What am I doing wrong? Attention from men

[Treetopssofee]

WTF

I'm a happily invisible to men menopausal woman.

Until the last month or so! Men are paying me attention and I don't know why, I don't like it, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what I've done to unwittingly encourage it.

What am I doing wrong? I like the safety of being irrelevant and invisible and unfuckable. For context I was a very early "developed" tween and got a lot of unwanted attention from grown men which I've been delighted to age out of.

I don't make it my job to make small talk with performatively lonely looking older men in coffee shops

I don't make myself small for man splainers.

I don't laugh at shit jokes

I don't step out of the way first on footpaths

Totally. I choose bear too. Fuck that shit. It's so liberating to see it. You can't ever unsee it.

What about one of those very wide brimmed sun hats that are worn by workers in Vietnamese paddy fields ?
Maybe ?
Somewhat akin to a lampshade.
For greater invisibility.

People go through life with different perceptions.

My ex boss was a zealous feminist who everyday without fail used to come into work all frothy and rant that some man on her train journey in had undressed her with his eyes, touched her, made suggestive comments, sexually propositioned her, starred at her tits the whole time, wanked in front of her, etc. Strangely enough she didn't look like JLO but could have passed her Rose West's middle aged twin sister. The rest of us (8 women in the office as she refused to recruit men) would come to work on the trains and buses, reading our books without incident.

She was also a man counter so everywhere we went (cafe at lunchtime, works drinks, etc) she'd count all the men / women and if greater, she'd launch into a tirade. I still remember a lot of them: All married women had been coerced; all women with children had been raped; etc. Let's just say she had a unique way of viewing the world...

That's nice

Can your helpful friendly husband keep the other men company for us then? So that they leave those of us who are uninterested in entertaining lonely men alone?

That would be very nice of him thank you

That's an extremely gross story

But not in the way you intended

😂

It isn't about forgetting. It's about acceptance and that can lead in many directions including channelling your rage into activism for example, rather than allowing it to make you so unhappy.

Patronising much?

I basically agree with everything that @Glowingup says.

That's true.

For instance, it shouldn't be about whether men deserve your anger and disdain, it should be about whether you deserve to live in a state of angry disdain.

If I felt anger over everything men have put me through in my life, I'd never stop being filled with incandescent rage, and that would be them winning. Instead I carefully curate the men I include in my life and give my time to (basically just my DH and son) and live a happy life, generally politely shutting down any men the (very infrequent) times they try to make small talk with me.

Although I'm still curious as to when these men are making small talk, and whether the OP or others who experience that live in a large city, or small town, and what they say, as I've only ever experienced straight up harassment or genuine politeness.

Surely acting like anybody doesn't exist is really disrespectful. Whether it's an old person or a child or gasp - a man

Don't wanna accept it while men as a whole continue to move through the world in unacceptable ways

Don't want to accept their attention

Don't wanna accept being listed as their carer on their social services record despite barely knowing them and absolutely never agreeing to do any kind of care for them

Don't want to accept that their loneliness is my burden. I have real, reciprocal friendships to tend to instead.

Don't want to accept whatever value is assigned to me today, that wasn't assigned to me last year, and that I never asked for

I don't see the benefit of this kind of acceptance. I'm definitely happier NOT accepting whatever use men think they can assign to me at various different stages of my life

You need help. This level of hatred towards an entire demographic is not healthy.

I live pretty well, when men leave me alone.

I have good people, good company and conversation, good times, good travels, good hobbies, good alone time

I don't NEED to accept whatever attention men give and withdraw on a scale of my relative usefulness to them at any given time. I don't need them at all to sustain my wellbeing and happiness.

Yeah.

That'll fix it. If I just stop hating the things men do, then their bad behaviours will cease to exist?

Do you have any sons?

I don't mean you accept their behaviour. I mean that you accept that this is what happened/is happening to you and that this is what some men are like. And you find a way to live with that truth in a way that suits you whether ignore it/engage in activism to change it/find like minded friends or whatever. If you have found that way then good for you, you should bottle it and sell it.

I am one who used to get hassled by men but now don’t as I have aged. It is bliss. So I get the OP, why it would be annoying to be back on their radar. One thing I have noticed is my confidence is very high these days, maybe OP’s is too and they are reacting to confidence. Hope not because I like the confidence and invisibility.

No

And last time I saw my nephews I was pretty invisible to them all except the one who trotted over to chant "thankyouformybirthdaymoney".

And that's fine by me. They're not suffering in any way just because their aunt sat with the other women and didn't babysit the problematic drunk older male widower of the family that none of the men spend the event stuck with either!

Wondering why you care?

Yes I do think I'm very sure of myself and who I am. I enjoy my life.

This isn't new or recent though. The radar picking me back up is.

Are you..

My bad I don't think I mentioned why at all 🤔

Do you have a husband? I’m betting the answer to that is no as well.

No one has said you do need them, though?

Honestly, I'm still a little confused as to what these men are doing exactly that's impacting so negatively on you.

P.s. don't worry about widower, I hear he's roped in two slightly younger retired women to check in on him even though he's still got his physical independence and cognition!