It’s OK for us not to worry about hurting the feelings of people who are ignoring our feelings.

We women are too nice to obnoxious men.

There’s a guy in my neighborhood. Let’s call him Talky Tom.

He’s the backyard neighbor of my friend Delightful Denise.

A few years ago, the fence between TT and DD’s yard rotted and fell.

DD started to replace it, but TT got upset. The fence would block the sun from the plants in his yard!

TT was correct.

This would happen if DD put up a new fence.

(Let me note that we do not have any laws about access to sunshine here.)(And TT did not have that sunshine before the fence fell.)

So DD didn’t put up the fence.

And TT’s flora started encroaching on DD’s yard.

Her peonies did not survive the onslaught.

TT would see DD in her yard and come over to talk.

Which he does a lot of.

A. Lot.

DD planted some shrubs between their yards.

“I don’t even like those shrubs!” she said. “But I wanted a barrier.”

It didn’t work plus they cost money.

---

I was hanging out with DD in her yard when TT came out and started talking to us.

I have experience in this sort of thing – I spent ten weeks traveling over land from Chile to Austin, back in the days when I was apparently catnip to South and Central American men, who saw a woman traveling alone as a woman in search of companionship. That’s when I learned the fine art of ending a conversation quickly – especially a conversation I didn’t even start.

I applied this skill to TT.

“I’m so sorry, TT, but I’m going to have to steal DD from you!” I said cheerfully as I walked away. “We’re in the middle of something that can’t wait!”

DD followed me to her garage.

“THANK YOU!” she said. “Honestly my other neighbors come outside – they say hi – and then they go on about their business. But TT likes to talk!”

---

“Remind me again why you don’t rebuild that fence?” I asked DD.

She sighed. “He doesn’t want it and I’m afraid of hurting his feelings.”

I shook my head. “He is clearly not at all concerned about hurting your feelings!”

---

When I see little kids, I ask them if they are huggers or fist bumpers.

I tell them, “My feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t want to hug me.”

But what I really need to say is, “It doesn’t matter if my feelings are hurt. You’re allowed to hug or not hug no matter how someone else feels. You are allowed to put your feelings about hugging first.”

---

Remember my friend Joan? Who went to prison for a few weeks? And was reluctant to move to a seat away from the Loud Eater?

I saw her again yesterday. She’s back home now. We told the story about the Loud Eater to her daughter, who is visiting from out of state.

Joan explained that she felt bad about changing seats. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings!”

“But he didn’t care about your feelings!” I reminded her.

“I know!” she answered. “And after you left, when they put me in the new seat, I thought about what you said. I had thought I could endure the Loud Eater for 21 days but then I thought WHY SHOULD I?”

“Good for you!” I said.

“But then they put me next to the Underwear Guy,” she continued.

“Yeah, you told me that,” I said.

“And he was so obnoxious! He sat down and asked me, ‘Are you wearing clean underwear?'”

“He asked WHAT?” I exclaimed. “Damn! Will the obnoxious men never leave us be?”

“Yes, that’s what he asked,” Joan said.

“So I told him no I was not and what about it?”

Joan is my hero.

The rules never change

Joan looked around the cafeteria, wondering where to sit.

Even when you’re 101 years old and staying in an assisted living facility for a few weeks, it stinks to be the New Girl, not knowing anyone.

She finally saw an empty seat and made her way to it.

“When I sat down, nobody introduced themselves,” she said. “Nobody said hi.”

She turned to the people next to her and greeted them.

The man on her Good Side (the side with the hearing aid) just grunted in response.

And then he continued eating.

Loudly.

Really really loudly.

“I think that’s why the seat was empty,” she told me. “That man has some sort of disability where he can’t eat easily. It sounds like he’s grinding his food in his throat. He makes so much noise. It’s awful.”

---

I learned about the Loud Eater when I called Joan a few days after she had moved into assisted living.

I heard about him again when I visited a few days later.

“It’s unbearable,” she said. “He’s so loud. I can’t stand it. I don’t know if I can take two more weeks of this. The hacking. The phlegmy sounds. It’s disgusting.”

An attendant – a young woman, maybe in her mid 20s – knocked on her door, then walked in.

(Which I guess is common at assisted living? That they just come into the room without waiting for a “come in?” Maybe those are the rules. Most of the residents are not as with it as Joan.)

“Hi Joan,” she said. “Remember me? I’m Belle.”

“What’s wrong with the man who sits next to me and eats so loudly?” Joan asked.

“Joan!” I said. “You know they can’t tell you that!”

Belle laughed. “He has problems eating. We usually puree his food.”

But she didn’t explain why the Loud Eater had problems eating, which is what we really wanted to know. What is his condition?

“Do you want us to move you to a different seat?” Belle asked.

“No,” Joan answered. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

I gasped. “Joan! You are 101 years old. If you don’t get to prioritize your own feelings by that age, there is no hope for the rest of us.”

Belle agreed. “It’s really no problem to move you.”

Joan shook her head. “I don’t want him to feel bad,” she said.

“But what about you?” I asked. “What about how you feel?”

She shook her head.

---

It never leaves us, does it?

The desire not to offend? Not to rock the boat?

The desire to please?

The desire to meet external standards for acceptability?

I have seen women in their 80s in the gym locker room carefully primping their hair and applying lipstick.

When do we get to be free of these demands? When can we just *be* without worrying about what other people will think?

---

This woman has entered the Miss Texas beauty pageant.

She is 71 years old.

She looks fabulous! I am envious of her beautiful skin. She is also in fabulous shape, having been a dedicated gym goer her entire life.

But.

Damn.

Can’t we just *be*?

Can’t we just look our age and have that be OK?

---

Before Joan moved into the facility, she asked the director if there was assigned seating.

“He said no,” she said. “But when I was working as a dietician consultant to nursing homes, there was always so much drama about where people sat in the dining room. So I was concerned.”

“So you can move!” I told her. “There are no rules about where you sit!”

She shook her head. “I was raised Baptist. We’re supposed to think about other peoples’ feelings. How will that man feel if I move to a different seat?”

I laughed. “Joan, I can guarantee you that he is not worrying about your feelings when he grunts and grinds his food. I promise you he is not at all worried about his impact on you.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t have to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm,” I told her.

---

Joan gave me a tour of the facility. As we walked to the dining room, we ran into Belle.

“Joan, I found you a new seat!” she announced. “You can sit there for supper tonight.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings,” Joan said.

I looked at Belle. “When are we women going to worry more about ourselves than about total strangers?” I asked. “Women have got to get better about this.”

“It can be hard!” Belle agreed. “But Joan – I really don’t even think he will notice.”

---

I called Joan two days after I visited her.

“Well?” I asked. “Did you move to the new seat? How was supper? Is it better away from the Loud Eater?”

“YES!” she answered. “I can still hear him! But it’s not so loud! And you know what? I don’t think he even noticed I wasn’t there! I’m so relieved. I had thought I could tough it out but it was so awful.”

“I told you so!”

She continued. “But now I have the letch who talks about underwear instead. He was going to sit at the table with two women but they told him he couldn’t sit there – they didn’t want to hear him talk about underwear. I guess there is a hierarchy here. So he sat at my table instead. And he started singing the underwear song. But I can tune that out. At least it’s not phlegm sounds.”

Forgiveness does not mean I have to let you back into my life

Mr T and I keep talking about this Carolyn Hax column, where the letter writer is encouraging her 19 year old son to give his abusive father – whom the mother divorced when the son was 14 because the father was abusive – another chance. The father has gotten therapy, the mother says.

Of course, he only got therapy after the divorce and after he lost his job for punching his boss.

I am not surprised at the people in the comments who think the son should give the father another chance.

I have people like that in my life – people who don’t understand why I cut Mr T’s parents and brother out of my life.

People who point out to me that Jesus told us to forgive.

To which I say that Jesus never told us we had to spend Thanksgiving with these people.

---

Actually, I’m not even sure what forgiveness means.

I have heard various definitions.

Pastor Gail, who performed our wedding ceremony, said forgiveness means we drop our end of the chain, but that we are not required to ever be with that person again. It’s not a re-set to zero, as if nothing had happened.

Someone else said forgiveness means cutting someone out of your life but wishing them no ill will.

Someone else wrote in the comments on the story above,

Forgiveness is part of an interactive process where the offender sincerely apologizes, expresses what they’ll do in the future, and makes an attempt to repair the relationship, and then you forgive them and move into a new relationship with them.

And then I have heard people who think forgiveness means we pretend as if the perpetrator never did anything bad and we should let them back into our lives without so little as an apology and a vow to change.

I’m with Pastor G. I will drop my end of the chain, but you are out of my life. You don’t get a second chance, especially if you have not asked for one and have not shown a sincere effort to change.

(And yeah I do kind of wish bad things to happen to jerk people.)

---

I don’t even know what to say about this poor woman who was raped repeatedly when she was a child by Pastor Robert Morris, a man who is currently active in the ministry.

Of course, we forgive because we are called to biblically forgive those who sin against us. But that does not mean he is supposed to go on without repercussions,” she said.

I agree that there should be repercussions because damn.

But I wonder what her definition of “forgive” is.

BTW, when she tried to file a civil suit against Pastor Robert Morris, his lawyer “suggested she caused the abuse on herself because she was ‘flirtatious.'”

She was 12.

TWELVE.

Twelve year olds do not know how to flirt with grown men and even if they did, it’s still illegal for that grown man – Pastor Robert Morris – to touch her breasts or her vulva or to penetrate her with his fingers or his penis.

It is not legal to have sex with underage children.

Even in Oklahoma, where Pastor Robert Morris raped her.

Even the lowest age for Romeo and Juliet laws is 13.

That is, there is no place in the United States where it is legal FOR ANYONE to have sex with a 12 year old.

---

It’s OK not to forgive people.

Not everyone deserves it.

And if they do, God can forgive.

I don’t.

I adore Mr T, but when he’s gone, I am going to enjoy being COMPLETELY ALONE EXCEPT FOR A BUNCH OF CATS

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A post shared by Mel Williams | Emotional Health & Relationship Mentor (@healingissexy)

I never wanted children. I thought I might, in college, but after I broke up with my (very sweet, kind) college boyfriend, I realized that children – and marriage – were impediments to what I wanted to do with my life.

I wanted adventure.

I wanted travel.

I wanted to read for hours without interruption.

I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

---

When I was a kid, I didn’t see a lot of moms around me who seemed happy. Mothers of my mom’s generation – especially moms whose husbands were in the military and the moms were continually uprooted and separated from family and friends – did not seem happy.

Even now, when you can call your family in another country more than once a year and you don’t have to wait two weeks for a letter on onionskin paper to arrive, women who are married to men in the military can get frustrated.

A really good friend is a lawyer, but after she married her Navy pilot husband and they were sent overseas, her career disappeared.

She said that the overseas base PTA was run by super-competitive women who used to have important jobs and now, suddenly, they were outside of the US, not allowed to work, not allowed to do anything but make sandwiches, clean house, and run volunteer organizations.

“This is the only place in their lives where they have any power,” my friend noted dryly, “and it shows.”

---

I had several marriage proposals before I finally married Mr T.

All I could think when these pre-Mr T boyfriends broached marriage was that I would be losing my freedom.

One boyfriend already had our entire life planned: We would have two children, to be named Grace and Stuart. We would plant a tree for each when they were born (which is actually very sweet). We would live in the town where he grew up, close to his parents (who were really nice people, so it wouldn’t have been like with Mr T’s parents, where I dreaded seeing them but still). Etc etc.

Another boyfriend just assumed I would move wherever for his career.

Another boyfriend didn’t even propose marriage – he just suggested that I quit my job and move to another state with him. That is, that I surrender all my financial security to depend on someone else without even having a contract in place.

No.

Thank.

You.

---

I didn’t want marriage. I didn’t want children.

I like children.

I just don’t want any of my own.

As far as I can tell, they are a ton of work and moms never have time to do anything for themselves.

I always wanted to skip children and go straight to adult offspring. My friends’ adult children are awesome. I liked them when they were kids and I really like them now. One of the great joys of my life has been forming adult friendships with the children of my friends.

And I got my wish when I married Mr T. He came with two stepdaughters from his first marriage and they are wonderful. I love them so much. They have married wonderful men and they have produced amazing children themselves and I have Bonus Daughters and Bonus Sons in Law and Bonus Grandchildren.

I feel very lucky.

---

I always wondered why a woman who is financially independent and doesn’t want children would marry.

When I met Mr T, I decided I wanted him in my life. I didn’t care if we were married, but it’s easier to be married than not if you share your finances so we got married, plus it pissed off his parents for him to marry me, which was a positive.

But when he’s dead, I’m not doing this again. I’m not getting used to living with someone new. I’m not arguing about who should clean the cat vomit this time. (Although if I’m alone, I guess I will clean the cat vomit 100% of the time instead of 100%- % that Mr T cleans it.) I’m not debating bedtimes. I’m not going to hike, which I do now because Mr T loves to hike and wants me to go with him.

---

My friend Ruby is 101 years old. She married her husband after she completed grad school. He died a few years ago.

I asked her if she was lonely. (She still lives by herself in the adorable house she and her husband built together on the lake in Madison.)

She laughed.

“I had roommates in college,” she said. “I had roommates in grad school. Then I got married. I had never lived alone until now.”

I braced myself for her to admit extreme loneliness.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she said, “AND IT’S SO LIBERATING TO LIVE ALONE!”

I exhaled.

She continued. “I watch TV when I want to watch TV. I eat when I want to eat. I read when I want to read. I wash only my clothes and only have to clean up after myself.”

---

Also. My mom had five marriage proposals, all from lovely men, in the first several years after my dad died.

She’s still single.

Enough. Said.

Well maybe a bear might punch someone who punched him first, but according to the National Park Service, “Stay calm and remember that most bears do not want to attack you”

I don’t know what happened before Jonathan Kaye, a white male New York City investment banker, punched a woman in the face and knocked her to the ground.

Who knows? Maybe there was a perfectly good reason for him to deck a woman in high heels who weighs 50 pounds less than him.

I, being nosy and human, of course want the full story, but what horrifies me even more than a grown man punching a smaller person who was apparently no threat to him is how many people – men, I suspect – reacted.

Twitter commenters offered lots of good reasons for a man to hit a woman.

He was acting in self defense. In response to her throwing a drink on him. In response to her throwing urine on him. In response to a taunt.

They noted that women apparently do not really want equality.

That the victim FAFOd.

That the victim was asking for it.

How will she know it’s wrong to assault men? Hopefully this resonates with her.

Nah fuck that bitch. They need a lesson in how men can fucking destroy them at the drop of a hat

That’s why women shouldn’t be morons. You don’t pick a fight with a man, unless you want to be knocked out.

I can think of a million scenarios where punching a woman is justified

So women only want equal rights when it benefits them?

Do something to someone and you deserve whatever reaction you get. Don’t want a reaction, don’t do anything.

He should’ve done worse

---

I knew there were men who think women should just shut up and make them a sandwich. A recent Pew survey shows that Trump supporters (in red – Biden supporters in blue) are more likely than Biden supporters to think that women’s gains have come at the expense of men.

But I didn’t know there were so many bitter, angry, violent, and, frankly, pathetic, stupid men.

---

I know a little bit about incel/women-hating culture. I have a relative – a young man – who is an Andrew Tate acolyte.

I know this not because I talk to this relative but because he posts his poison – that women shouldn’t have jobs, that women are whores (unless they sleep with him?), that women should just STFU – on twitter under his own name.

Which WTF how stupid can you be?

Or worse than stupid – he thinks his views are OK. That righteous people agree with him. That nobody of note considers his views abhorrent.

That’s why he’s comfortable posting under his own name.

---

men are so desperate for any excuse to beat up women, it’s wild.

This is why we vote blue. It’s not perfect, but it’s not taking us into the dystopian world that the Tate worshippers want.

Why would anyone want to reduce suffering for our children and grandchildren?

My life was hard therefore your life must also be hard.

Is that the official creed of the conservatives these days?

Or, to quote Mr T’s father, who was furious when his grandchildren served themselves a reasonable amount of white meat from a 21-lb turkey at Thanksgiving: “When I was a child, I would never have served myself the white meat!”

He then screamed at them, accused their mother (not their father, who is his son) of being a Bad Mother, and stomped into his office to sulk.

The next year, he mentioned – out of nowhere – how he thought white meat was dry and had always preferred the dark meat.

---

I suffered therefore everyone else must suffer.

A friend – Liz – wrote this and gave me permission to share, so I posted it on facebook.

Younger women have no idea how far back we can slide.

I remember being a military wife with 3 kids. I could not take a college class on base without my husband’s signature (or if he was deployed, the signature of the boss on base).

When I was going through a divorce in 1986, again, 3 kids, 16 years supporting my military spouse, 28 moves since high school, he stopped paying all bills, including the house with a mortgage using a VA loan.

We moved into a rental & I tried to get a consolidated loan to be able to pay off the bills. The bank said “sorry but you have no credit of your own”.

The bills ended up at the credit bureau. I paid off those bills ($14k) within a year and a half, moved into low income housing & went to college.

I met my “forever husband” and we married in 1988. We wanted to buy a home. The bank approved HIS credit & looked at me like I was a loser. Women had no power.

I was married to the first guy 16 years because we moved so much, no one would hire me. I could not support my kids until we moved to [place] & I finally was hired locally & could provide for my kids. So, the moral of the story is: protect women of the future. Vote BLUE!!!

I didn’t think anything about her story was objectionable (other than the social and legal forces making her life hard).

I didn’t think she was whining.

I didn’t think she was lazy, not working hard enough, not taking advantage of what was available.

She was stating facts.

Facts that are backed up with history and with my own experience.

I grew up on military bases, both in the US and overseas. It was almost impossible for wives to get jobs because employers knew they would move. Overseas, these women could not work off base because they were not citizens of the host country. They rarely could work on base because the civilian jobs were reserved either for civil service or for foreign nationals.

Facts like the law didn’t require financial institutions to give credit cards to women in their own names until 1974.

Facts like the law didn’t require financial institutions to make business loans to women – without male co-signers, etc – until 1988.

You know. Reality.

But another facebook friend, Brenda, a woman of about the same age as Liz, took great offense to the story.

Brenda wrote,

People will always find excuses for their lack of success. Working hard makes the accomplishment more rewarding. At 67 I can stay it was not who, but where, that made my success. Knowing where I didn’t want to be is what kept me moving forward.

Brenda also said she never had any problems getting a loan.

Brenda lived in a small town and knew everyone.

Nobody ever said a bank *couldn’t* make a loan to a woman.

It’s just there was no law keeping them from telling a woman “Nah.”

---

I didn’t wear a seatbelt or a bike helmet when I was a kid so why should anyone now do that?

Teachers could spank children at school so why can’t they do that now?

We never had free lunch or breakfast at school so why should I help feed hungry children now?

Nobody prosecuted husbands for beating (or raping) their wives so why should we do that now?

Men grabbed my ass at work and told me they wouldn’t hire me because I was pregnant so why can’t they do that now?

I got pregnant when I was 15 and had to get married and have the baby so why shouldn’t that happen to girls now?

I suffered. Why can’t everyone else suffer?

There’s none so blind as they that won’t see

An acquaintance who lives in Wisconsin told me yesterday, “Plus there is no law that says you can’t abort a baby.”

And I don’t even know what to say to her.

She’s 67 years old.

She is very smart, very accomplished.

I thought she was well informed, but I guess not?

Oh.

And she’s a Trumper.

(What makes it even worse is that four years ago, she was not! She wrote about a mutual acquaintance, “No worry she has a mind of her own. I don’t think she is on the Trump Train.” How do you go from that to supporting that horrible man?)

---

I keep thinking – naively, I guess – that when people say something that is clearly incorrect, giving them the correct information will change their minds.

---

And yet, we have people like a college friend, who has been a lawyer for 40 years, say things like this about Trump’s conviction for money laundering:

Especially when engineered by a corrupt judicial system. I weep for our country. As an attorney and following it, I know what happened. I’ve dealt with judges like [sic]. The innocent are convicted and the guilty go free. Not one person on Epstein’s list has been indicted. There you go.

I don’t know about this friend, but I do know this type is the same person who is convinced that cops, prosecutors, and juries always get it right when it comes to minorities.

They will roll their eyes at the Innocence Project and at the findings about prosecutorial misconduct, most of which, at least in Texas, has been directed against Black and Hispanic people.

---

I know other Trumpers who will deny reality. They are the people who demanded that George Floyd comply – as if lying on the ground with a knee on your neck isn’t complying.

But they never expect powerful white men to comply.

---

I don’t even know what to say to the acquaintance who says abortion is legal.

It’s as if she told me black is white.

How do you convince someone like that?

It’s Viagra of begging – a solution for something that the lack of will not kill you

Under what circumstances would you ask your friends for money?

• Your child needed a heart transplant and insurance didn’t cover it?

• You had to bury your child and didn’t have life insurance on the child because really who has life insurance on their kids?

• You were about to lose your house because you had lost your job and had gone through your savings?

---

Would you ask for money to fund a vacation to Europe?

That you are already on?

Because that’s what I saw someone doing. Asking for contributions to a GoFundMe for the trip to Rome he and his girlfriend are taking as we speak.

Yes you read that right.

They are in Rome.

And asking for money to pay for their trip.

---

I’m the first person to say “TRAVEL WHILE YOU CAN!”

I might say, “Maybe charge it to your credit card if you’re sure you can pay the trip off in a month or two, especially if you find a good fare.”

I might say, “Join the Peace Corps because then you get paid to go abroad.”

I might say, “Forgo an engagement ring and buy plane tickets instead.”

But I have never said and would never say, “Take trips you can’t afford! It’s OK – just ask your friends for money!”

---

My friend Jane was not invited to the wedding of her daughter’s best friend, Susie. But Susie sent a GoFundMe to Jane asking Jane to give her cash for her honeymoon. (She also sent a video of the wedding, which – yeah. That’s the best thing in the world – to watch someone else’s wedding video. It’s the modern equivalent of watching the slides of the family trip to the Grand Canyon.)

Jane told her daughter that if she ever did anything like that – if she asked people for cash, Jane would disown her.

---

This is not just me being old and cranky. Even in my 20s, when a kid knocked on my door selling magazines at inflated prices so he could “earn a trip to Europe,” I was not having it.

“I also want to go to Europe,” I told him. “And you want me to overpay for magazines so you can go? Nope. I’m saving my money for my trip.”

That is, I was also young and cranky.

But damn. I took peanut butter sandwiches to work for years instead of going out with my co-workers. I went to the matinee when I went to the movies. I drove an old Chevette. I was determined to pay off my student loans and save money for a trip to Europe.

I have no problem with wiping out student debt. Kids today are taking on ridiculous amounts of debt for college and it’s unfair. Bail them out. If we can bail out the banks, we can bail out the kids. I don’t mind paying for that.

I don’t mind chipping in for a funeral. Or for a transplant. Of course I would help a friend in danger of being evicted.

But dude – you’re on your own with your vacation. The vacation I want to take.

At least (I guess at least? It’s better to recognize your enemy) Butker doesn’t hide his feelings

This story is the sort of crap I mean when I talk about bro culture.

I overheard a man – who is the CFO of a Fortune 50 company – ask the two men who were with him about a fourth man, who was not present but whose name had come up and who was defined as Indian: “Dot or feather?”

No shame.

No looking around carefully before he said it.

No apparent awareness that he was saying something offensive.

No pushback from the other two men.

But they were three white men.

Who cares what the CFO said?

They all know what’s going on, amirite?

They all know they are The Patriarchy.

They are The Power System.

---

I don’t know this guy, but I know him. We all do. And I guarantee you that the CFO knew what he was saying.

That he knows this is something he can say only in certain surroundings.

He knows not to say something like that around Sundar Pichai, Shantanu Narayen, or Satya Nadella, all of whom could be his clients.

---

On his face, the CFO is charming, warm, affable.

They always are.

He might tell you that he is not a racist or a misogynist or any kind of ist. Maybe he even has Friends of Color.

But look at whom he promotes.

Look at whom he mentors.

Look at whom he invites to play golf.

Whose office he stops in to chat mid-morning.

It’s not one of the two Black men on his floor.

It’s not one of the four (low-level) women on his team.

It’s the –

Oh heck I don’t need to tell you who it is.

You know.

---

I am sure this guy is Involved. He’s on the symphony board. He buys a table at the fundraiser for the Arts in the Schools program and for the food bank. He chairs the performing arts campaign. His wife – who does not work outside the home – volunteers for Good Causes.

He’s a #NotAllMen!

And he never promotes women or non-white men.

But I didn’t need to tell you that.

You already knew.

(BTW I also would pick the bear)

Dude, WTF is it with stupid men?

You are either stupid or malicious, but there is no innocence in a 30 year old man ignoring a woman telling him that she is talking to someone else.

And when you persist? That might work in Hollywood, where the movies are written by men who are still bitter about junior high and who think the unattractive (not wealthy, childless, and on his deathbed) older man getting the beautiful young woman is a reality (looking at you Woody Allen), but not in real life.

---

What she means when she says “I’m talking to someone?”

It’s not “keep talking to me.”

It’s not “convince me.”

It’s “Yeah I see you and I am so not interested go away.”

But women don’t dare be that direct.

There’s a reason we resort to excuses like “I have to wash my hair that night” or “I have a boyfriend.” That we give out fake phone numbers.

Because if we tell a man we’re not interested, he might get angry and hurt us.

---

(Usually, though, bears will go away if you make noise and otherwise discourage them.)

---

But you, Our Dude?

You completely ignore her dismissal and instead get defensive, telling her, “I was *just* saying hello.”

Dude.

You aren’t “just saying hello.”

You are not only defying social convention by interrupting and then persisting when you are rebuffed, you are also hitting on her.

You are not “just saying hello.”

If you “just say hello,” show me how many times you have “just said hello” to other men.

Or to women you find unattractive.

Or to elderly women.

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And then, even after she makes it even more clear that She. Is. Not. Interested, you try to convince her that she is wrong.

I don’t think even Hollywood uses that as a plot device. “Oh I can counter her responses with logic and she will then fall into my arms!”

It’s not because you’re not tall enough.

It’s not because you’re not old enough.

It’s because you’re you.

Dude. It’s you. You’re the problem.

Go. Away.