"You have no say in determining what a woman feels is sexual harassment."

[Canarr]

I didn't say a one night stand. But you know nothing about her and a lot of women I know are sick of strange guys coming up talking to them for all of 2 minutes before asking them on a date and it being expected that they should be grateful A MAN deigned to consider them worthy of dating.

Most people I know men and women don't consider the short amount of "chatting up" that happens before being asked out enough to know more than "I want to have sex with you at some point"

Unless a person is psychic 2 minutes is not enough time to establish that yes this is a person I want a relationship with. So from the perspective of the person being asked the other person is looking to have sex with you and is basing wanting to get to know you better only on the fact they know they'd like to have sex with you at some point.

Odds are it's not on how you feel about your parents, what your favorite movie is or even your sense of humor. All I am saying is rather than approach women like we want to chat them up we approach them like we approach other men. Be friendly and make a damn friend.

Of course you don't know enough about someone to establish whether or not you want a relationship with them after two minutes in the grocery store; that is why you ask them out on a date. To find out whether or not that spark of interest that prompted you to talk to them is supported by enough mutual interests/personal chemistry/whatever to want to meet for a second date, and so on.

But attraction is the first step. Yes, wanting to have sex at some point is certainly involved, as well. But since there is a difference between looking for a relationship and looking for a friend, it stands to reason that the forming of both would be approached in a different way. Sure, sometimes a relationship will develop out of a friendship, but not always. Sometimes it's a sudden spark during a chance encounter, followed by a short conversation.

No, you shouldn't harass women; that should be obvious. No, you shouldn't hit on employees at stores you frequent, because they might not be free to tell you to get lost. But to categorically say that you shouldn't try to - respectfully! - chat up a woman you find attractive because someone else may already have done that today doesn't make sense to me.

[Mr Hero]

Most people I know men and women don't consider the short amount of "chatting up" that happens before being asked out enough to know more than "I want to have sex with you at some point"

Unless a person is psychic 2 minutes is not enough time to establish that yes this is a person I want a relationship with. So from the perspective of the person being asked the other person is looking to have sex with you and is basing wanting to get to know you better only on the fact they know they'd like to have sex with you at some point.

If that friendship then yields a dating opportunity great. But being asked out by someone you've gotten to know will seem more sincere and genuine than by the guy who spent all of two minutes with you in the grocery store when you were just shopping.

I'll be honest even if I spent a whole day together with someone I probably wouldn't ask her out based on that because that was likely one encounter in one environment with little variance in how she would act or be.

Get to know a person before asking them out
But you can't ask a person out as a means to get to know them
Catch 22 indeed

[jackfaire]

Get to know a person before asking them out
But you can't ask a person out as a means to get to know them
Catch 22 indeed

Which is why no straight guy has any straight guy friends since not being able to date other straight guys means that it's impossible for him to get to know any other straight guys. Of course.


Dates aren't a means to get to know someone. Traditionally dates are a time to present an image carefully cultivated to get into a relationship. Most of the time the "true self" is revealed later. This is why most of the work and problems appear after the two start living together all of the time.

AT this point the person stops putting on their "I am your loving one dimensional boyfriend" suit and puts on their "hey look I'm a real person suit"

But since there is a difference between looking for a relationship and looking for a friend

Looking at all of the successful relationships I have ever seen.

My definition of successful both partners are happy with each other, like each other, and care about more than just sex with each other.

Looking at those relationships. No there is no difference. The person they are with is defined as their best friend. The people they are friends with share characteristics, likes, dislikes and various other traits with the person they are committed to. The things they look for in friends are the same things they look for in a significant other.

This is why so many people meet their significant others in situations like work, school, social clubs etc. Because they hang out in those situations as friends first then they ask the person out and it becomes more. My mom and step dad are an example of a couple who met socially, became friends, then a couple. All of the couples that I know who are still together met and were friends before they started dating.

Most of my friends single and not do not have a lot of successful relationships that started with asking complete strangers out on a date. I am not even saying you have to know someone for months or years. I am saying you have to actually know them.

Asking someone you know on a date isn't sexual harassment because you know them. I work in retail and for all of the women I work with the creepiest and weirdest thing is when a guy in the very first conversation they have ever had is him asking her out on a date.

Whether it's at work, in the store, on a plane, on a train or while eating green eggs and ham. Some guy chatting them up in order to get a date is sexual harassment if they didn't specifically go into a situation where they were seeking to date like a dating service, dating app, singles night etc.

Yes occasionally they will meet the one stranger that's hit on them that day that they are actually interested in going on a date with. But think of all of the other things in our lives that could work like that.

Imagine if every restaurant you walked past had some guy jump out in front of you interrupt your day to be all "HEY LISTEN! Do you want to eat here? I am this great Mexican Place awesome with Kids want to eat here huh do ya?" And their whole justification was "Well you're going to eat somewhere and it might be here and someone's going to say yes to eating here so no this isn't harassment! What do you mean you get to decide if this is harassment or not?"

Hell we wouldn't accept that bullshit so why should women have to accept that guys are going to hit on them for being out in public and sexually attractive?

[Canarr]

Looking at all of the successful relationships I have ever seen.

My definition of successful both partners are happy with each other, like each other, and care about more than just sex with each other.

Well, yes. That is a fairly obvious definition. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible to reach this state of mutual happiness through dating, without having been friends first.

Looking at those relationships. No there is no difference. The person they are with is defined as their best friend. The people they are friends with share characteristics, likes, dislikes and various other traits with the person they are committed to. The things they look for in friends are the same things they look for in a significant other.

This is why so many people meet their significant others in situations like work, school, social clubs etc. Because they hang out in those situations as friends first then they ask the person out and it becomes more. My mom and step dad are an example of a couple who met socially, became friends, then a couple. All of the couples that I know who are still together met and were friends before they started dating.

Most of my friends single and not do not have a lot of successful relationships that started with asking complete strangers out on a date. I am not even saying you have to know someone for months or years. I am saying you have to actually know them.

Yes, friendship is an important part of a relationship. I never disputed that. However, it is not 100% the same thing - different criteria apply when looking for a person with whom you're going to spend most of your non-working time with, than a person you're only in contact with for a limited time. Quirks that aren't an issue when a friend has them, can be a relationship-breaker.

And the other, more important point: it doesn't necessarily start out the same way. For a potential relationship, there must be attraction at some point. Otherwise, why would you seek out that person for a potential partner? While yes, sometimes attraction may grow out of friendship, more often than not, the attraction shows up fairly early in the acquaintance, and influences the friendship. There simply is a difference in the way you feel towards someone you are friends with *and* attracted to, and towards someone you are just friends with.

While I would agree with you that most of the successful relationships I have observed have started out of some sort of friendship or acquaintance, the same goes for most of the failed relationships I know of. Two people would take their friendship to the next level, as they say (most of the time, the others in the same circle of friends saw that coming); maybe it works out, and they stay together, or maybe it doesn't, and they split up again and look for someone else.

Asking someone you know on a date isn't sexual harassment because you know them. I work in retail and for all of the women I work with the creepiest and weirdest thing is when a guy in the very first conversation they have ever had is him asking her out on a date.

So... you're basically saying that, if I meet someone new through work, or my health club, or anywhere else I socially frequent, and I feel an attraction towards her, I should hide that until I've gotten to know her? Isn't that kind of disingenuous, like having a secret agenda in getting to know someone? Wouldn't it be better to be upfront about your intentions?

Whether it's at work, in the store, on a plane, on a train or while eating green eggs and ham. Some guy chatting them up in order to get a date is sexual harassment if they didn't specifically go into a situation where they were seeking to date like a dating service, dating app, singles night etc.

I'm guessing we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I simply can't see it as sexual harassment if someone, after making a bit of smalltalk, says something to the effect of, "Hey, that was nice talking to you about [topic]. Would you be interested in continuing this conversation over a cup of coffee?"

I'm curious: does your opinion only hold for men asking out women, because that happens to them all the time? Or would you similarly judge a woman hitting on a man?

Yes occasionally they will meet the one stranger that's hit on them that day that they are actually interested in going on a date with. But think of all of the other things in our lives that could work like that.

Imagine if every restaurant you walked past had some guy jump out in front of you interrupt your day to be all "HEY LISTEN! Do you want to eat here? I am this great Mexican Place awesome with Kids want to eat here huh do ya?" And their whole justification was "Well you're going to eat somewhere and it might be here and someone's going to say yes to eating here so no this isn't harassment! What do you mean you get to decide if this is harassment or not?"

Hell we wouldn't accept that bullshit so why should women have to accept that guys are going to hit on them for being out in public and sexually attractive?

That's not flirting. That's catcalling.

[jackfaire]

So... you're basically saying that, if I meet someone new through work, or my health club, or anywhere else I socially frequent, and I feel an attraction towards her, I should hide that until I've gotten to know her? Isn't that kind of disingenuous, like having a secret agenda in getting to know someone? Wouldn't it be better to be upfront about your intentions?



I'm guessing we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I simply can't see it as sexual harassment if someone, after making a bit of smalltalk, says something to the effect of, "Hey, that was nice talking to you about [topic]. Would you be interested in continuing this conversation over a cup of coffee?"

I'm curious: does your opinion only hold for men asking out women, because that happens to them all the time? Or would you similarly judge a woman hitting on a man?

I would and do. I have been hit on by at least one woman who said, "Hi my name is" and the very next thing out of her mouth was asking me on a date.

Which is sexual harassment.

Asking a person to continue a conversation over coffee is neither a date nor sexual harassment and presumably came after a period of treating them like an interesting person and not someone you're looking to screw.

No. Declining to tell the person that you're seeking to get to know better that "Hey guess what I think I want to bang you" isn't disingenuous.

It's common decency. Guess what you can know someone for years never see them that way then one day something clicks and you realize you would like to go out on a date so you ask this person you know, "Hey do you want to go to dinner sometime as my date" and boom they say yes or no.

The first things out of your mouth when you talk to a person shouldn't be "I want to date you" the first encounter shouldn't be all about getting that date.

We are talking about every day encounters.

The proper way

20 minute conversation on a bus ride getting to know this person "Wow that was really interesting I like talking to you would you like to continue this in a more casual relaxed setting" Not sexual harassment no one is calling this sexual harassment.

"Wow you look interesting I like your laugh, want to get coffee with me" sexual harassment. Absolutely sexual harassment the person has taken zero effort to get to know that person and is immediately putting the person.

I keep focusing on the "get to know someone first" I have repeatedly tried to make it clear that this doesn't have to be a long process.

It does have to actually happen though. If you meet someone in any of those situations you stated and your immediate reaction is "Hi would you go out with me" you have officially sexually harassed a person.

If you attempt a conversation and the person was clearly not interested in continuing the conversation and then you ask them to continue it anyway you're harassing them.

If you have a mutually interesting conversation and mutually agree to continue it that is not harassment.

However that is where the work part comes in. Your position at the company comes into play. If they themselves are at work and you're a customer.

Those situations are limiting in that they are being paid to be nice to you whether because you're a co-worker whom they also need to do their job or a superior that can fire them.

In public people meet all of the time and get to know each other and decide to continue getting to know each other.

What women, and men would be too, sick of is people constantly coming up to them for the sole purpose of scoring a date. Yes I think if a woman came up to you and started a conversation that wasn't about getting to know you and was all about scoring a date with you because you're hot/cute then yes that is sexual harassment.

A person however genuinely interested in getting to know you that backs off if you're clearly not interested in getting to know them isn't harassing anyone and won't be accused of it.

But guys that love to ignore both the verbal and non-verbal cues of "Move it along buddy nothing to see here"

Love to get other guys to argue "but you should totally be able to ask out any girl" because they aren't arguing for getting to know someone like you are.

They are getting you to argue that harassing a woman to get laid is okay because they are convincing you women are complaining about a guy who is genuinely interested in who they are.

Listen to women talk about "harassing behavior" and it quickly becomes clear it's not about staring conversations in public. It's about being targeted and immediately aimed at with no personal interest taken beyond "I want into your pants and how can we make this happen"

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

first of all, it's (usually) got nothing to do with someone being "properly hunky".

I don't want to come off as concern trolling here (truth be told I have no problem with anything you said after this), but I think this kind of response tends to be a bit of a derailment.

The problem as I see it is, like a lot of other things we've scientifically studied, attractiveness in men and women simply should be taken for what it is - something that manipulates the reaction of the person interacting. We see it in all sorts of things such as blind testing such as trustworthiness (is this person friendly or creeping) or ambition. We've seen it in testing where people intuit honesty from very superficial things.

I just don't think trying to derail someone's response of "unless their good looking" is even worthwhile because we know scientifically there are all sorts of ramifications attached to physical attractiveness even if its just a nice face. So when I see it, I'm almost always thinking you may have another person on the receiving end that just shuts down because it literally suggest their experience (most people have had ample opportunity just to see anecdotal differences in reaction between attractive and unattractive people) and kills any common ground at all. I guess long story short, I don't find whether the statement is true or untrue is a thing helpful.

Like I'm an average-ish person with several good looking friends. I've "seen" the difference in even something as simple as saying hello and only hello.

Namely, I just thing what is and isn't sexual harassment is it's own topic. It is a given that both many men and many women can and will forgive overstepping based on their receptivity to a person. And that visible experience can and should inform some level of the discussion but not be used to derail either side's opinion.

[Canarr]

Asking a person to continue a conversation over coffee is neither a date nor sexual harassment and presumably came after a period of treating them like an interesting person and not someone you're looking to screw.

Okay... looks to me like we're closer in opinion than it seems at first glance. So, asking someone out whom you have just met is okay, as long as there is some sort of conversation that precedes the actual invitation? The kind of conversation that indicates some sort of mutual interest, I mean?

No. Declining to tell the person that you're seeking to get to know better that "Hey guess what I think I want to bang you" isn't disingenuous.

It's common decency. Guess what you can know someone for years never see them that way then one day something clicks and you realize you would like to go out on a date so you ask this person you know, "Hey do you want to go to dinner sometime as my date" and boom they say yes or no.

Yes, you can suddenly see someone as a romantic interest whom you have only known as a friend or coworker for years. That does happen, and I've stated as much before. What I was talking about is the other end of the spectrum - you meet someone, and there is instant attraction. Love at first sight, so to speak. It may not be the majority of relationships that start out this way, but at least a solid minority. IMO, of course.

Hence my question: you get a new coworker, or a new person starts working out in your healthclub, or whereever, and you feel instant attraction. You start a conversation, try to get to know her, the way you would with any other new person in those surroundings; but she isn't any person, she's someone you're attracted to, and that *does* color both your perceptions and your behavior. Do you allow your attraction to enter the conversation immediately? Not say, "Hey, wanna bang?", but compliment her, flirt a little? Or do you carefully conceal any indication of your attraction until you feel you know her well enough to ask her out?

The first things out of your mouth when you talk to a person shouldn't be "I want to date you" the first encounter shouldn't be all about getting that date.

We are talking about every day encounters.

The proper way

20 minute conversation on a bus ride getting to know this person "Wow that was really interesting I like talking to you would you like to continue this in a more casual relaxed setting" Not sexual harassment no one is calling this sexual harassment.

"Wow you look interesting I like your laugh, want to get coffee with me" sexual harassment. Absolutely sexual harassment the person has taken zero effort to get to know that person and is immediately putting the person.

I keep focusing on the "get to know someone first" I have repeatedly tried to make it clear that this doesn't have to be a long process.

No, the first thing out of your mouth shouldn't be "I want to date you". But if the first encounter is a random, every day encounter, where you don't know if you're actually ever going to see that person again, then how can it *not* be about "getting that date"? Unless you manage to arrange another meeting, or exchange phone numbers, there's a good chance that first encounter is also going to be the last.

It does have to actually happen though. If you meet someone in any of those situations you stated and your immediate reaction is "Hi would you go out with me" you have officially sexually harassed a person.

No.

If you attempt a conversation and the person was clearly not interested in continuing the conversation and then you ask them to continue it anyway you're harassing them.

Yes.

However that is where the work part comes in. Your position at the company comes into play. If they themselves are at work and you're a customer.

Those situations are limiting in that they are being paid to be nice to you whether because you're a co-worker whom they also need to do their job or a superior that can fire them.

I'm with you that hitting on people working at stores you frequent is... not a great thing. Depends a lot on the business in question, and how they expect their people to treat customers. Easy to make someone feel pressured to avoid a "Not interested, thank you" in order to keep their job.

However, among coworkers, I think advocating for a no-dating rule isn't a realistic proposal. If you follow the link I copied a few posts ago, it shows that 30% of relationships start at work, so apparently, it's something that people like to do. A lot.

What women, and men would be too, sick of is people constantly coming up to them for the sole purpose of scoring a date. Yes I think if a woman came up to you and started a conversation that wasn't about getting to know you and was all about scoring a date with you because you're hot/cute then yes that is sexual harassment.

A person however genuinely interested in getting to know you that backs off if you're clearly not interested in getting to know them isn't harassing anyone and won't be accused of it.

I'm not sure that disctinction is quite as clear as you seem to think it is. Especially if you subscribe to this thread's title that basically says, "Harassment is whatever you feel it is".

[Canarr]

Obama seems to disagree with the premise of this thread.

"And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you—because they’re white, or because they’re male—that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters."

[HEMI6point1]

Obama seems to disagree with the premise of this thread.

"And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you—because they’re white, or because they’re male—that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters."

When people tell me I "lack standing" to speak on a certain topic, I tell them to go kick rocks. Or pound sand. Then say my piece anyway.