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

No and I have no interest in becoming a nurse with a purse either

Are you usually expected to look after the problematic drunk older male widower? Is that a job that people expect of you?

Personally, I'd expect my DH or other men in the family to deal with him, and they would, too. It wouldn't even occur to me that I'd be expected to babysit some drunk, problematic old man.

My dm got a ridiculous amount of fond male attention when she went fully grey. She now has that sweet little old lady vibe which is hilarious if you know her well. All of a sudden men were holding doors for her, strangers chatting to her. Shop staff and waiters can’t do enough for her. She is everyone’s granny.

Every man’s granny. Women still act normal.

I usually go about my day ignoring men, unless I have to interact with them for some reason. I’m conditioned to love my DH and sons, but I’m not engaging with any other men.

I don’t make eye contact with them, so I don’t really spend any time on them. The few times I have let my guard down I have noticed that I do get looked at, and some my own age or older try and engage with me, but I just give a quick smile and walk away. The other day a man in his 60’s came alongside me and said he’d had an operation, wasn’t feeling well, needed some carrots and I just said “oh dear” and walked away.

I think I look quite good for my age (50’s) but I don’t want male attention and at this age and if I ever become single again I’ll just stay that way. By that age, I won’t need a man. I’ll have my house, car, kids, pension, savings and dildos don’t complain.

Wear headphones. Ideally nice big over-the-head obvious ones. People will be less inclined to chat if they think you can't hear them.

The school-run dads might want recognition for how wonderful they are, parenting their child. So they're looking for female approval (because their wives aren't 'grateful' enough for them doing basic parenting).
Or they are just setting a polite example to their kids.

Edited for rogue apostrophe

He's found a couple of women to mind him now so he's good 👍

He doesn't actually NEED minding day to day, but he's lined them up anyway

Amen

Yes

That last line 🙌

Exactly

MNers: "Why aren't you grateful that they're treating you like a sweet older mummy figure now"

Meanwhile other women: asking my opinion, asking advice, sharing parts of their lives with me, sharing laughs and tears

Gee I don't know why I don't lap up being strange mens stand in granny just because I venture outside looking not young!

So.. you don’t have a husband, a partner, a companion, or even live with a man, and you don’t have any sons. So you’re basing your pure hatred of an entire sex on.. random men you don’t know? Righto 😂 enjoy your life.

Correct

I nurture what nourishes me

By doing so Ive had less and less to do with men over the years.

It's been a good investment, I have great stable relationships and a great support system 👍

Wow. The fucking audacity of her eh?!

You need to practise indifference to them. Practise not making eye contact, don’t engage, don’t smile back and don’t care if their feelings are hurt.

One of the issues I’ve got with my elderly dad, is that he thinks every woman over 40 has been put on this earth to listen to him, be eye candy, and be concerned about him. He’s got women in shops, the local bookies, in Boots, local farm shop and Vera down the road listening to him ramble on about his minor health issues and loneliness. It’s total misogyny.

In fact it is he, my own dad, that made me realise that a lot of men (not all, certainly not my carefully selected lovely DH) think we are an appliance or blow up doll.

Well actually, yes. I’m in no way ‘poor menz’ trust me. But this thread reeks of hatred. Imagine a single man, with no daughters, no close women in his life, starts a thread like this. Just swap ‘man’ for ‘woman’ in OPs posts and tell me you seriously think she’s not unhinged?

And this has nothing to do with ‘oh but women wouldn’t give unwanted attention’ because it sounds like these random men aren’t either 😂

I thought I had been doing that all along! I guess I wasn't and they were disregarding me regardless.

I'll make more of an effort with my body language and use "tools" like hats and headphones and see how it goes

No test run for science today though the weather is vile

I think, maybe, correct me if I'm wrong OP, but I think maybe, she might be acting on her actual experiences?

That doesn't answer my question at all.

I don't care about the man so I don't know why you're telling me about him.

It strikes me that for someone who dislikes men so much (fair enough!) they are absolutely, 100% the centre of attention in your head - it seems you can't stop talking or thinking about them.

I was asking whether your relatives expected you to babysit him. Again, I do not care about the man and whether or not he is 'good' and has people to babysit him.

Imagine a man who had a good solid support system from relationships he had built and nurtured and maintained with other men, so that he didn't NEED women to fill any voids in his life, and he stepped back and decided not only did he not need women, he didn't actually want one of his very own either.

I think that's fine, the reverse passes my vibe check ✅

Agreed. I'm usually the person who everyone thinks is an evil misandrist who is a big meanie to men, but even I think this thread is a little odd, because OP's complaints seem to be that men smile at her, and are generally inoffensively polite? And perhaps make small talk, although how and when is all very vague.

Idk, I'm honestly curious about when/how this small talk is happening, because I almost never have that happen...but I live in a smallish town not a city, which may be why!

I do have other interests and occupations outside of this thread 🤣 but thanks for your concern re whether I had other interests.

Yes the men in the family HAVE been phoning round the older women in the family expressing "worry" about the widowers loneliness.

They can f off. If they have time to phone me to ask if I've spoken to him lately, they have time to phone him instead and go see him and be his company.

Yes I have told them I'm not going to see him.

I simply found it irritatingly ironic that I asked you a question and had no interest in the man, and yet you proceeded to assure me that the man was alright. I thought, "but I don't care about the man!!"

And well, aren't they just a useless bunch? I'm beginning to think that at least some of your anger at men imposing on you is arising from very valid reasons close to home. Good job saying you wouldn't do it - and I hope you told them that they should bloody well call him themselves!!

I don't really care about him either and don't expect you to

I was just saying how he had sorted himself out a couple of wimmin to be his stand in wives / carers. These are new friends not women who he had built an existing roeciptlrocal support system with over the years. Therefore the women in the family have been let off the hook for now, with less expectations coming at us than we probably would have had if he hadn't procured himself some helpful dutiful woman shapes.

I am much closer to the women in my family, and as such am following this situation quite closely, not because I'm "obsessed" with the man, but because I care about the women and there are patterns to look out for....

Well, your family sounds like shit. My sympathies.

It might be worth warning the women off, if there's anything to warn about.

Personally, however, I'd wash my hands of the whole thing and so wouldn't even know what was happening with this older man. I don't mind random men giving me a friendly smile on the street, but I'm not interested in giving even a moment's thought to the emotional support of a problematic man who isn't my concern.

It's much nicer when you just don't take on these burdens, and make it clear to everyone else never to ask you.

You can’t call someone a troll for having a different opinion 😂 reported.

Since dying my hair from brown to blonde I get a lot of looks from men. It's more flattering so keeping it that colour, but sometimes it's nice to just tie it back and put a hat on so I can blend back in again 😂