#men dont do this
A guy just came to my house while I was home alone to ask if I was single why are men like this
Okay y'know what I’m gonna soapbox for a hot minute
When I was in high school, a man who I’d thought was the parent of a school friend followed me out to the grocery store parking lot greenhouse where I worked. It was dark, and late, and it was me, alone, in a chain link enclosure with one exit and a register full of cash. He called me up to the fence and asked if I wanted to get dinner, or go dancing. I was scared and shaking and told him no several times, and he only left when I falsely said I had a boyfriend. I was very aware that if he were to come over the fence, or just wait at the exit until I eventually had to leave, I could do nothing about it.
When my hair was very short, a hairdresser sent me to the barber’s side of the store so they could get the back of my head with clippers. The barber followed me out to my car to ask me out afterwards. I was very aware that we were the only people in the parking lot when it happened, and that the lot itself was tucked behind the building with no clear visibility to the road.
Today, a man I’ve met once made it very clear he knows where I live, and used that knowledge to express a romantic interest. If he ever decides that he’s unhappy with how I responded, he knows where I live. He knows what my car looks like. It is impossibly easy for him to determine when I’m home alone, and now I have to live with that knowledge.
Every woman I know has at least one story like this. My roommate had to be escorted to her car every night when she was a waitress, in case some man was waiting for her or a coworker’s shift to end.
If the person you want to ask out cannot physically run away from you when you are asking, YOU CANNOT ASK THEM OUT. You cannot ask someone out if they are at work. You cannot ask someone out if you’ve followed them to a remote/unoccupied/enclosed area. You cannot GO TO SOMEONE’S HOME UNINVITED to ask them out. You are not being romantic. You are not “taking initiative”. You are terrifying the person you want to woo. If they say yes, it is not because they want to, it is because they are terrified of what might happen if they say no.
I’m so tired of being terrified by men who think they’re being romantic.
“Every woman” you say. Do you personally know every woman in the world? Don’t presume to speak for others, and don’t make this a gendered issue either.
Actually every woman in the world is in one big group chat and they’re all telling you to fuck off
In response to @blackjackgabbiani, allow me to quote one of the best poems I’ve ever read.
This Vote Is Legally Binding
In response to all those articles about talking to women with headphones…
Someone always says it, whenever it comes up:
“I guess I’m just not allowed to talk to anyone any more!”
Well.
Yes.
It is my duty to inform you that we took a vote
all us women
and determined that you are not allowed to talk to anyone
ever again.
This vote is legally binding.
Yes, of course, all women know each other,
the way you always suspected.
(Incidentally, so do Canadians. I’m just throwing that out there.)
We went into the women’s room at the Applebee’s at the corner of 54
and all the others streamed in through the doors
into that endless liminal space,
a chain of humans stretching backward
heavy skulled Neanderthal women laughing with New York socialites,
Lucille Ball hand in hand with the Taung child.
We sat around in the couches in the women’s room
(I know you’ve always been suspicious of those couches)
and chatted with each other in the secret female language
that you always knew existed.
Somebody set up a console–
the Empress Wu is ruthless at Mario Kart
and Cleopatra never learned to lose
and a woman who ruled an empire that fell
when the Sea People came
and left no trace
can use the blue shell like a surgical instrument.
Eventually we took the vote.
You had three defenders:
your grandmother and your first-grade teacher
and an Albanian nun who believes the best of everybody.
Your mom abstained.
It was duly recorded in the secret notebooks
that have been kept under the couch in the Applebee’s
since the beginning of recorded time.
And then we went back to playing Mario Kart
and Hoelun took off her bra
and we didn’t think about you again
except that I had to carry this message.
So anyway
good luck with that
it’s just as you always said it was.
Hush now,
no talkinghush.
Reblogging for that poem especially. Thpft yup.
Okay blackjackgabbiani can’t read for shit, op said every woman that she knows, not every woman on planet earth.
But also this has happened to me to and I can’t stand it.“If the person you want to ask out cannot physically run away from you when you are asking, YOU CANNOT ASK THEM OUT.” are words to live by and I wish more people respected this. In my experience it be Strangers that do this; acquaintances that don’t know your favorite color or birthday or hobbies and never will after that nonsense.
This happened to me when I was 15 working at a Gamestop in the mall. A strange man cornered me and talked to me for hours. He asked me when I get off work and I to him because I was 15 and terrified of what he would do if I refused.. When he finally left, I told my supervisor what had happened. He said that he had thought the man was just a friend of mine and that I was goofing off. I worked until the mall closed that evening. It was me and the assistant manager (who was a grown woman) at the time. Thankfully she understood what was happening. It had happened to her before too. The man came back and I noticed him and quickly ducked behind the counter before he saw me. I stayed there huddled on the ground next to my coworker’s feet as she told the man I had left already and that he needed to leave, that the store was closing and she had already locked the register for the night. After some debating he eventually left begrudgingly. My coworker called mall security to have a security officer escort me all the way out to my car to be sure I was safe.
Like. When we say all women, we mean literally, yes all women.
