Why is it some men get all offended if a woman they don't know is wary around them?

[tblue37]

165. That doesn't always work, though. I have often had men come up and demand

to know what I am reading. Yes, "demand" is the right word. They insist that I tell them what the book is. If I say the title, out of politeness or just to try to get them to leave me alone, they then ask, "Is it any good?" or "What's it about?"

After that happened a handful of times (when I was still young and hadn't worked out a system--and did not yet realize that until I really shut them down, they were going to continue to pester me), I no longer bothered trying to be polite in responding to the first question.

When approached with "What are you reading," I would simply respond (curtly): "Book."

If they asked the follow-up question, I would look daggers and say quite firmly, "Am I bothering you?" (I have a very good “daggers” look and an effective “firm” voice.) Usually the man would back off then, but never without muttering unpleasantly at me for not being "nice." And sometimes their verbal response would go beyond mere muttering.

The point is that they had no interest in knowing what I was reading. They were trying to chat me up. I did not want to be chatted up, but apparently my wishes were entirely irrelevant. I had no right not to be chatted up by any random male stranger who found me attractive enough to be worth a go.

The poster who keeps insisting that women are being unfair to assume the worst of all those innocent friendly guys who should be assumed innocent until proven guilty is obviously unaware that a woman in public has a right not to be chatted up by random male strangers if she does not wish to be.

Even when I felt safe enough (and by the way, we often do not feel all that safe when approached, because many men convey such a sense of entitlement that it comes across as demanding and aggressive), I was still being intruded upon by someone who obviously felt no qualms at all about demanding that I pay attention to him and at least flirt with him (because that was precisely what the whole point of his intended interaction was).

Hey, fella--Who the frack has a right to demand that I flirt with him? Don't pretend you don't know that is what such men are doing!

And if the woman even says a polite but uninviting "Hi" back, they take it as an invitation, so if she continues the exchange--as some women do because, even though they do not wish to, they do not feel they have a right to refuse to submit to such demands on their "niceness"--then these men assume they have a right to demand your phone number, or to demand a date, or even to follow you the frack home!

There is no point in these exchanges at which a woman is permitted to end the exchange, up to and including the demand for her number, for a date, or for the right to actually follow her to her destination. No matter when she wants the exchange to stop, she will be in the wrong, according to such men, because she will not be being “nice.” She will be, oh, so unfairly assuming this innocent, friendly man is an incipient rapist.

Whether she refuses to return the first "Hi" or the first answer to the "innocent" question ("What are you reading?&quot , or tries to end the exchange at the next question, the next one, or the next—and remember, these "questions" soon turn into outright requests and/or demands for much more than just talk, though being forced to chat with a stranger you do not want to chat with is upsetting enough! —no matter where she tries to close down the interaction, the man will become annoyed at the very least, but usually much more than annoyed.

We are lucky if all we get are dirty looks or sotto voce mutterings. Usually we get outrage, insults, even raised voices and threats.

Any man who will invade a woman's personal space without invitation and then persist in doing so when she signals that his attentions are unwelcome is a potential rapist, because he is already demonstrating that he does not take no for an answer and that he does not think the woman has any right whatsoever to her own personal space, to her own privacy, to her own autonomy, or to anything else that he does not want to cede to her.

There is a very short distance from that attitude to the decision to take whatever else he wants from her, whether or not she wishes to give it up, as long as he thinks he can get away with it.

The many men who are not potential rapists do not have that attitude toward women. They recognize that the woman has a right to decide whom she will talk to, and that when she doesn't want to talk to a strange man, she has a right to make that decision, too, without being glared at, muttered at, yelled at, or otherwise subjected to threatening words, vocal tones, gestures, or body language.

On edit: I am 62 years old now, and though I would prefer to be young and healthy, I must admit I was very glad when I was no longer young enough and pretty enough to be the target of unwanted attention from strange men!