to reslab the pavement near number 56!!! Have you heard that? The council reslabbing program has serious issues in my view... . Even better link really long boring articles and DH says read this!!! I'm really excited to hear your views

Not caught up

Just read this

'Now obviously a polite man will - say - avoid approaching a lone woman at night in a quiet place because that is obviously highly likely to be intimidating. Obviously a man should speak from 2 metres away and not get right in your face. Obviously he should accept your lack of interest in any sort of communication if you are not interested in any sort of communication, and move away promptly to ensure that you don't feel intimidated. But I simply do not buy into the idea that approaching strangers in public is wrong.'

Jesus fucking Christ.

Never ever ever approach a woman who is walking home alone and is in a lonely place at night!!!

you know that. Come on.

You know that she will be scared witless.

You know that, I know you do. If you see it as your right to do that somehow. That's it's an imposition for society/ women to push the outrageous idea that a woman walking alone at night in an empty residential area or whatever is not going to be in any way whatsoever anything but freaked the fuck out to have a man approach her.

I don't know what to even say. Men who do this know what they're doing. It's a big club with a much larger number of men in it than women would like...

And you want women to engage with you on your points? Presumably in a way that doesn't assume that you're ideas are... Very very discomforting.

Sorry, that was to JediGnot.

So, would you be happy to receive unsolicited SMS saying "Hi. How r u?" when you are enjoying chatting on the main site?
Would you wonder why, or find it strange?

I downloaded Neighbourhood and left within 24hrs,including emailing the company to remove all my data as is my right. It was dreadful - three men messaging me all winks and small talk and it had my road on the display. It felt very uncomfortable and unsafe.

Take your street name off the app! I can't believe anyone would advertise what street they live on to complete strangers. I've been stalked before so maybe I'm a bit more aware than others but this to me sounds like absolute madness.

Message him back and say you prefer to chat on the board as opposed to privately, then tell him you and your HUSBAND very much like the area. And don't talk to him again

9 times out of 10.

but I just cannot get my head around the idea that no men should ever approach a female stranger in public or by pm.

Fine. Just know that 9 times out of 10 women will find it creepy. And will resent you for doing it.

Dangerous men don’t come with signs, so we can’t tell if you are one or not. Unsolicited approaches make us think you lean in towards the ‘dangerous’ camp.

Know that 9 times out of 19 unsolicited contact is unwelcomed by women, and unwanted.

The answer is men never approach women under any circumstance (I find that VERY difficult to accept, but maybe that's my problem), or the answer is that men and women vote in sufficient numbers together that a government is formed that forces real change. If I knew how to get the majority in this backward, intellectually-stunted, dishonest, corrupt, increasingly-fascist country to vote for greater equality for women believe me we'd have a very different government right now.

Not mixing up. Expecting both things. You are offering neither.

as I do what I want.

It's this bit that's problematic, JediGnot. Think about this bit.

Maybe if you stopped doing what you wanted and thought about what women wanted and did that instead sometimes, that lovely equality you've spent a great many words talking about would start to happen.