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.

Yes Bluegrass, it does inform much of what we see in bars ... that's what we're all objecting to!

The twist in all of this, of course, is that so often when an attack on a woman is reported, people will say 'but why did she encourage him?'. The fact that a woman has had a conversation with a stranger in a pub is taken as evidence she must have been up for sex ... yet people on this thread are saying women are rude if they don't talk politely to men they're not interested in.

In short LRD, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't. Lovely. :(

I do think there really is something in that whole 'feigned disinterest' thing: some men truly do think that women are playing hard to get (and of course, some may well be).

Is anyone else reminded of the whole Mr Collins proposal debacle in Pride and Prejudice?!

'...As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females'

And Elizabeth's perfect response...

'I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart.'

These buffoons of men who persist and persist harm the situation for everyone. For the women they annoy, for the good men who have no idea that this sort of harassment goes on and so don't understand why women brush them off when they approach them, and for themselves ultimately, since again, most women's default mode, after so many repeated instances of low-, medium- and unfortunately high-level pestering is to turn away from them. Lose/Lose all round.

In my entire life I have met about 2 women who did the whole "playing it cool" thing if they liked someone. And the "playing it cool" amounted to not going home with them, but flirting aplenty. Being coy. None of them said to men "I'm sorry but I really don't want to talk to you", or "please go away", or "look I am talking to my friend and I haven't seen her for a year and we have a lot of catching up to do, can you leave us to it".

This "rules" "games" thing is bollocks. If people like the look of other people they do not ask them in a serious tone of voice to please go away.

Certainly sometimes men manage to get women and girls to do what they want by going on and on and on and on and refusing to leave them alone until the female does what they want. This is coercion though, and not a good thing. It is not a victory for the male, it does not mean the girl is starting to like him. It means that she is either too tired, or scared, to keep saying no when the bloke just absolutely will not go away. She thinks, maybe if I just have a drink, or have one dance, then he will leave me alone. Doesn't work though, makes it worse.

Situations where men go on and on and on at you and absolutely will not go away no matter what you say and the most gigantic PITA and I loathe them, frankly. So many nights ruined by creeps like this, time I will never get back.

And then when you are driven to being very direct about the fact that you don't want them near you, they get angry, swear at you, call you a dyke or a cunt or ugly or whatever.

Oh what larks these mating rituals are

mr creepy collins! he was awful, now put his type in a pub 200 years on , with a posse of likeminded mates all beered up. NO WONDER Elizabeth's reply is worth memorising.

Exactly - plus ca change...

And some people think everything is fixed...

Unfortunately that kind of behaviour is often successful in those types of environments (bars/clubs) . Some do have thick skins (they have to, got to take the rejections somehow and sitting down will get them nowhere) add alcohol and they can be completely clueless at signals/signs.

I can't see this behaviour changing anytime soon unless it becomes unsuccessful with women in a big way which it isn't at the moment.

Most of the time these guys are not looking for a girlfriend they don't want one (or sometimes they might have one already) what they are looking for is a woman who is interested in a short encounter.

Now saying you have a partner can go two ways generally, the man might give up thinking they are wasting their time. Or the man might think that's perfect who better to have a one with than with someone already attached.

I've a suggestion here: nightclubs are places where people go to pull -or, if not, pull, indulge in a bit of harmless flirtation- why don't the delicate flowers here who get all offended when a bloke doesn't realise they're not interested in the first milli-second of conversation NOT go to them (I'm not talking here about the guys who give abusive responses like telling you to fuck off or hands up skirt those actions are wrong) in first place?
That way, you wouldn't get all offended when some (probably influenced by drink or drugs) male failed to take the hint straightaway until you told him you had a boyfriend (at which point, he, like any rational person, backs off as he realises YOU have chosen someone else).

How can anybody say in all seriousness that they're places to chat? You can't chat in a nightclub. They are pulling-joints, people go there to pull or flirt and men are attracted to women who are dressed attractively (and NO, this is not an excuse to rape and I know that men rape regardless of what women are wearing) and those horrible men there are probably right to think that they can chat to you as it is an open social event. SO WHAT if they don't get hint straightaway? As long as not rude or abusive about it, it's no big deal.

I would say -although obviously I do not know- that not everybody here is socially perfect at all times and I bet some blokes have said about a few posting here: 'God, you know that so-and-so woman, she just would not f* off. Wouldn't take hint at all. How thick was she?' but, then, men don't tend to say things like that- generally-speaking, of course.

So, to conclude: unless a man is abusive to you so f*ing what if he doesn't take hint as soon as you'd like?

Wamster why do you keep going on about nightclubs? No-one else is talking about nightclubs. Where have you got it from?

Most of the times this has happened to me I have been in a pub. Often sitting quietly talking to one of my friends.

So a man going on and on and on at you, and following you around, even though you repeatedly ask him to leave you alone, is fine? And women who don't like this are delicate flowers?

What a load of balls.

Women should only feel concerned if the men commit a criminal act? This goes against all the ideas about women acting on their instincts and is quite dodgy advice TBH.

Am I the only woman who goes to nightclubs to get a bit tipsy and dance with my friends? A girls' night out?

I have been told multiple times that I am cold and frigid, or must be a rampant feminist like Germaine Greer (but she had quite a rampant sex life in her youth, didn't she?), all because I didn't want to chat to an unknown man and waste my night out. I have never gone to a nightclub to pull a man, and so never saw the point in talking to a random bloke when I could be having fun with my friends. I was never rude, just made it plain that I wasn't interested, but I got an awful lot of abuse back. I'm not a delicate flower,but surely it's not strange to find abuse unpleasant and wish that it wouldn't happen?

By the way, am I also the only woman who has done a lot of chatting up (and asking out in my teenager years) of men? The whole "rules" thing is a complete load of bollocks. "Initial reluctance"??? Hollywood has a lot of answer for - I have never known any friend who has been "won over" by the persuasion of a man, and I would be horrified if one had - are women not allowed to have our own feelings any more? We have to allow men to decide them for us?

I get the impression that a lot of unwanted advances take place in nightclubs.
You can't blame a man for chatting-up a woman, and if he does not take the hint as soon as the woman would like, so what? Very, very few people are socially ept at all times. My point is that unless the guy becomes abusive, so what?
The only difference between unwanted chatting-up and wanted chatting-up is the desirability of that attention- the approach by most men tends to be much the same.
If a bloke chats to me and I want him to go away and I sense he is not taking the hint, I will tell him that I am expecting my boyfriend to turn up, that will make the penny drop that he is going to get nowhere- he is more of a creep if he continues! I get a bit annoyed, I admit to that, but I don't resent him or moan about him.
If he is abusive to me, on the other hand, yes I would get upset, but I wouldn't think him a bad guy for not being socially sensitive and not getting hint at the pace I would like.

Wamster I'm glad that you are thick skinned enough to not mind that men don't respect your right to be left in peace. I'm glad that you can deal with men influenced by drink or drugs and not feel the slightest bit threatened, intimidated, offended or annoyed. I'm glad that you're prepared to spend some time waiting for a man to get the hint you're not interested, as long as he's not physically abusive of course.
However, I feel I speak for most of the women on this board when I say we are not 'delicate flowers' we just would like to be able to go somewhere with a partner/ friends/ colleagues and not have our nights ruined by unwanted attention.
Speaking for myself and many women I have encountered in my life, we go to clubs and bars for fun, not to pull, and no, not to chat either. I have never in my life considered that 'nightclubs are places where people go to pull -or, if not, pull, indulge in a bit of harmless flirtation' I always thought that their first purpose was a place for people to gather to dance and drink. If a man makes the mistake of thinking I'm there to pull, I would only ask that they respect my boundries and remove themselves from my personal space once they are corrected.

Or rather some men do - I have had some fantastic men in my life. :)

I find "Will you please just fuck off and leave me alone" usually does the trick!

I am socially inept. I have trouble recognising sarcasm, irony, flippant comments, hints and social cues and have done my entire life. But I have worked hard to learn these cues, I look carefully at people's expressions to judge if they're bored/ amused/ horrifed by what I'm saying. I try really hard to listen to people's tone when they speak to see if what they're saying is a joke or a serious statement.
I have spent so much time trying to take other people's feelings into account because I would hate for a misunderstanding to ruin my friendships and relationships, even with casuall acquaintances and it disturbs me that men are excused from this because they are men.

"I get the impression that a lot of unwanted advances take place in nightclubs."

You get the wrong impression then.

Pubs
The street
The cinema
The shopping centre

You name it.

queenofthemojavewasteland, are you seriously saying here that you think that every person you have chatted to in your life wants to talk to you? Statistically speaking (for obviously I do not know you as a person) they have not; at some point somebody has thought of you: ' I wish queenofthemojavewasteland would eff off and stop talking to me, they bore me' as most people think of EVERYBODY sometimes.'

And, seriously, you think nightclubs are NOT places people go to pull?! You cannot be serious!

wamster I'm sure lots of people go to night clubs to pull, just not me and not a lot of other people I have met.
As I mentioned on my post of 09:04:52 I don't think that everyone I've chatted to wants to speak to me and I'm sure some have wanted me to go away, that's why I try hard to study people's non-verbal communication, and I'm not sure where you got that impression from, could you let me know?

I think that the women on this thread are far from "delicate flowers" and are in fact some of the women who are prepared to ask men to go away and stop bothering them, and are not willing to accept this as something that they must put up with.

All of my friends consider it impolite to ask a man to go away. They will stand there for hours at the bar getting rambled at and smiling politely, sit nicely when a random decides to "join them", smile sweetly when offered a drink. Underneath they are wishing he would fuck off but they have been socialised to be polite. So they stay and chat. They give a fake number. They accept a drink and ditch it. Then at their first opportunity they hide in the bogs until he gives up on waiting, get one of their friends to distract him so they can sneak out, or indicate to their friends that the whole group is to leave.

It's depressing that women regularly feel that they have to go to these lengths as they feel it "rude" to tell a bloke to go away.

I am the only one who asks blokes to go away - and my friends are horrified. But I see no reason why I should have so much of my time taken up by people who I don't know, don't fancy and don't want to talk to. I'm not at work, I'm out to enjoy myself. So I ask them to go. They don't like that. Boo hoo.

"queenofthemojavewasteland, are you seriously saying here that you think that every person you have chatted to in your life wants to talk to you? Statistically speaking (for obviously I do not know you as a person) they have not; at some point somebody has thought of you: ' I wish queenofthemojavewasteland would eff off and stop talking to me, they bore me' as most people think of EVERYBODY sometimes.'"

I am sure that if someone said to queen - "Actually I am here with my friends and I want to go and talk to them now, bye", she would have got teh message, yes. Many men don't.

OrangeHat, the blokes in your scenarios have not really done anything wrong themselves. It is not their fault that the woman they are talking to has failed to tell them to go away.
The fault is with the women themselves. It becomes the man's fault if he then fails to act on the fact that the woman has told him to go away.

Yes they have because I ask them to leave and they don't leave