Some men really hate women being single don't they?

[solidgoldbrass]

inspired by a couple of other threads including the separatism one. Have you ever noticed that if a man you don't like or know or fancy is trying to persuade you to date him or spend time with him or even just talk to him, the only really effective way to make him fuck off is to tell him that you are another man's property. Just saying No, leave me alone, no thanks, actually I am having a conversation with my female friend and am not interested in talking to you, never seems to work until you throw in My Boyfriend or My Husband.

Wamster: I will try and give you the world's most inadequate analogy. suppose you are in a bar and a man (statistically probably bigger than you) you have never met before comes up and without any invitation begins to talk to you about star trek (for this to work you must have no interest in star-trek, if you are in real life a massive fan please replace it with football, or the greatest hits of Elton John, anything really)
So after a short period of this you make it clear you have no interest in what he is discussing, but he takes this as an invitation to continue talking to you, because clearly you just need to hear more about it to love it.
You try to walk away to another part of the bar but he follows you, continuing to try and convince you to come to his place and just watch a couple of episodes because he is sure you will love it. In fact he is making the implication that if you don't love it there must be something wrong with you.
Every time you move he follows you, everything you say to tell him to go away; up to and include saying flat out "p* off" he laughs off because he loves a challenge and is sure you'll come around, after all who doesn't like Star Trek.
You're stuck with him, and he is not going to go away no matter how much you ignore him.

When does this cross your boundaries? He's not assaulted you physically, but he's certainly invaded your space, ignored your wishes and occupied your time in a deeply creepy and uncomfortable way.

This totally trivializes the other aspect of course, which is that there is always the implicit threat of that physical assault.

If you're still not getting this the only recommendation I have left is Schrödinger?s Rapist.

I don't think anyone on here was saying it's a crime, just that it's annoying.

The moron who sexually assaulted me was initially a friend. He became a friend because I chatted to him at a party - he thought this meant I fancied him, whereas it meant - I was sat next to him. He thought this for years (I never EVER fancied him, not for a moment, and never gave him any real indication as such). When it came around to him sexually assaulting me, I think he saw it as his "chance". I had just ended a two year relationship, and was single and therefore "up for grabs" as it were. It was a horrible experience and changed me as a person.

I've had a similar situation at work recently where my managers, despite me telling them "no" about four times in relation to changing roles, have refused to listen to me. It's annoying and in my mind shows that the person has no respect for your opinion.

It doesn't have to be a crime to be unpleasant and unnecessary Wamster. And why should we have to put up with someone persistently making a nuisance of themselves in a social setting when we don't want them to? It is all about lack of respect. Would you really carry on talking to someone who has told you they are not interested? If not, why should other people not offer you the same respect and courtesy?

So no one should get upset/annoyed when they are being pestered by someone they have said no to?

You need it to be a dangerous situation before it can be considered an annoyance?

'Tell me- because I am really, really confused here- but people are saying that the men will not take no for an answer, how exactly are they not taking no for an answer? Are they physically trapping you in room? Are they attacking you physically? Because THAT is what 'refusing to take no for an answer' REALLY means.'

How on earth did you come to that conclusion?!

Are you assuming the only question men ever ask women they chat up is 'can I attack you now'? Is it only when threatened with attack that women could conceivably say 'no'?

huh ?

this isn't about breaking the law

this is about why some people (in this case, men who won't take no for an answer) think they are above the usual social and political niceties

in other words, who the fuck do they think they are ?

'Tell me- because I am really, really confused here- but people are saying that the men will not take no for an answer, how exactly are they not taking no for an answer? Are they physically trapping you in room? Are they attacking you physically? Because THAT is what 'refusing to take no for an answer' REALLY means.'

um, some examples from my own experience:

Man 'Can I buy you a drink?'
Me 'No thanks'
Man 'Come on, it's only one drink' (repeat many times)

Man2 'Come dance with me'
Me 'No thanks'
Man2 'You got a boyfriend or something?'
Me 'I'm just don't want to, sorry'
Man2 '@$%* you then, fat cow'

There are several more, on the same theme, with even more interesting descriptions of me. Tell me Wamster where did they take no for an answer?

Ah, but queen, you see, your time and your feelings and your perception of your own safety really don't matter. Until you're physically attacked, men are perfectly entitled to do whatever they choose, even if you say no. There now: doesn't your fluffy little head feel better knowing that?

Of course, LRD I forgot that because on those occasions I wasn't attacked, I shouldn't have let previous experience colour my opions of men who probably were going to make all my dreams come true silly me. Just because they weren't doing anything illegal I should have smiled, giggled and flicked my hair until he got bored of me.

I practically live in gay bars for precisely his reason.

It's facebook bloody chat as well. When i split from xDP and removed relationship status (which I'll now never use again but we did get together when I was 20) this torrent of men just appeared out of nowhere. One in particular I have known for years and I wrongly presumed he wanted to take me for dinner to cheer me up. Then he mentioned "naughty dancing" - I threw up on my phone and stopped replying. Eurghh.

So, you shouldn't complain about losers who won't leave you alone, much like you shouldn't complain when in a nightclub, if men grab your arse.

It used to happen to me all the time when I was younger and actually went to nightclubs. I then found gay clubs and didn't dare step into a straight one for about 5 years.

funny thing is - have you ever tried to get a straight man into a gay club? HA. They're always convinced that they're so fabulously attractive naturally every gay man in the club will want to try and sleep with them/grab them/hit on them etc (basically what most straight men subject women to in clubs) so they refuse, IME.

AbsDuCroissant Tue 02-Aug-11 15:21:35
So, you shouldn't complain about losers who won't leave you alone, much like you shouldn't complain when in a nightclub, if men grab your arse.

Of course you should it's 100% right that others respect your boundaries.

But on the other hand being rude to someone who takes time to talk to you in a bar isn't the right thing to do.

But on the other hand being rude to someone who takes time to talk to you in a bar isn't the right thing to do.

But it is, it absolutely is, when he won't take no for an answer, treats you like an object, ignores everything you tell him and behaves as though your wishes and preferences are of no account whatsoever. There comes a point when 'rudeness' is just sensible self-preservation in the face of a person with few or no scruples about treating you properly.

Yeah new DP won't come to Heaven with me but I think that's because I tried to get him to come to PornIdol and that might be a step too far . He is a hottie though, and otherwise very liberal...

I went to a club a while ago and a creepy hideous man actually put his hand up my skirt. I saw what he was doing and grabbed his arm before anything too terrible happened but it was a truly horrible experience.

i find it amazing how different people's experiences of life can be. i was single through choice from age 23 to 28 and was rarely pestered. i am not ugly, i was quite fashionable, but i did go out in mixed sex groups of friends, didn't go out in anywhere i'd consider a 'cattle-market', lived in london and somehow had an air of 'i don't want a boyfriend'. i don't know why. maybe people thought i was a lesbian?

i occassionally met somebody i liked (and i did have a couple of very short flings) and of course i was occassionally bothered a tiny little bit by a drunk... but i honestly didn't get pestered on the scale that many people here clearly do.

[met my DH through internet dating six years ago - had to resort to internet dating as my 'single and happy with it' signals were still too strong even though i was looking]

new DP, chubs ?

I don't think I've ever been rude when someone speaks to me in a bar (not at first anyway) because secondly, I don't like to offend someone who may just have been a nice guy and firstly, I don't want some man who will always be bigger than me, and mostly drunk, getting angry and possibly violent at me.

I am 45 yo and a bloke put his hand up my skirt just the other month

it wasn't a short skirt

he was pissed, but no excuse whatsoever

AF - yeah. accidentally. really, really wasnt looking for anything. but yeah, taking it very slowly. he is the polar opposite of the ex in every conceivable manner. anyway, very... very slowly.

I should have put this on another thread in praise of moisturising, but anyway.

A couple of years ago I was staying in a youth hostel on my own and went through to the communal bathroom in the morning to go and clean my teeth, having just slathered on vast quantities of sunscreen and moisturiser. A weirdy creepy old man was in the hallway and started talking at me and grabbed my arm as I walked past. Thank farking goodness for the moisturiser as that, combined with heat, made me slippery so I could run away (which I did. And then locked the door behind me and stayed for about half an hour until I knew he was gone).

but then, I have always attracted weirdoes (male and female) so just have to live with it (had a straight woman who stalked and harassed me for about a year).

organic - what if they've been rude first though? I love the conversations you can strike up with a good pub crowd you don't know - but if I am already having a chat and say so, IMO it is rude for anyone, man or woman, to push that.

I doubt many people are outright rude to someone when they first approach (despite the fact that they may have interrupted a conversation you were having), organicgardner. For example I don't think "No thank you" to having a drink bought for you is rude. What is rude is them carrying on trying to persuade you to have said drink when you have already said no. I would have less compunction about being rude to them in return, at that point. And I may even raise my voice .

As a side note, is Heaven still going? I did some work there about 15 years ago - that's taken me back to previous life!

chubs

< cough> I told you so

I spent a long time once enlightening a bemused male friend as to why women were 'unfriendly' in clubs. I listed all the instances of harrassment, verbal and physical, that I could remember happening to me and friends of mine in the last year. It took about an hour and he was astounded at what he heard. He would never dream of harassing a woman, or touching her without express permission, and he doesn't hang out with any men who would. That, plus his male privilege, meant that he was perpetrating the 'grumpy women' stereotype with no clue as to the reasons behind it.

My partner is similarly perplexed by it all. Next time I go out in a woman-only group, I'm going to encourage my partner and his friends to come out in a separate group, so that they can see just how much of a pain other men can be when women are perceived to be 'alone'.

I specifically stated that if someone is rude then it's right for you to expect them to leave you alone, and as for buying you a drink when you don't want it? Then that to is reasonable to be sent away and be left alone.

But being approached in a reasonable fashion initially and then refusing that approach by being rude is wrong.

Loud leery people in bars get on my nerves too, but I see it as a minor annoyance.