If you're lucky, you'll only get me talking about glacial surficial geology
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
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Microblog Memes
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I hear you that physical/sexual harassment is a serious concern, but what connection is there to that and the specific method of trying to defuse/reject an unwanted conversation?
I totally get that you've had traumatic expediences, I'm not trying to minimize that.
I've also had traumatic experiences of both men and women saying things like that to me, and stalking me, and physically attacking me, in extremely similar situations, busses and lightrail and such.
But 99% of the time, where a similarly awkward conversation or non-conversation plays out... yeah its maybe uncomfortable or annoying, but I don't end up harmed.
Also, you're somewhat misconstruing the context of OP's story.
He didn't really approach her in the sense of totally out of no where, in a random public location, where she was otherwise alone... like randomly coming out of the shadows to chat up someone on a walk through an empty park.
They were on a bus, a confined space with many other people, and the two of them appeared to be the only two people not glued to their phones, and he directly stated that.
To me, that implies that he thought that presumably someone not glued to their phone was at least potentially having some kind of active or passive thoughts, as opposed to everyone else in zombie mode.
The story does not include him physically making himself nearer to her. It includes him tapping her knee.
As if they just happened to be sitting next to her, or her to him, and he just tried to start a conversation with his passenger-neighbor.
This does not to me imply potentially malicious/predatory targetting.
It also implies that at least while you are on the bus... you're in public with a lot of nearby other humans that could/would intervene in case the dude starts to literally force himself in some way.
And, this very story does not end with the dude stalking her after bus disembarkation... so it shows that is a possible outcome as well, that it can just be a convo with a rando in a public space, and everything ends up fine.
Asserting that you don’t want to interact is provocative for some assholes. That was the context of each of the episodes I listed, all of which happened on buses, which I neglected to make clear.
Absolutely, it just makes me wary of ending up in that type of interaction at all.
To be clear, she chose option E, and the circumstances in my comment above relate to choosing option A, B, or C. I also choose option E and it tends to work, but a commenter above called it relentlessly petty, which is why I’m suggesting there isn’t an option that doesn’t either potentially endanger you or make people think negatively of you in some way.