The other day, my parents asked me (22M) if there were any women that I find attractive (I guess because they’re paranoid about me being gay lol) and I told them yes, there’s a fair number of women that I’ve seen in public that I’ve found attractive.
They asked me, “Do you talk to any of them?” and I said “No??? It’s inappropriate to approach women in public unless you have business with them.”
I told them that it is only appropriate for a man to talk to a woman he doesn’t know when the social situation is explicitly designed for meeting strangers—dating apps, hobby groups, meeting friends of friends, etc. In my view, cold approaching women you don’t know just because you’re attracted to them is harassment.
My parents told me that I’m being ridiculous and making excuses because I’m nervous. They are adamant that I need to learn to approach women or else I will never find a partner. I told them that times have changed and this is disrespectful and potentially predatory behavior along the lines of unsolicited flirting and catcalling. Approaching women is a violation of their personal space and could make them feel very uncomfortable, especially if they feel like they don’t have an easy way out.
My parents are almost 60 and they are very conservative, so they don’t exactly follow progressive discourse, and I feel like they’re super out of touch on this as a result. Particularly, my mom tends to strike up conversations with other women in public, and she’s skeptical when I tell her that I can’t do the same thing because I’m a man and would be viewed as a potential predator.
But I also don’t get out much, which makes me second-guess how distorted my understanding of the social world is from reality. My parents are like a broken clock, and sometimes they DO have a point about something despite 90% of their opinions being insane. Maybe there is a more nuanced reality that I’m not picking up on.
So I wanted to ask here. Are my parents out of touch? Am I out of touch? Are we both wrong? I want to know your opinion.
Not being able to freely communicate with about half of humanity is definitely a handicap, lol. Nothing that can’t be learned though!
Just learn to talk to all people in social situations, and don’t make it transactional.
The right people will just drop into your life naturally.
Great advice. The bit about it not being transactional is very important. Go live your life, chat with everyone to connect to other human beings.
Women don’t want to be approached in public.
There’s a difference between “approaching women” and “APPROACHING WOMEN.”
You should be comfortable interacting with women in any environment simply because a) they are human beings and b) they’re over 50% of the population.
You can’t go outside and just never talk to women, that’s actually creepier.
You don’t have to be trying to pick someone up to, you know, treat them like a human being and talk to them.
I can chat up an old grandma but an attractive person will make me shit my pants
That’s something you need to get over and you do that by practice. Forget the “attractive” part, focus on the “person” part.
A classic book to read:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People
It’s ok to talk to a woman. But judging by your wall of text… maybe it’s not ok for you specifically to talk to a woman.
that OP actually cares enough about other people to think this over means he’s probably more tolerable than most men in my life
when talking to strangers, really good rule to follow is “don’t create a situation for somebody who isn’t completely free to leave” as in, they can exit the situation or ignore you without any consequences to their job/ night out/ errands/ enjoyment of shared space
most of the rest of the context usually sorts itself out from there, right?
Think the best advice is that when you talk to a woman in public you should have a reason besides her being a woman in public. Like if a man approached me because he thought my shirt looked cool or he saw me reading a book he liked that’s a fine bit of casual conversation. If he just point blank asked if I had a boyfriend as if that’s the only reason a woman wouldn’t want to date a random man she knows nothing about I’d tell him that was none of his business.
Also, she should be able to remove herself from the conversation if she wants to. If she’s at work then she can’t do that, for example, but if you’re at a public park then she can just walk off. At least that’s how I think of it. Obviously I don’t ever want to make someone feel like they have to if I’m just trying to chat, but the point is if they have the option then it should be way less likely to wind up that way
I have a different problem - I sometimes perceive extremely attractive women as “usual”, until my head is too dizzy with them, and I also sometimes perceive them being kind as flirt, and flirt as being more serious, and being more serious as being kind, and all the combinations, and get confused when they approach me, and in general this leads to trying to start\see possible relationships being a point of pain. I don’t want to treat another human being as a piece of nice meat in any fundamental regard. At the same time when a beautiful woman does certain things with her facial muscles, willpower and feel of reality just leave the chat. At the same time she might be a very good person and do that as part of a sincere emotion, so just discarding moments where feel of reality leaves the chat would discard most of women who do that. And the rest would be discarded by fear of not delivering on expectations (not of being nice and smart, that I can accept mostly not being, but of being barely reliable and not again falling into depression or stagnating in personal development or emotional fakery or something like that).
OK, yes, this thread is not for autistic people.
Your parents might be right, you are paying too much attention to the rules. The rules are like a noise canceling filter, you shouldn’t apply them for moments important to you. If you really like someone, break the rules, then lick your wounds if she says that was ugly ; she most likely won’t. By breaking the rules I don’t mean doing anything , just what’s not fully appropriate, but not evil. Like - if you lost your phone and need to call someone urgently, how appropriate would it be to approach the first person you see? But is that justified? Relationships are kinda important and rare enough.
I have lots of advice but I haven’t so much as held someone’s hand since 2005. So about twenty years now.
The only advice I have is find women your age and ask your questions to them. See what they say. Then go from there.
That’s real solid advice. You’ve summed up all these walls of texts nicely
It’s inappropriate to approach women in public unless you have business with them."
What are you Amish?
We’re autistic bro
Both of you are right. Both are wrong.
My advice, if you can safely take a shot, do it. Fortune favors the bold, not the stupid. Be polite, be flirty, pay attention to their body language, don’t try hard to turn a no into a yes, don’t worry about rejection.
If you dont ask, the answer is automatically “No” .
“”“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott" - ZoomBoingDing
This is the answer. You can absolutely approach a woman if you are interested in her, just be respectful and polite about it. I’m a woman who has been both rudely approached and politely approached.
Scenario 1- bad experience: I was at a show seeing some metal bands I really liked. I was wearing a shirt with a local band that was big in the 80s 90s. The band is bit niche, not hugely known to the general public. So I’m minding my own business waiting to buy a drink, and this guy approaches me, points to my boobs and says “Do you even know who that band is?” I told him “yes, I’m a huge fan and have been listening to them for years.” That should have been the end of it, but then he tells me “oh I’m only asking since my niece has been wearing my old band shirts because they look cool”. Ok bud. There was no reason to tell me this. He was not approaching other men and asking them this same question. He was belittling me, in order to get me to talk to him. Which is a common tactic around men who don’t respect women as people (see Dennis Reynolds from it’s always sunny)
Scenario 2 - positive experience: Again, at a metal concert. I’m there with my husband and his bff. I was there to see the headliner, they were there to see the band before. My husband wasn’t feeling great all day, and his friend had to work early the next day, so they left and I stayed to watch the headlining band. I noticed this group of guys, especially one, sort of looking at me every once and a while, but I ignored it and watched the band. Once the show was over, I left and was waiting at the bus stop. The same group of guys approached me, and one that was looking at me during the show says “hi, my name is ____. I’m sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to introduce myself since I couldn’t help looking at you during the show. I don’t want to be a creep but I think you’re beautiful, would you like to grab a drink with me and my friends?” So I thanked him, and said I would have to pass, but hoped they all had a fun night". The they left, I got on the bus, felt safe and not bothered. This man complimented me in a respectful way and that was the end of it.
Hope that helps!
Do you talk to men you don’t know in public? Small talk, or jokes at a bar? In the grocery store? Why wouldn’t you talk to women? I am a woman and have daughters and none of us is offended by this, nor even the hypersensitive one, not even the lesbian. It’s friendly talk.
It’s harassment if you don’t stop when you get a rejection. It’s harassment if you sidle up with some horrifying personal comment about her body, or grab her arm and make her listen. You aren’t going to do any of that. Small talk is not harassment, flirting is not harassment.
You are right in one way - it was bad that guys used to be able to say anything with absolute impunity, and women couldn’t stop them, I was around for the end of that. Those guys didn’t treat women like people, but in a way, neither are you, right? We are just people, talk to us like people.
I mean I generally don’t talk to strangers in public unless I have a specific reason to. Why would I talk to someone I don’t know in a supermarket? They’re just other people doing the same thing I am
"Woah, those apples look so good! Which ones are they? "
“I can never tell if a watermelon is ripe, can you?”
When I am buying something, often someone will say “have you tried that before? What is it like?”
Stuff like that. Small talk. We aren’t machines, we are social animals who interact with each other. I do think people are quick to discount the value of weak social interaction, shallow relationships, and focus on deep friendships and romantic ones, but those weak connections are so valuable too. They are like a glue for a community, connections that don’t demand much from you.
I’m far from extroverted and moderately socially awkward, but still my life is so much better when I look up and say hi to people.
Yeah have never had anyone say anything like that to me at the grocery store unless I’m shopping with them. If they did I’d probably just be vaguely annoyed. Maybe it’s s culture thing I don’t know
This ^ I was at the hospital today getting some lab work done. Another guy was sitting across from me, head down, in his hands, breathing heavily.
“Hey man, you OK? You don’t look so hot, can I get you some water or something?”
He was OK, 81 years old, he was just upset from being jacked around by the hospital administration. We had a good conversation. I think he was fine when I left.
Those guys didn’t treat women like people, but in a way, neither are you, right? We are just people, talk to us like people.
This is probably the best advice you could give tbh. All the relationship stuff can’t be forced anyway but you can at least practice not freaking out and fumbling the bag around women. Not everything has layers of double meaning, romantic tension and secret motives. Sometimes you just wanna approach someone and tell them something because it’s fun to talk to strangers.
I don’t talk to anyone in public because I have historically considered it to be a violation of their right to be left alone. I believed that people stick together in groups of their friends or family, and those groups don’t want to interact with each other. Solo people are a group of one. If everyone follows those rules, there will be no unplanned or unwanted interactions with strangers. Given the current state of the world, the constant phone usage, and general social unrest, it made perfect sense to me that nobody would want to interact with anyone that they didn’t already trust. Based on the responses to that post, it seems like that mental model is flawed.
But this is why I assumed that the discourse around sexual harassment extended to approaching women at all. It was because I already believed that talking to strangers in general was an act of violating their space. So, I assumed that the discourse around guys being creeps was also talking about that. After all, I’d probably get nervous if someone randomly started talking to me, so of course it would make sense for other people to feel super uncomfortable from it, especially if you don’t know if the person talking to you is a predator.
This is an example of how wanting to do the right thing, combined with my limited social understanding, leads to weird and extreme takes.
This makes sense, if they modeled steamrolling people instead of gentle conversation I can understand you don’t have practice or guidance on conversation, and also it’s really normal to feel like you need to have alone space if your family didn’t give you enough of it.
But - unplanned and unwanted are two different things. Without that element of luck, randomness, our lives would be so dull. It’s nice when spontaneous conversation happens. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, doesn’t have to mean anything. I would say if you want to practice the non-confrontational small talk literally just look up from your phone when you are out and about and say hi to people, let them greet you too, see if you feel more comfortable over time.
I will note this is a sort of regional thing - Florida is sort of like ‘The South’ and kind of not, but in terms of people just striking up random conversations, we are like the South. It’s very much normal here. NYC is different people are in a hurry and brusque.
I’m going to echo the suggestion to approach men (and later women) for whatever reason to practice approaching people you don’t “have business” with.
Ask a question, comment on something benign (cool shirt?), etc.
And also expand your list of contexts where it’s ok to talk to people.
Anywhere that groups of people gather is a good option. Concerts, cafés potentially, parks…as long as you aren’t cornering anybody, you should be fine.
You are wrong. Yeah times have changed, but not so much that you can’t just fucking talk to someone. Say hi, strike up a conversation, whatever, and trust that anyone who doesn’t want to talk will say so. The important thing when that happens is to listen to them and leave them alone.
You are right, women are not into bots.
