There is a lot more to it than "old fat bald guy". I don't know why so many people keep missing the extra clues, including in this past weekend's skeptic/atheist brouhaha over Richard Dawkins being ignorant. In short, it's the same damn situation. "Nice guy" (which is an unknown to the woman) approaches woman, gets rejected, is pissed off. Nice guy forgot to look at the situation, which was woman alone with man hitting on her in elevator at 3am.

> fat, bald guy 20 years older than you grinding his crotch up against your leg even when you've physically tried to push him away

When you're a fat, bald guy that does exactly that, you don't get to be treated like it's all okay and the girl is obligated to spend time with you because you bought her a drink or ten. It's the attitude that is the problem, not the fat or the bald.

If you are a considerate, nice, polite, friendly old fat bald guy that can respect boundaries and that people just have differing ideas of attractiveness (it goes both ways, and I know this as an overweight girl), you shouldn't be treated like a dirtbag, ever. Anyone that does treat you as such is a dirtbag in their own way.

I agree with you on most point except this one.

> When you're a fat, bald guy that does exactly that, you don't get to be treated like it's all okay and the girl is obligated to spend time with you because you bought her a drink or ten.

Where I live right now, women (and some men) surprisingly often offer me drinks in bars. Most of the time I'm not attracted to them but yet, I find it only fair and nice to spend some time with them. I even sometimes dance with old and fat women. I don't see anything wrong with this and if I don't feel like spending time with a stranger, I respectfully decline the offer and pay for my own drinks.

I feel like we're on the same page yet not.

I believe the key to the situation is will and interest. It is not drinks or attractiveness or grinding. All of that is awesome if everyone is okay with it. I too will also regularly talk to, dance with, and spend time with people that I may not want to sleep with but that I find interesting and comfortable to talk to. I will let them know this in advance, and most of the time they're completely fine with just the brief companionship and otherwise accept my declining their offer. This is basically the old bald guy chatting away with a woman and maybe even having a dance together, with no expectation of sex. Or the old bald guy that walks away from a woman that just said "thanks, but no thanks" to him.

What I am never okay with and what I believe is wrong and worthy of public shaming is the old bald guy that tries to grind up against and buy drinks despite the woman pushing him away. It doesn't even have to be the old bald guy. It could even be a ripped young guy with a nice suntan, a significant other or a friend or anybody to anybody else. You're not showing that person any respect by ignoring their boundaries.

I don't know if I'm doing a good job explaining this, but thanks to said skeptic brouhaha someone else has a very eloquent piece on this subject: http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-sch...

While I don't care much for the statistics, the situations created to illustrate the third and fourth points is of particular interest to this conversation.

Lastly about drinks, I think that declining the offer and buying your own drinks is the right thing to do. Some people don't understand that and like to freeload, which is rude but what can you do. The person buying drinks needs to understand that there is no obligation attached to buying someone else a drink.

That's all nice to hear, but the truth is that the (popular and unpopular) culture of western nations drives behavior to be outright hostile and racist to those with even minor genetic defects. And people herd themselves like sheep.

Shame on the culture that promotes hostility, but attractiveness is a personal decision. You just have to accept that some people just don't like old fat bald guys.

As much as it may seem surprising to the group of HNers that are single men that have no luck with talking to women, I am a girl that has been rejected by plenty of guys in the past for not wearing much makeup (if at all), being obsessed with certain topics to the point of overkill, spending too much time on the computer and out-geeking them (that apparently really makes them feel less manly), being Asian (and not being of Japanese heritage...yes really), being in my early 20s, being fat...

Deal with it. For every guy that has a fat Asian fetish is a guy that wants to sleep with a size 0 blonde Caucasian girl. Being an old, fat, bald guy is not the end of the world.

Of course it's not the end of the world. But the societal pressure towards certain physical ideals skews everyone's perception of "attractive" (Not more than a century ago, slim women were considered unattractive). So it's not 100% a "personal decision", and i understand it's really hard as a psychological burden.

I would not disagree. I completely expect there to be some societal influence and it is definitely a hard thing to come to terms with especially when you fit the profile that your culture currently deems unattractive. It's still a personal decision though, no matter how skewed.

Ultimately, in the original context of the fat guy story, it isn't so much the appearance as it is behavior that is problematic and people latched on to mostly the appearance and not the behavior. And as I've mentioned in my comment, some people don't seem to understand the nuances of a situation. Combine both together and you basically have the recipe for some of the bitter replies and downvotes found in these comments.

A woman has every right to be disgusted at that kind of behavior alone, before we even get into what she or society might think of fat old bald men. The same applies the other way around and however which way you want to organize the situation.

So again with my ideals (hopefully everyone including myself can work towards this goal!). Act like an asshole, you'll be treated like one. Act courteously, and be treated that way in return. Anyone that deviates from that is likely to be an asshole :P

Your response is disturbing. You seem to think that the fact that a man has bought a woman a drink gives him the right to initiate unwanted physical contact. It does not, and I suggest that you avoid any temptation in life to act as though it does. Buying a woman a drink gets the man the right to start a conversation that the woman can terminate at any moment if she so wishes, and nothing more. I note in passing that you can 'purchase' the same right much more cheaply by finding a witty line, or just having the courage to walk up and say hello.