Enjoying quiet drink & elder man approaches

[IndigoBluey]

I had a much needed free and solo afternoon today. Went for a long walk in the sun, coffee, just enjoyed being by myself for once. I was keen to see the rugby score and so stopped off for a drink in a local pub by myself. I am a 34 year old woman. It was such a fun atmosphere. Until, an older guy, maybe 70 saddled up to my table and started to engage in chat. I wasn’t in the mood, I was really keen to watch the match and this was the final ten minutes. He asked a few questions and when I didn’t answer he just stood right by me where I was sat down looking and smiling. I felt really awkward and aware that others in the pub were looking now. He then asked my name and I quite directly told him I just want to watch the match. He then left in a huff. I felt a little bad after, thinking maybe I was rude and worse, he was lonely and wanted some chat but then there were other older men on their own standing at the bar so he could have chatted with them. Anyway off he went and I left after the match ended about 15 minutes later to walk home and saw him on the corner of the street five minutes along, fine as it it a small town but awkward as he clocked me. Was I rude or is it fine to say no thanks to chat to random people

I think it's obvious why he approached her: "That woman's on her own. I'll try my luck."
He wasn't "being friendly" - if so, he would've taken the hint that she was intent on the game and wouldn't have stormed out. Wouldn't have put his jacket on her chair.

And he wasn't being 'friendly' to the other lone men at the bar.

She didn’t initially make it clear though, that is the point. She ignored him and blanked him at first. When she was eventually clear, he moved away. WOW this thread could make anyone scared of having any interaction with new people at all. God forbid how you may be judged!

In what universe is ignoring someone not clear and instead an invitation to persist? Blanking someone couldn't be more clear. It's got fuck all to do with judging.

Blanking someone can be misinterpreted. It’s not clear. He may have thought she was hard of hearing or just distracted and hadn’t heard him, or any number of other things. Blanking someone is not clear at all.

God forbid how you may be judged!

I would far rather women err on the side of being safe around
strange men they dont know than fret about men feeling butthurt a woman doesnt want to have a conversation with them.

As I said earlier in the thread - I have had men react really aggressively and curse at me when I have told them politely I dont want company. Sometimes you can't win- if you are honest but polite about the fact you dont want to talk to them you get a load of vile abuse back so its hardly surprising that sometimes women get flustered in the moment about what to do for the best in such a scenario

You misunderstand me. I’m completely on board with women being free to say no, all day long!! However, it doesn’t automatically make the man a creep either.

What a pile of pish. She didn't want to talk to him and actively ignored him. That's your cue to fuck off and leave her alone. Stop making excuses for entitled men.

Are all men automatically entitled?? This is what I am talking about. I have 3 sons and a brother and I personally don’t think all men are automatically bad.

I think generally, most people would recognise that if you try to start a conversation with a stranger you have approached and they completely ignore you that its best to just leave them alone rather than firing more intrusive questions at them.

Thats common sense to me. You know nothing about them or what they might be going through

I remember being out with some friends in my 20s, and a man (my age, and also out with his friends) came over and asked if he could buy me a drink. I politely said that it was very kind of him, but that I was out with my friends, and wasn’t in the mood for talking to a stranger. I also said I had a boyfriend.

He was very pushy, kept going on and on about buying me a drink, and that it wouldn’t mean I had to talk to him, he just wanted to buy me a drink. I kept politely refusing, and he kept pushing. Eventually I said OK, if you buy me a drink, can you 100% promise me you’ll just leave me alone and won’t try to talk to me, and he said yes, he promised. So I said OK, just a soft drink, and I went back to my friends.

Next thing I know, he appears by my side with a large alcoholic drink, with cocktail stuff in it, and starts to chat to me. I said thank you, turned back to my friends, and he proceeded to have a rant about what a rude ungrateful bitch I was!

No, they aren’t! I don’t think anyone has said they are. But this one was. Because he persisted when it was obvious he wasn’t wanted.

She DID make it clear by ignoring him. In which parallel universe would he not read the glaringly obvious signals that she didn't want to talk to him??

This!!
women don’t need to be polite to someone who is making them uncomfortable!

@BerryTwister

Exactly. You can't win. I've had this happen to me many times.

If you engage with them just to be friendly they take it as read that you fancy them and want sex with them and then when they find out you were just being friendly they get angry that you have "led them on".

If you ignore them, they either become rude or tell you that you are a "stuck up bitch" (which I have had said to me) who thinks you're too good to talk to them and they keep pestering you to get a reaction

If you tell them politely thanks but no thanks, they get angry that you've dared to turn them down and then you get told you are a bitch/cow/lesbian whatever it is etc

Not once in my entire life have I had a respectful response from a man I dont know trying to chat to me/hit on me. Not once.

Literally whatever response you give gets some nasty response back and people wonder why women dont know how to react to men trying to chat to them at times!

in a lively pub on a saturday afternoon?

So ignoring and blanking is now being taken as an invitation to further interaction? Wow.

I think you have a point about people being able to spot vulnerability in others; I think that's a thing that abusers (of both adults and children) instinctively pick up on and leverage. I was abused several times in my childhood and I started to think that I was somehow sending out signals

I think anyone is entitled to try and start a conversation with anyone else; how would anybody meet anyone otherwise? But if you do that you have to be sensitive to verbal and non-verbal signals, especially if you're a guy approaching a lone woman.

The huge red flag to me in this story is him putting his jacket on the back of the OP's chair. That's creepy, entitled and worse, it's a form of 'staking his claim'. He's showing to her and to everyone else that this woman is his. He can get to fuck

yes - I thought that creepy too.

in a way even my husabnd spotted my vulnerabilty I think

No you weren’t rude, there’s no obligation to talk to someone just because they want to talk to you. But rather than ignoring him you just say right off ‘thanks but I just want to watch the rugby’.

YANBU, OP. It's astonishing how many men only seem to want to be 'friendly' with women two or three decades younger.

Yep, this has all happened to me pretty much as well.

I remember being asked to smile when walking down the street by two men standing outside a pub when id just returned to work after my sister had died. I stopped, walked back to them and told them off and they looked suitably chastened and one of them admitted that his mum had recently died too and he didn't know why he was shouting at women to smile in the street as like me, he'd be upset if someone said that to him. I told him, you don't know what is going on in people's lives and to comment on their looks or how they look in a street is not fair, not polite and not nice. I do think I made him think twice for future. I was polite, but explained clearly why it was not appropriate.

I've had old men sidle up to me when I'm alone, commenting on my appearance, one had the brass neck to tell me I shouldn't be eating my lunch (baked potato with tuna) as I needed to watch my weight (I was a size 12 at the time, I'm tall as well, so not overweight at all). I was sitting outside in the sunshine on my lunch break minding my own business. He made a beeline to me and pointed his walking stick at me and told me I shouldn't be eating that as I'd get "fatter". The fucker. I just told him to bother someone else and then asked him, I wonder, why don't you go and tell those workers over there (there were male workers in high Vis sitting near me eating McDonald's) what they should or shouldn't eat, eh?! He just walked on and didn't reply. The fucker walked past them to target me.

I've been sworn at for turning down men, I did it politely and was in no way confrontational. Young or old. Doesn't matter.

The older I get the less I tolerate it. These type of men can get in the bin.

Do you?
Not answering back to someone you don’t know from Adam isn’t enough to give the message ‘Leave me alone’? Nope it has to be clearly stated just in case, after 70 years on this Earth, a man didn’t get the memo …

Or do you mean the OP should have done an announcement before hand?

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Maybe he wanted to protect you from the Rugby if it was the one in Rome!

@DaisyDoodler it’s concerning your apologist behaviour for shitty men when you have 3 sons, are you that mother who will blame your sons partners for everything and your boys can do no wrong?
Stop excusing this old creeps intrusive behaviour.