Update - where’s the new Guardian Soulmates?

[Snowfish79]

Having stumbled upon the above topic via dear Google…. I wonder if any wise and informed persons have an answer?

I may be shot for being a boy, in a girls’ place…. Please make it quick 🙏🏻

Thanks for your comment. Continuing the unpleasant and derogatory tone.

I took a look at the link. I saw a discussion about the use of the word ‘female’. Some people really don’t like it. Others are not bothered. Others think it’s fine. That was page one.

I have already said that I didn’t intend to upset or offend, and that my choice of words was perhaps bad. What else to do?

‘I bet she was thrilled’ ?? We had a perfectly decent and mildly amusing conversation about dating sites / people / life. As an afterthought I mentioned this thread. She chose to look, and made the comment I posted.

I don’t understand how I continue to be attacked, continuously, despite explanations / apologies. I literally don’t know what else to do….

Yet, nobody has apologised for the criticisms or attacks. And none of these parties have made any comments or responses to the people who have posted to support my position.

It’s been made to be some kind of gender war. Conversely, I recently read a thread on fb where a woman had asked for advice on lighting a wood burner. Lots of men and some women had responded - and almost entirely were positive and helpful - none of the men criticised her for the words she used, or for what she was doing or how she was asking or her general attitude to wood burners or men. Just saying

I did make a suggestion as to who, in my post

What would you like me to say / do?

How would you suggest I change?

Genuine questions

You’ve just written… “I don’t understand how I continue to be attacked, continuously, despite explanations / apologies. I literally don’t know what else to do….”

Go away.

seriously. Just click somewhere else.

Fair question

Astonishment? Curiosity? Self sabotage?

I am perplexed by this situation where it seems that literally everything I say is wrong, there is no ‘right answer’…. And I’m genuinely walking on eggshells to avoid causing anyone offence….. Yet others seem to be able to constantly criticise and use patronising and offensive language… and are oblivious, or don’t care about the effect that night have. Despite it being flagged by others. I wasn’t aware that a ‘space’ that contains more of one gender (or sex. I’m sorry if I use the wrong word) seems to give entitlement to that gender to say exactly what the want, without consequence.

You asked 🤷🏻‍♂️

And how is that helping me to learn? Which is what several people are insisting I do, and that I have failed to do so far.

I try to learn and am told to simply leave. What. The. Phuck ?

Once, not very long ago, I escorted my teen niece to an event, a disco of sorts. There was a bar with mostly parents in it, waiting for the kids to do their thing/have a dance. We were on holiday, I sat at the bar and ordered a beer, and fiddled with my phone for a bit.

I was an ordinary woman, in ordinary clothes, sitting alone at a bar with one eye through the partition, to the kids.

A man came up and asked was I having a nice time. I said yes thank you, and carried on scrolling. He said “you look a bit miserable, why don’t you smile more?” And I just looked at him and said “I’m not miserable” and carried on phone-fiddling. Then he said “What have I done wrong, why are you being so rude?” He carried on until I moved away. I really wanted to tell him to just fuck fuck fuck off.

OP, you remind me of him so much.

This isn’t a war of the sexes. And you genuinely don’t understand how coming on a parenting forum predominantly used by women, declaring you’re a man looking for girls/females then showing faux outrage at the responses you’re getting? Using a lot of stirring buzzwords as well, ‘females’, ‘gender’, ‘be kind’ and taking about ‘lefty politics’. Screams MRA on a windup to me…

It isn’t our job to teach you. That’s the bit you don’t get. It isn’t our job to educate or train or persuade or entertain you either. You clearly think it is.

I refer to my previous post about mithering dickheads.

I’d have given him the most winning smile I had whilst telling him to fuck off. There was a thread a while back about men seeing a woman by herself seemingly believing they were entitled to invade her space and peace. Like we as a sex can’t possibly want to be wholly alone at any moment in public.

I said I was leaving

Several people criticised me for that - and said I should stay and ‘learn lessons’

I ask what I should be learning

I get told to fuck off and it’s not ‘our’ job to teach me

This isn’t the place for you. Plenty of men use this site. Lots of them don’t draw attention to their sex, expect women to explain things and make them feel better, throw their weight around (A Man Has Arrived) and expect special treatment. You’re not one of them, are you? You carry on like this, all you will do is attract conflict over and over again. Find somewhere else.

The only reason I didn’t tell him to fuck off to his stupid face was he was clearly quite drunk and also emboldened enough to try and start an argument about what he had done wrong. Which actually translates as “what was I meant to do to get in your pants. You’re a woman alone at a bar, WHICH SURELY MEANS I have the chance of a go of your vagina if I get a couple of rounds in.”

But of course male privilege meant I had to move, not him.

Entitled half-wit, they get everywhere!

MRA?

“I said I was leaving.”

OP you’re like a drunk being thrown out of a pub, who is insisting they’re going but under their own steam, shouting at the bouncers.

I get this. If the man hadn’t been drunk I’d have thought he was perhaps genuinely concerned. Less likely if drunk!

I’d agree. If he was in your space and you didn’t want that, of course it makes sense to tell him to leave. I would have thought politely, and then less politely if he ignored.

This is a public forum. This is not anyone’s personal space. I am not private messaging any of you. If you ask a question or post a specific criticism or insult I don’t think it is fair to then tell me I’m in your personal space and I should leave. You can’t walk into a room full of people, call a random person a dick head and then tell them to leave when they respond.

I specifically asked the people who’d suggested I ‘learn lessons’ rather than simply leaving, for clarity. Why not let them respond?

I was seeking advice re a dating app. Women use dating apps too. Not quite coming on and saying ‘I’m looking for women’.

No. I said I was leaving. People responded - with the learning thing - and I responded to that.

I get this. If the man hadn’t been drunk I’d have thought he was perhaps genuinely concerned. Less likely if drunk!

What exactly is concerning about a woman sat alone looking at her phone in a public place? Would a man be concerned about another man sat alone looking at his phone, sipping a beer?

I’d agree. If he was in your space and you didn’t want that, of course it makes sense to tell him to leave. I would have thought politely, and then less politely if he ignored.

No, men don’t approach a woman alone to start with, you don’t put women in a position to have to ask you to leave her alone. Men shouldn’t start from the position of believing they are entitled to enter that space, and are not owed politeness on the first time of being told to fuck off.

I was seeking advice re a dating app. Women use dating apps too. Not quite coming on and saying ‘I’m looking for women’.

And of all the places on the internet to ask, you believed MN was the first port of call. Not asking friends in real life, not Google reviews, not trying out various apps, just ask the biggest collective of women you could think of.

I have approved men and women, on their own who have looked low.

Last week I chatted to a guy sitting on a park bench staring at the floor. We had a chat. He thanked me for asking. I have done same with women. With people breaking down at the side of the road.

It’s about compassion for fellow humans. When I have done this I have always approached very cautiously and of course if someone asked me to leave I would. This hasn’t ever happened.

Not everyone has the agenda you might imagine.

Yes, I asked the question about dating apps here as Google had told me that someone else had asked the same question here some time ago and I wondered if things had changed. As previously stated

Approached. Not approved

Jesus OP. Read the room.

Going by your last posts, I'm betting you're one of those "smile love" twats

You could have set up a few new dating profiles by now, and done a fair bit of swiping.

What?

True. Kind of bored of that…

I’ve been somewhat ‘triggered’ and am not very good at loose ends 😂