Kathryn A. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerravonsen) wrote2013-07-21 10:20 am
kerravonsen) wrote2013-07-21 10:20 am
Resolution
I pledge to overcome my social conditioning to be polite to creepy guys.
I pledge to be blunt but not angry.
I pledge to project body language of confidence and calm (even if I am feeling neither confident nor calm).
Instead of cringing and wishing he would go away, I will say "I am not talking to you. Go away."(*)
If he says "I was just trying to be friendly," I will say "You failed."
If he says "There's no need to be rude," I will say "Being polite wasn't working."
If he calls me names, I will say "That's why I don't want to talk to you."
(Prompted by this and re-reading this)
(*) There was a guy who was an ex-co-worker who was also a regular con-goer; I didn't like him, but I didn't want to be rude, so I would converse when he talked to me. I would cringe when I saw him at cons, and go in the opposite direction. Finally I got sick of trying to avoid him, so I said the aforementioned "I am not talking to you". Surprisingly, it worked.
I pledge to be blunt but not angry.
I pledge to project body language of confidence and calm (even if I am feeling neither confident nor calm).
Instead of cringing and wishing he would go away, I will say "I am not talking to you. Go away."(*)
If he says "I was just trying to be friendly," I will say "You failed."
If he says "There's no need to be rude," I will say "Being polite wasn't working."
If he calls me names, I will say "That's why I don't want to talk to you."
(Prompted by this and re-reading this)
(*) There was a guy who was an ex-co-worker who was also a regular con-goer; I didn't like him, but I didn't want to be rude, so I would converse when he talked to me. I would cringe when I saw him at cons, and go in the opposite direction. Finally I got sick of trying to avoid him, so I said the aforementioned "I am not talking to you". Surprisingly, it worked.
no subject
Neither have I; I've never been hit on. But I still get bothered occasionally by men who are "just trying to be friendly" who don't seem to realize that I don't have an obligation to talk to complete strangers if I don't want to. Just because I'm sitting on (or waiting for) public transport doesn't mean that I'm there to entertain them.
The only people I got proactively concerned about as a single traveling gal on public transport and on the street was groups of teenaged males wearing their "group uniform".
Yeah, groups of young men make me uneasy; if there's at least one female in the group, her presence is likely to defuse the danger, but youths together in a pack are much more likely to egg each other on in harassing people. By "youths" I don't mean teenagers, but those close to or in their early twenties. I guess because the legal adult age here in Australia is 18, I don't think of 18-19 year olds as "teenagers", even if they are technically so. When you say "teenager" I think of someone about 15, and I don't feel threatened by anyone who is that young.
no subject