It seems like I have to spell this out to you. So here we go.
Women street harassment is a thing. Women go out on the streets and they get harassed. I am sure no one will challenge this statement, right? Now, what most people (mostly men) don’t know is that harassment is not only rape, or calling someone names, or inappropriate touching. No no no… Harassment can come in several different flavors, sometimes even unintentionally. And this is the hard part because, since the harasser has nothing but good intentions, and did nothing wrong explicitly, you will be the feminist bitch to bring it up and be mad about it. Well, I am not a feminist bitch, I will just be honest because some things have got to stop.
Men think that it is ok to approach women they don’t know, talk, flirt and, if she seems receptive, ask them out. It sounds ok… if you are at a bar, or a party! But *not* if you are in the bus, or subway, or airplane, or hotel, or doctor’s office waiting room. You have no idea how annoying it is to realize that that person with whom you were having a perfectly harmless conversation has ulterior motives and was actually hitting on you. We start believing that people are never nice just for the sake of being nice, which means that, if you are nice back, you’d be receptive to his asking for your phone number in about 5 minutes. So what do we do? We stay serious, we don’t engage on any conversation, we look anywhere but other people’s faces. And it sucks, because suddenly you realize that you walk around with a constant angry face, you choose not to sit next to unknown guys, you pretend you don’t speak the language and hide the book you were reading, you don’t do *anything*, absolutely nothing!!, that can be a conversation starter (unfortunately we have to sneeze sometimes…). It is sad that all these self-preserving acts come naturally for most women. This means that, at one point or another, every one of us found ourselves in a weird situation with a guy, and it happened so often that the person who came to talk to you had an agenda, that we just stop listening, even to the poor people that have no agenda at all, and are actually just being nice.
So, men of the world, I am sure that you sometimes have the best of intentions. You’re both just sitting there doing nothing, so what’s the harm in talking? But before engaging, ask yourself this: if the person sitting next to you was another guy, would you ask him the time or comment on the weather? If the answer is no, it is better to keep your mouth shut.