Why is it some men get all offended if a woman they don't know is wary around them?
Just a few minutes ago, I was standing at the bus stop, and some guy said "hi" as he walked by. I said "hi" in return; but instead of just going on his way, he stopped and said, Are you staying out of trouble?" I just gave him a look I seem to have inherited from my mother, and he got all huffy before he went on down the street. BTW, my mother also taught me not to talk to strange men. Every mother worth her salt teaches her daughters that. Why should I be obliged to drop my guard just to avoid offending some guy I never saw before, and won't see again? I don't see any reason myself.
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Exactly.
But seriously, it's hard for me to say since I never start conversations with women I don't know. I have had occasions where I'm walking, and there is a woman walking in front of me, and she notices I'm behind her and does something like hold her bags tighter, or walks faster, etc, and it makes me feel bad. I want to say "don't worry, I'm not dangerous and I don't want you to feel afraid" but of course I worry that would make me sound like a psycho 
believe me, by not saying anything the gal probably figures you're no psycho - problem is, we can never be too careful. It sucks how much of our behavior is based on the fact that some people on this earth do not know how to behave 
Sometimes the best course has been to speed up and pass her instead.
Yeah, it sucks to be the cause that cautious reaction, but it sucks even more to have to have the reaction in the first place, thus I don't complain about it
Do you know how many cases there are every year of women being sexually assaulted at bus stops by strangers? A savvy male who wishes to seek friendly contact should probably seek other venues than strangers at bus stops.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sexual+assault+bus+stop&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US
fficial&client=firefox-a
Be happy yourself if you want to. You got all up in this subthread to convince me of...something. 
He got his "response", couldn't handle her "response" and got his knickers in a knot.
What part of a woman just minding her own business and not looking for attention do some people just not understand?
The onus is not on HER. She doesn't have to do anything!
Poor guy, all those uptight gals with their agendas making human interaction so hard. 
Is Romulox a reference to the Star Trek civilization The Romulans?
(romulox on right)
Like crossing the street if one sees an African American, for example?
One prejudice is considered repulsive, the other is merely "benign prudence".
But what is the difference? Explain to me like I'm one of your boys! 
As usual, I didn't say ANY PART of the sentiment you are trying to put in my mouth!
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?"
, 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!
Mine is but a pale imitation. Maybe that's because I never had kids to practice it on, and it doesn't work on cats.
It's nice to see a man who has enough respect for women to empathize enough to be respectful toward us.
I don't mean to imply that you're unfriendly, and certainly there's lots of support for your reaction in this thread, but I *usually* don't think twice about being friendly with strangers, men and women alike. I say usually because I don't always want to be casually friendly with everyone I encounter, and some people telegraph having their barriers up so they deserve respect, but maybe it's just the nature of my part of the north coast-- people are generally pretty friendly. Case in point-- I was at the hardware store this weekend, and in the span of fifteen minutes I had a brief conversation with a woman about a can of paint she was looking at ("Hey I painted my utility trailer with that stuff a year ago and now I'm constantly touching it up, not very durable." , then shared a joke with another lady as I was leaving (the automatic door didn't work so she had to shove it open, "Oops, you broke it!" .
People say "Hi!" to one another here, they ask how you're doing. I probably talk to ten strangers a day on street corners and parking lots (admittedly, half are students at the university where it's not hard to guess that I'm a prof, but the other half are just around town).
That was even creepier. 
And we can sense the need for more personal space.
Here is one of the pictures I took that day.
You don't jump from Hi to "are you staying out of trouble", but unfortunately, you've encountered some women that were questionable .
You are doing the right thing. Navigate around women that throw out weird things, and be a gentleman, and there will be gentlewomen that respond. They won't have to throw themselves at you or throw out questionable statements.
Simple as that.
'creature with latent rapist tendencies'.
Which is one of the reasons when I go on a smoke break at work I choose to stand and not sit.
Much easier to control my comfort zone with those who feel a need to approach me and stand alittletooclose or start with a casual hi and ends with kind of a stalkerish tone ("so when do you work next? What days? What shift? What floor do you work on? You drive or take the train", "how come you never sit down when you come down here, you're always standing up" .
Which are questions I wouldn't care about if they are asked by someone who I am a regular talker with or a close co-worker but when they are asked by someone I have never even talked to before....it makes me nervous.
One time I was in a particular "I don't wanna talk to anyone" mood so I went straight from the building to stand behind a little brick wall and one fellow I didn't know felt a need to pop around the corner and literally said "ah-ha, you thought you could hide, huh?" and then seemed kinda stood there talking with an amused look on his face that he had came and made sure I knew that he had "found me".
I'm really not anti-social but there are some situations that get me in flight mode very quickly...if that turns off some people who approach me, TOO BAD!
Somehow I don't think "Am I going to have to cut a muthafucka?" will work too well coming out of my mouth. ,
Social exchange is the point of a relationship.
Advice to guys: "Make the approach". "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". "Tell her how you feel".
Advice to women: "carry pepper spray in case he does it poorly".
Fuckin' paranoia. You'd never know that violent crime is at a 40 year low, and that the homicide rate is one-half of what it was in 1991.
Did you know that from 2000 to 2010, the number of men arrested for violent crimes dropped by 11.8%, but the number of women arrested for violent crimes went up 0.7%
Also, the number of men arrested for property crimes dropped 7.2% while the number of women arrested increased 27.1% in the same time period.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/overviews/tab33overview.pdf
Hell.. I still get carded when trying to buy wine and beer..
I just fake smile and keep it moving..
I had empty beers thrown at me once, when I did not respond to a guy..He walked across the road, started yelling expletives about me being too good to talk to him and then the bottle throwing commenced...
Not worth losing my life over
that really offended you?
Just say "No, I am not staying out of trouble"....smile and move on with your life.
I don't get it.
I was at the grocery store last week. I go there to get groceries, not to ogle women, but I couldn't help noticing one of the other shoppers. She was late 30's or early 40's, basically around my age, and she was wearing skin tight yoga pants or something similar. I'm not saying that to criticize her choice of clothes or to suggest that she was inviting attention from men or anything like that. It's just that she was in really good shape, and really well-proportioned, and my Y chromosome would not allow me to *not* notice her - especially since she was making her shopping rounds in front of me most of the time. (No, I wasn't following her. I was just getting my groceries 
).
As I was saying, I didn't ogle this woman but I couldn't help notice her. And towards the end of my shopping trip, when I whipped around the corner of the aisle I was briefly face to face with her. My eyes instinctively went to her face for a second to "check her out". Our eyes locked for an instant and I gave her a quick little smile. She smiled back.
This is how I interpret those smiles. My smile meant: "I got caught checking you out. I think you're cute."
Her smile meant: "I know you think I'm cute. I'm flattered."
Of course, I may have misinterpreted the whole thing. It's possible that she only perceived me as being friendly in a completely non-sexual way and was merely returning the sentiment. On the other hand, it's also possible that her smile could have been meant, "I think you're cute, too. Come up with a reason to talk to me!"
I wasn't interested in talking to her. I'm not at that point in my life. But situations like this pose a real dilemma for single men. Most of us don't want to come across as creeps. But neither do we want to miss the opportunity to meet pretty women in tight yoga pants who might be interested in us.
But one thing is clear. No one has the right to our attention. No one has the right to feel or act indignant if their overtures are rebuffed.
1 of every 6 women will be assaulted in their lifetime. Some studies put the number at 1 in 3, and there are studies that show that female college students are raped at insane numbers. Most of these assaults, and rapes, are perpetrated by men. Men have been the privileged gender in most societies in the world for centuries, if not millennia. That is starting to change, slowly, very slowly.
One of the privileges men have lost is the right to approach any woman they want, in any manner they want. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Before, men were obligated to open doors for women, and all sorts of "chivalrous" behavior. Society no longer requires that of them (with cultural variations - just as there are cultural variations as to how far equality has been put into practice.) Now they're obligated to assess whether their approach will be welcome BEFORE they make said approach.
First, they need to assess the locale of said potential approach - are they alone in an elevator? Extra caution needed. In fact, if they are in any place where the woman is alone/it's dark/the woman has no easy way to get away (for example if they're on a bus, or tram) the man should let the woman approach him, or only approach her if she signals very clearly that she is open to being approached.
Which brings us to the second point of checking whether an approach would be welcome. The man needs to assess the woman's body language. Are they sharing eye contact? Does she smile at him? Roll her eyes over something that happened so they can laugh about it together? Then, by all means, initiate conversation. However, if she isn't looking at him at all/is reading/looking out the window/hunching her shoulders/listening to music/turns away slightly/is engrossed with her smartphone, then she is not open to an approach., and the guy should stay away.
Women aren't obligated to respond to every ouverture she is given - for young women, that's quite a lot of interruptions every day. This cartoon may illustrate the phenomenon:
sometimes the guy/girl gets the object of their attention with that. But it is just fantasy on the most part.
A mother worth her salt will teach her little ones not to believe too much of what they see and hear
from a movie.
Tikki
Gift of Fear, I thought it was really excellent and clear. I like the way he encourages us all to honor our instincts.
Here is a site with his quotes, and here is one that seems to apply to this thread:
“intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart”
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/31933.Gavin_de_Becker
Here is another site listing his survival signals.
The capable face-to-face criminal is an expert at keeping his victim from seeing survival signals, but the very methods he uses to conceal them can reveal them.
1. FORCED TEAMING (The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker, pg. 64-66):
Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we’re-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude. Sharing a predicament, like being stuck in an elevator or arriving simultaneously at a just-closed store, will understandably move people around social boundaries. But forced teaming is not about coincidence; it is intentional and directed, and it is one of the most sophisticated manipulations. The detectable signal of forced teaming is the projection of a shared purpose or experience where none exists: “Both of us”; “We’re on the same team”; “How are we going to handle this?”; “Now we’ve done it,” etc.
http://www.womynwarrior.com/2011/06/gavin-de-beckers-survival-signals
Anyone who thinks this is paranoid has not been forced in a situation. Trust your instinct 
And, as Gavin de Becker has stated, this type of reasoning is why many women ignore their "gift of fear" and are attacked, and sometimes murdered.
The OP needs to keep her gift of fear.
OK, I'm done. Bye.
Let him get all huffy.
I hate to say 'hi' or 'hello' to anybody when it is not called for and don't when ever possible. Most can see the reasons from reading from above. Most people that know me, believe me to be a friendly person when i am known in personal manner. Yea, getting ridiculed and other negative comments come from people who think someone should be like this or that. In me being such a way at least there is knowing i am not a buyer or a seller of any B.S. I work on being with the up and up and it works best for me that way 
"I was until you got here" is the correct answer to that question. 
I gotta remember that one. 
is how I have grown to view it over the years. I love Louis CK because his show really does highlight how bizarre city life can be. I love when he sees something weird and then just moves on like OK.
Just say hello back to defuse the situation but have your best tough girl stance and stare ready if they try to go too far. I have had some really sick things said to me by guys and some of the worst were by guys in business suits. Being petite made it worse for me sometimes because some guys think their size can be intimidating.
In most cases guys are harmless but you never know. I sometimes feel sorry for guys and have found some of their approaches amusing. In a way no matter how they approach you the first time it can easily turn to embarrassing or creepy with the wrong words The human mating ritual is sometimes hilarious.
In the case of creeps the best thing to do is always be aware of your surroundings and keeping your eye on anyone suspicious. Also don't be fooled by superficial things. Some of the best dressed guys are the biggest creeps.
