The risk of this happening will see a rise of men getting disgruntled

[MikeRafone]

when they try to talk to woman and get the silent treatment

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr7jej2elyyo

I'm confused. What's going on? Men are striking up conversations with women and pretending to just be friendly, but are doing it to record them for tiktok?

Why?

Who wants to listen to some random woman banging on about her job, kids, home, friends, health issues, middle aged or elderly parents etc?

Also, like a previous poster said, I don't want to victim blame at all, but why on earth are women telling random strange men - or anyone at all - where they live and work, what their name is, and information about their family???

I don't even tell shop assistants where DH or I work, what our DCs names are, (and where they work,) or what village we live in. Why are women telling strange men private information that can assist the man in finding her again and potentially stalking her?

I have had randoms - usually a man, but sometimes a woman - asking me personal and private questions, and I just lie and make stuff up. My personal information and contact details are not for the ears of a random stranger.

I'm not going into detail about it, but in the past, some years ago, I had several bad experiences of being harassed, followed, and stalked by a man...

@LemonAndGingerMarmalade

..... a woman is not being rude for not being polite / responsive to unwanted attention. She is putting in boundaries and being assertive. These creeps wouldn't be initiating conversation with someone they didn't find attractive.

As for the person (assuming male) asks how do you meet someone? You do what all the decent guys do who meet their partners. Just don't be a creep

This in spades. ^ Women do not owe men a conversation, they do not owe them politeness, and they are entitled to ignore them. Chances are if a man is striking up a conversation, that he fancies her, and is hitting on her. Not always of course, and he may just be fancying a chat as he's bored or just a chatty person.

But still, women do not have to engage.

I mean SHE doesn't know if he is just being friendly, or if he is a weirdo, or if he is someone who isn't a weirdo, but fancies her and is working up to asking her out. Many women have been hit on by men, (many times) and are sick to fucking death of it, and CBA chatting to some random bloke demanding her attention and conversation, in case he IS about to try it on!

This is the new world

you walk through a city and there’s just some
kid trying to stick a camera in your face. If you don’t respond positively, you’re branded online as a ‘Karen’

terrifying times for women, honestly.

😁

Urggghh why are so many men complete arseholes?

Yep. Exactly.

I have actually had random (usually middle aged) men trying to be 'funny,' and strike up a conversation with me. Sometimes I will chat, but sometimes I CBA, and will ignore him and walk off (as if I haven't heard him.... )

There have been a few occasions where I walked off and I heard him say 'miserable cow.'

So I am a miserable cow because I didn't stop in my tracks, and respond to some random man's drivel and waffle, smile sweetly, and laugh at his 'hilarious' quips, like the good little girl he expects me to be?!!

FML.

but you are victim blaming

Because the men watching think they’re hot

Ban smart glasses.

Am I supposed to GAF if men become 'disgruntled' about women not engaging with random men? Is that supposed to make me feel scared so that I force myself to engage with them in case they turn nasty?

OP I don't know whether you're a man or a woman but your thread title and your following posts seem contradictory so I haven't got a clue what point you're trying to make. It just confirms the usual old shit really, tech companies want to make as much money as possible and don't give a shit who gets hurt in the process.

It’s true that many men just think a woman’s role is to listen to them drone on about themselves and smile at them.

Unfortunately I only got to realise this in middle age.

I see it everywhere now. I get it at work from my many male clients. From my dad and brothers. From strangers on the bus, in the shops and in the street. I saw it down the gym, some 60-something in Lycra chatting to some young girl for ages boring the shit out of her. On a committee I’m on, the middle age men droning on for 1/2 hour over something that could take 2 mins. Their entitlement is astounding.

I’ve got their number now. I talk to my loved ones, but any other man can go jump off a cliff. Don’t make eye contact with them, don’t engage with them, cut them off and say you are busy or in a hurry.

So men have found yet another way to harass and objectify women en masse and we should be holding some sort of candlelit vigil for them? 🙄

I have been fascinated by the UK and to some extent EU monstering Musk and X, when so many people and organisations use Meta apps.

I suggest everyone deletes them. I know that won't get you clear of its clutches, once you have let it steal your data it will go on doing it but it will slow the profits a bit. No Facebook, no WhatsApp. Any employer, school, club that tries to make them a condition of membership should be given the same two-word advice as creepy glasses men.

If you keep feeding the beast it will keep getting beastlier.

Exactly. I won't watch any content with the word Karen in the title.

Using the term 'Karen' is just a misogynist tool to shut women of a certain age down and stop us complaining because we have reached an age where the scales have fallen from our eyes and we aren't taking their shit any more.

that would be a pity
https://www.guidedogs.org.uk/blog/reviewing-ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses

https://www.macularsociety.org/about/media/news/2025/june/how-could-meta-ai-s-glasses-help-you/

and an older article https://abilitynet.org.uk/news-blogs/three-cool-smart-glasses-help-people-who-are-blind-or-have-sight-loss

It’s a structural societal problem - girls and women are socially conditioned to be accommodating and polite, essentially because men as a class are a threat to women as a class and it is usually safer to smile, nod etc.

We all know how men can respond to what they perceive as rudeness from women.

It’s a double bind for women as our politeness is often misunderstood or outright exploited.

Men and women are strongly conditioned to believe that men are more important than women.

I so agree with pp about men in general wasting the time and energy of women simply because they believe it’s somehow their right to hold court, bore us, even scare us. And when women don’t cooperate we are often the ones who are blamed.

Op is a man

ok. People should be careful about giving strangers any personal details even if they appear innocuous at the time (both the details and the stranger)

Better?

Then men ought to get their collective acts together and take responsibility for their behaviour. They know which of the men they know is doing shit like this. They should have the balls to call them out.

Op is a man

That figures.🙄

Really? how did you come to this conclusion? I've never had a penis or wanted one and have female on my birth certificate

FFS! I am sixty, so I should be invisible, but no, I still get this shit.

On my way to corner shop, a man about my age shouts across the road at me something about the weather. I shout back a brief agreement. I’m just being polite but already annoyed at being yelled at across the street.

On the way back, he’s standing outside his house, waiting to shout at me again as I walk past him. I ignore him completely and he’s fucking enraged. I’m a fucking rude bitch, he just wants to talk.

I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t have to talk to you. You are a creepy entitled knob head. Stay away from me.

Well, if you’re a woman you’re even more of a disgrace than I thought you were.

What a weird way of putting it.

Really? how did you come to this conclusion? I've never had a penis or wanted one and have female on my birth certificate

Another poster (not me) said you were? And it fits with your views on this thread?