The legal and political concepts of sexual harassment come into play in contexts where women can’t just leave (workplace, industry). I don’t think you get fired or sued or arrested for asking someone out at soccer or pottery class or running club. But women might not want to be in environments where that keeps happening, and those groups might develop taboos in order to survive.

Asking out is ok but asking out repeatedly or insisting on any other way may make the venue uncomfortable for both people and thus force one to leave their hobby, friends etc.

I feel like you’re restating, or at least stating, the obvious takeaway: don’t ask out repeatedly or insist.

It’s okay to ask, but learn to take a hint.

What I’m also present to is the additional risk of post-rejection awkwardness while sharing the same community long term.

My communities are very valuable to me which makes such an endeavor high stakes.

So I thread lightly.

Yes, there’s always that. It’s always less risky to not express these things, but there’s a world of difference between the risk of embarrassment that comes with rejection, and losing an entire community. Avoiding catastrophe is a skill, and I think it comes with balancing self-confidence / charisma with learning to take the hint, among other things.

Thank you for this, opens possibilities for me.

>#metoo movements, and generalized "women don't ever want to be approached" zeitgeist

It (the extreme of what you're writing about) exists only on the internet.

Just turn off twitter and you'll realize those things do not exist at the scale that you think

And where it does exist, it’s usually someone exploiting power and/or access to another person, e.g. superiors in the workplace taking advantage of subordinates, customers being inappropriate to servers and not understanding or caring that it’s their job to serve them and their advances are not welcome, that weird/obsessed guy in your greater friend circle that you never want to be alone with, etc.

Respectful advances in places where both people are on equal footing and there are not external pressures, have never been seen as off limits as far as I am aware.

That's the negative behaviour the movements were trying to address but young men interpreted it as women not wanting to be approached by them at all. That's the message social media is giving.

It's an extreme but a dangerous permanent extreme. It's not like the risk of riding a bike and breaking your leg. Legs heal.vYour reputation doesn't, especially if your hobby or career requires an online presence.

Twitter aside, there is a general post COVID feeling of "coldness" out there in my anecdotal experience. It's kinda always been that way given me being in a big city (or at least, within driving distance of one), but even small talk seems to have diminished these days. Forget women, people in general just seem less interested to wave hello unless you're at a very specific function.

As a straight male I’ve always found dating men for friendship was a lot harder than dating women

Ha, I haven't dated a woman for 8 years but maybe there is some wisdom here. It can be so hard to wrangle friends together for some casual meetups even if I'm happy to pay for it. It's usually not too bad once we eventually set a date, but if you don't reach out they almost never will. Like, we're talking maybe your most active friend will reach out for a birthday party or outing once every 6 months, pre-COVID. Many just will never reach out period.

The upside of all that is that most men don't usually take it personally. Like, I can throw out a text to someone I haven't seen since college in another state and we chat like old times (you know, minus the 5 years of catching up). So it's not like they ignore people on purpose. I guess life is just busy.

I have no clue how to meet truly NEW freinds though. Meetups are so flaky and a lot of my tech/gaming circle is probably inside anyway. At best I met some closely connected friends that were ex-coworkers I never talked to.

It’s kind of annoying I’m better friends with the moms of my kids friends than I am the dads. The dads want nothing to do with other dads but the moms are friendly and we chat way more. Even the dads that should be a great friend match we just never seem to make time for each other.

All my male friends are either from college or work, and like you said they tend to forget you if you don’t follow up.

The issue of sexual harassment, including the bosses pushing you for sex existed before internet.

If anything, the blow up is massively an improvement at least we do not have to pretend it does not exists.

> a combination of sexual harassment statutes, #metoo movements, and generalized "women don't ever want to be approached" zeitgeist has closed this avenue off.

Wait, what? This reads like the classic boomer complaint that is hard to get to know women when you can't slap their ass in the office any more. "No one can take a joke any more, etc etc"

Women are not a monolithic voting bloc. Some will respond to approaches that repel or bore others. The only way to know is to get to know them as people first and potential romantic partners second. This is why a social scene, or in sone cultures, extended clan gatherings, is so important: you see someone in a relaxed setting and can make some assessment of their personality and values. This also means that it takes time. I don't want to say that a should all go back to the weird heteronormative 1950s, but using as many social networks as possible, including unusual ones, is essential.

As an older dude who has seen the games that young men play at work, I understand that the hormonal drive for guys is absolutely saturating, but you will fail and fail again if you think that #metoo stops you. If it did, you were misbehaving to start with.

> Wait, what? This reads like the classic boomer complaint that is hard to get to know women when you can't slap their ass in the office any more. "No one can take a joke any more, etc etc"

No, it's the extremism that's a problem. Men went towards TheRedPill and similar idiots. And especially the younger millennial women and younger have seen this garbage for what it is.

However the pendulum swings to compensate. I've heard recently from quite a few places the old radical quote from 2nd wave "sex is always rape because of patriarchal power imbalance".

I've also slapped precisely 0 butts in the workplace. Nor have I said the usual shitty "women do _" things. But the problem is so many younger generations's women are overly on guard.

Hell, I've had them (at work) ask "don't I look good?", seeking attention. I flatly said that I don't make comments on appearance of men or women.

If I wasn't already with someone, I'd likely be with nobody. It's too toxic out there as a man or someone who presents as a man.

>If I wasn't already with someone, I'd likely be with nobody.

How did you end up getting with someone in that case?

It was pretty much complete luck, on both our sides.

Neither of us were looking for relationships, or sex, or whatever. We've never done any dating apps.

We met literally in the Starbucks line. Conversation started up, we both had time and sat down for coffee. It just went from there. We've been together for 10y.

Would it happen like that or similar again to either of us? Nope. Nor is it repeatable.

[delayed]

the absolute problem for me personally is the lack of social scene, i don't actually remember the last time i talked to anyone single, even at the few parties i forced myself to go to.

>if you think that #metoo stops you. If it did, you were misbehaving to start with.

If you read up on the Richard Stallman #metoo cancelation attempt I'd really like to know how you thought he was misbehaving because from my perspective it was simply used to jeer at and bully somebody vulnerable.

I think it's pretty rational to think that could happen to somebody else.

Approximately everything RMS has done in his life is "misbehaving". That's why the FSF is famously ultra-combative.

His activism is quite bad for profits and that makes some people angry at him.

This indirectly led to him being accused of being a sexual predator but it doesnt mean he actually is one.

What about the part of his activism where he makes up stupid baby names for everything he doesn't like, shouts at all his colleagues and eats skin off his toes?

The attempts at character assassination are a natural side effect of his profit-hostile activism.

The attacks on his character and the noisy tantrum Google had over AGPL a few years ago (e.g. even banning it from their own version of github for a while) are manifestations of the same desire to see him and his movement nullified.

It's funny because the GPL is not anti-profit, as there's two very natural models for it: one where you sell commercial licenses for people who can't use GPL software, and one where you sell support and development contracts for it.

It isnt anti the concept of profit, it just had the effect of chewing through a lot of profit margins. The GPL was responsible for breaking Microsoft's desktop OS monopoly, for instance.

A watered down FSF run by an inoffensive do-nothing would be a better outcome for big tech than leaving him in charge. Hence the all the attempts to cancel him, including via cynically hijacking #metoo.

None of that makes him a sexual predator. You're using "he's a weirdo" to imply "he's dangerous". Obvious bullshit.

I never said he's dangerous. I would say he's obnoxious and antisocial.

Why would you bring that up in relation to " Richard Stallman #metoo cancellation attempt", unless you were trying to insinuate some sort of connection between his "obnoxious antisocial" tendencies and the sexual predator allegations (that is what is meant by "#metoo cancellation attempt")

I could spontaneously combust tomorrow, but I don’t build my life around that. Interacting with people has a risk associated with it. For women, this risk is much higher. For men, now with things like #metoo, the risk has been raised. If you are out talking with a woman and get weird/bad vibes, politely excuse yourself and stop interacting with them. Don’t dig a deeper hole. The majority of woman will let you know if they are not interested. Poor social skills does not excuse behavior which makes someone feel unsafe.

>For men, now with things like #metoo, the risk has been raised.

Yes, that was my entire point. The movement didn't only mean that more Weinsteins got what they deserved. It also lowered the bar of what is considered "creepy" and raised the risks of behavior which is perceived as such.

A lot of people basically don't have strong enough urge to fcuk. Something is skrewed with the chemistry. Social aspects are just noise around it.

What right does society have to demand that men act docile? Nobody cares an iota for our SAFETY, let alone our comfort.

A society that isn't built on reciprocation is not a society worthy of my respect.

>As an older dude who has seen the games that young men play at work, I understand that the hormonal drive for guys is absolutely saturating, but you will fail and fail again if you think that #metoo stops you. If it did, you were misbehaving to start with.

Quite the contrary. I don't want to misbehave or be construed as misbehaving so I never tried anything at all. You see the most negative examples so of course you won't see the ones who don't want any risks at their workplace and put their head down.

Even on HN you will see a lot of people who hate conversing with coworkers and simply want to clock in and clock out, with no interest in making friends. And I feel that's a minor factor that leads to such behavior.

Is it not possible there are multiple extremes at work here? The boomer example you provided is something I think is generally agreeable: it's not acceptable to go around slapping asses (man or woman) in the way you describe.

However, when the (alleged) "victim's" interpretation of something is given as much weight as it is in these laws (and it is--anyone who's had a corporate sexual harassment training course knows this), it greatly increases the risk of even more mundane interactions being reported as harassment. Even if the real rate of reports is tiny (or even unchanged from an era prior to the existence and refinement of these laws), the perception of risk still matters.

I would say that you're right in some sense: most women are fine with someone respectfully asking them out. But the tricky part here is that there is a minority of women (say, the most sensitive 10%) who get genuinely upset or feel harassed by an indicator of interest in any given setting. When you're asking people out, you don't know what a particular woman's boundaries are upfront, and if you ask out the wrong woman, it can genuinely mess up your social or professional circles. This applies in friend groups and even if you look for positive indicators of interest: one woman might think giving a lingering hug is her being very explicit about her interest, while another thinks of a hug as obviously purely playonic and reacts very negatively if you take that as an okay to express your own interest.

Dating apps prefilter for "acceptable to indicate interest to" and let you avoid an ambiguous landscape that's impossible to perfectly navigate.

This sounds like a toxic incel point of view.

If you talk to women like they're human beings instead of bizarre creatures that you need to manipulate into mating, this doesn't actually happen.

This sounds very incellish. It’s not considered sexual harrasment to politely gauge interest and immediately back off when you see the signs they aren’t interested.

My father asked my mother out 5 times before she said yes. They've now been married for 45 years. Maybe if I tried that kind of perseverance it would work, or maybe the second ask would get me labeled and witch hunted by somebody like you who would then try to ruin my life for it.

You should definitely not ask someone out five times at their place of employment after they have said no. At school? At church? Maybe

You didn't make an exception for school, nor did the comment you replied to. The only exception they cited was church and you didn't add any yourself until now. And why is school an exception to you, but work is not? Both are places people "have to be", places where people go to do something other than flirt and where they might feel trapped in a social situation they can't easily get out of. How is "my coworker asked me out twice but I still have to work with him" different from "my co-student asked me out twice but I still have to go to class with him"?

There's no meaningful difference here, particularly if you're a grad student. But I guess you'll now say that undergrads are allowed to ask somebody twice, but grad students must not ask more than once? Or maybe you'll just insult me and tell me to be miserable quietly like other people in this discussion already have.

Because work places in one place where you must interact with your coworkers to do your job. The bar is a lot lower for what constitutes harassment

There is a certain level of professional conduct that people expect in a professional setting that’s not there in school.

Also, I would be very wary of approaching someone at the gym who was working out. I use to teach at gyms part time when I was single. Women would have to really start the conversation with me before I would make any move.