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

They're a mixed bag, that side of the family

There's some gems. I'm at no risk of being leant on personally with the widow situation. HARD no, he built no relationship with me over the years & now that his wife (who kept in contact on his behalf) is gone I doubt he can remind himself of my DDs names!

But I'm watching the space on behalf of some of the other women in the family who I care about very much. So I'm not washing my hands of it entirely. Not because of any particular interest in HIM, but because of how these things tend to go. Not just in my family: generally.

I love to garden and wild swim, and the fronts / tops are actually quite sun bleached from that now you mention it

Not in a sexy way I don't think, more of a wirey castaway kind of way 🤣

I'm not dying my hair darker

Not yet anyway, maybe as a last resort if all else fails, I don't like upkeep hairstyles

I'll try sunhats first

Imagine having such an over inflated ego talking about altering your appearance so men stop giving you attention 😂 sun hats and hair dye indeed. Thanks OP, this has turned into one of the funniest threads I’ve seen on here over the years now I know it’s all a wind up 😂

Apparantly this can sometimes happen because they think older women will be flattered by the attention and easier to "pull" than a younger one.
I'm in my 40's and have noticed some of the things that you have mentioned happening to me too lately.

Yes this is what I mean by Joe Swash

He makes a beeline for the older looking women, then flatters them and flirts with them

Not because anyone thinks he might actually want to sleep with them, but because he thinks they'll be most grateful for the attention, and he gets to look like the great guy who boosts the old uns egos.

And the flip side is if the older women don't play along in good humour, they'll be told how he wasn't REALLY trying to shag you, get over yourself it was just banter" as if thinking "too much" of themselves is the only reason for them not to like this patronising dynamic

Is it that you buy into the idea that there's such a thing as unwanted attention from men towards women?

Or is the ridiculous part to you the residual hopes of woman that they might be able to deter attention by doing the opposite of whatever we are told we do that might catch their eye or solicit their attentions? It's it crazy to hope that we have even the SLIGHTEST bit of control over our interactions with men? Even if it's in small ways?

Or both?

Headphones are definitely your friend going forward. You don't even need to be listening to anything. They will deter random chat.

Oh Gosh, here we go 😂

I’ve got blond hair and no man can ever resist me brigade.

FYI, the most beautiful women I know are brunette and red head.

As a man, yes, I'm fully aware of my intro, I feel exceptionally qualified to give some expert advice here: get a short haircut. Nothing reduces the amount of unwanted attention you get more reliably than a short haircut with spiky tips. Proven effective on 9 out of 10 men.

Oh gosh here we go again

"I wish men would leave me alone, it's worse when I do / wear XYZ, I wish I was free to not have to second guess what I do / say / wear"

The Fawners: "YOU WISH you were that attractive to men! So full of yourselves"

We have covered the above points already on here...

"AS A MAN..." you don't have the insight to read "I wish men would leave me the fuck alone" and decide to just.... do that

Leave me alone

Are we just going to completely ignore the fact the OP thinks any woman who does like any sort of male attention is a 'slut'???

The misogyny is coming from inside the house with this one.

And no, I don't want to be catcalled, touched up, hassled, etc. but still getting admiring glances as a prematurely menopausal woman going through a crisis of confidence is a little boost to my long since deflated ego. But yeah I guess I must just be a slut 🙄

Probably. Because it's pretty obvious that that wasn't even remotely close to the context of my use of the word slut.

Maybe irony is dead.

Care to explain then, as it very much felt like it? Oh and I'm probably a slut? Is that what you're saying?

If you had any genuine intention of understanding the context you would have no problem figuring it out.

But okay, here it is 🥄

I was paraphrasing what another poster had said about me.
For emphasis.

Nah

It's just the ol lazy attack of skim read for a swear

And go "LOOK YOU DID A SWEAR THAT MAKES YOU THE BAD"

Please, get some therapy for your level of hatred.

Or better still, move yourself off grid and become a hermit. I'm surprised anyone is giving you the time of day or anything more with the quite frankly disgusting attitude you have.

And before you go off into another rant about your experiences, I'm a survivor of rape. Repeatedly. It doesn't make me automatically think that no man should ever make eye contact with me and if he does it's clearly because he's also a rapist

I think you have reached a wonderful watershed moment in your life when you have come out the other side of all the crappy stuff that women have to put up with or think they do, and you are now your own openly "don't give a f" woman. The inner you that was always there has somehow communicated itself in the vibes you give off, and surprise, surprise, men notice it! If someone changes, others respond to the change. I am guessing you are getting more respect than before. Good for you OP. 🌺

I don't need men to give me the time of day in order to find great company. I don't need anything from men. The alternative to entertaining men is not in fact a life of solitude. Far from it. There is an endless amount of non male great company to be found.

Why does it threaten and upset you if I wanna opt out of male company?

In fact I didn't even initially CHOOSE to opt out of male company, it was men (generally) who wrote off MY company after a certain age. I just found it to be a blessing not a curse, and have grown attached to not having to deal with them and do not want their attention back thank you very much.

Your level of hatred for men is ridiculous. I'm done here

I agree. The level of misandry overall and the misogyny against many of us ‘stupid bitches’? is quite sickening. I joined in initially as I thought it might be quite a lighthearted question. I haven’t seen this level of hatred on here for years, I don’t know how the thread is still up, honestly.

Why didn’t you ask if she had a wife? Lesbians get unwanted attention from men too. Especially ones pretending to be women.