Ask Lemmy

You're supposed to wear a shirt that says 'want to touch my pension?'

I met almost all of my previous girlfriends (including my now wife) either at parties my friends threw, or hobbies I was interested in. I never once went to a club to pick people up or try to meet people intentionally in public. That's always seemed too creepy for me.

Women are just people.

If you learn to talk to men you don't know, you'll learn to talk to women you don't know. It's not inappropriate unless you're trying to get something out of the situation. So don't. Just make some new friends. Of both sexes.

As for when/where, find some hobbies. Go do the hobbies. You'll meet people at the hobbies. Some of those people will be ladies.

I think you're both a little right. Yeah, they grew up in a world where it was generally more socially acceptable to approach strange women on the street than it is today. But that doesn't mean that you're never allowed to do it, either.

I think it'd be good to takeaway a bit of both arguments. Yes, you shouldn't harass women on the street, but also it's totally fine to talk to women as long as you're respectful and take the hint if they're not interested.

Do you ever make small talk with men with whom “you don’t have business?”

I’m assuming yes, you probably do. Speaking with women is the same, just be sure to pick up on cues if they don’t want to speak. In fact, I’d advise you to practice by making small talk with everyone you can, with no agenda, and pay attention to their cues.

In my view, cold approaching women you don’t know just because you’re attracted to them is harassment.

I don't agree with this. You can approach women in public and talk to us without it being harassment. If you approach someone and they tell you to leave them alone and you don't or they're obviously uncomfortable and you persist then it's harassment.

For some context: I'm not as old as your parents but I'm older than you (I'm late 30s).

Your parents are right. It is absolutely a skill that you should learn. The 'times have changed' crowd just haven't stepped up to the new level of difficulty.

It is not wrong to strike up a conversation with a stranger so long as the setting is appropriate and you pick up on the clues they give on whether the interaction is welcome or not. That is the skill you're learning.

Whether it is technically 'necessary' is debatable, but it is antisocial to flat out avoid doing so by definition.

So, this is one of the unfortunate traps of our time, especially if you live in a place with car dependent sprawl. Women don't want to be solicited while at work or on personal business (groceries, gym, etc), and, really, nobody does. You want to work at work, and you want to do your business and go home otherwise. This goes doubly or triply so for complete strangers. There's really no third places (as they're called) left, where people go for the express purpose of being social and together. That's what's missing here. As someone else said, you are, unfortunately, both a little right.

It's particularly bad in places like the US that have car dependent sprawl because

• cities often have had their zoning ordinances weaponized by NIMBYs, and it's probably outright illegal to have a small cafe or shop in your neighborhood, or they're required to have some outrageous parking minimum or something like that.

• driving sucks more than you may be aware of while you're doing it. If you have to get into your car to go to the grocery, you don't want to make five stops at smaller grocers throughout the week; you'd rather just make one big stop at the big box mart and just go tf home. If you want to stop at a cafe, well, just swing through the starbucks drive through so you don't have to be bothered with getting out.

Well, chances are that most of your interactions at chain businesses and stores are anonymous, so you're not meeting other people in your community there, you're not creating any bonds or relationships there, you're doing your business and getting out, which, frankly, is what they want. You're especially not making any friends in the drive thru line. For nearly seventy years now, we've built our cities to be homes to cars, not people, and it's bearing fruit in the form of the loneliness epidemic.

My advice to you would be to go out of your way to find situations where people are getting together for the purpose of being social or having fun. Look for classes put on by your local city parks, go check your local library's bulletin board for events, check social media communities for your nearby city or town for groups that meet regularly. If you're religious, seek out some religious institutions that you find palatable.

You're not wrong, but you've got a bit of an extreme take on it. I think you and your parents may have different thoughts on what it means to "approach" a woman though. I'm going to use "flirt" to refer to talking to a woman with intent of seeing if they would make a good partner for you and just "talk" to indicate just being friendly with someone.

it is only appropriate for a man to talk to a woman who doesn’t know when the social situation is explicitly designed for meeting strangers

No, it's fine to talk to strangers of any gender in public. Approaching them and flirting with them is not. As long as you can roughly understand when you're making someone uncomfortable and stop it, you're not going to come off as a creep/predator. Stuck in a lineup in a store? Chat with someone beside you, maybe commiserate about how long the line is. If you want to flirt with them, then yes the situations you mentioned are definitely the places to do that.

(sort of an aside: whether "meeting friends of friends" is an appropriate situation to flirt with someone you just met is still situation dependent)

They are adamant that I need to learn to approach women or else I will never find a partner.

Approaching women in random public spaces with the intent of finding a partner is also a pretty bad idea. While it could work, it's definitely creep/predator behaviour so I avoid it. It's very likely to make them uncomfortable, since they're just trying to do their thing not get hit on. This can easily be harassment, though I'm on the fence on whether it's always harassment.

Personally I like to flip the genders on situations like this and ask if I'd want to be the other person in this situation. It's worth keeping in mind that woman have way more statistical reasons to be weary/wary of any interaction with men, though. Regardless, e.g. if some woman was beside me in line and started chatting with me, I'd be fine with it. If some woman came up to me and complimented my shirt, I'd be fine with it. If some woman came up to me, complimented my shirt, and then asked for my number I'd be weirded out (I don't know you, lady). If some woman came up to me and asked me to take out my earbuds to commiserate about how long the line is, I'd be annoyed that I'm missing my music.

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?

When one reads the room (or the… sidewalk? the coffee shop?), is clever, and well groomed, and all that…

It’s absolutely possible to speak to strangers in public regardless of whether they’re male or female or whatever. Furthermore, sometimes the immediate response is a positive one instead of a polite but obviously disinterested one.

But oh my GOODNESS do we have to be careful not to be an undue burden on others! (Note some scenarios can’t be helped—people who are DEATHLY afraid of ANYONE talking to them ever are in a bad spot, sorry to those folks, but you may have to ignore a polite sentence from me before I apologize/quickly move on.)

I don’t have good cold approach tips for random places in public, but in a nightclub, can be natural to follow this flow:

• comment on venue
• comment on artist
• comment on the person (the person herself)

Maybe it’s adaptable outside the clurb too.

Do know it definitely helps out there if she has a dog. Only speaking to people when there’s a genuinely natural conversation starter, like a cute dog, is probably pretty safe. Maybe “Whoh did you get that hat from <boutique down the street?>” when you’re actually curious. Curiosity shines through, as does your lack of need for a specific outcome, and can lead to good engagement from someone you’ve made comfortable and perhaps who’s chuffed to have had their fancy accessory complimented. (‘Oh actually my friend made it!’ = nice)

And maybe you’re already walking away as you’re talking, just making it so obvious how little a threat you are, how unlikely you are to be aggressive.

We’re allowed to “be excellent to each other” and we’re allowed to get rejected. Nothing like a good rejection, LOVE knowing I tried. Finally hey, some of earth’s 8 billion inhabitants were married in modern times solely thanks to the guy reasonably approaching a stranger, and none of us could tell his wife she was wrong not to reject him (or that he was a jerk for saying hi).

YOU GOT THIS!

Kindly,

brb