Millennial Media

Having read this piece, I believe you will find many men who would flatly disagree with your sentiment. To suggest that a man who plucked up the necessary courage to approach you during the day at a fair and start a conversation as 'desperate' is egotistical. While you may have had a smile on your face fixed, if you made eye contact with a man then unfortunately, he will always believe you are interested. Doesn't 'Smile + Eye contact = Come and talk to me'?

In this scenario, I feel sorry for the guy. He would have walked away from this interaction very confused. Next time, if you don't want to talk, then don't even humour him. Better to know from the outset that it won't lead anywhere, and hopefully then not be labelled as 'desperate'.

Arrogant White Woman Syndrome is when an educated young woman assumes that because a man is attempting to talk to her clearly he wants to marry her, date her, have sex with her and worship her.

I say this being a well-educated white woman.

Get off your high horse lady. Not every man who looks at you is so enamored with your smile and friendliness that his weak attempt to engage in conversation means his loins are burning for you. Perhaps he just wants to talk.

Men are less likely to make friends and personal connections with other men than with women. This has to do with our culture, men often talk to each other about sports, politics and the weather, but sometimes not about the way they feel. Men sometimes feel that more intimate conversations about their personal beliefs about cell phone usage and recent vacation spots are better had with a female. This can be difficult if they don't have many women in their lives.

If one has the time would it really kill a person to take 10 minutes out of their day to connect with a stranger? I smile and talk to people all the time, I learn new things and make a lot of new friends, and I'm a better person for the journey....and I meet most of my new friends in the deepest and darkest neighborhoods of Baltimore City. So far nobody has proposed marriage yet.

Just because a male initiates a friendly conversation with you does not mean he is "desperately" trying to court you. The attempted role reversal is transparent, and does not stack equally across the gender line. A man who persues women is not desperate its how he goes about expanding his options. I'm sure the desperation was assumed due to illusory preconceptions put in place by sterile gender plural academia and a drastic overestimation of your SMV.

This article is a perfect example of what most men refer to as the "rationalization hamster".

It contains all of the ingredients:

1. Man in an equal metropolitan enviornment (the fair) is a criminal
(90% of sexual abuse is commited by an acquaintance or someone intimately close to a woman not a stranger)
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/potential-rapist-syndrome/

2. Assumed higher value although frequenting the same venue as the male.

3. Assumed male desperation, implying lack of male choosing power.
(There are desperate men, but the men prone to desperation are unlikely to be confident enough to approach a woman.)

4. Trying to equivocate male and female SMV decline. Male value goes up with age (wealth & status increase) female value goes down (baggage increase, looks decrease)

Its understandable why the rationalization hamster is spinning. "Since women are the more biologically valuable sex, they have a lot more ego to lose — and hence to spin into hamsterrific delusion — by being rejected or downgraded to the invisible fringes of the mating market."

http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/proof-found-for-rationalizatio...

As a psychologist shouldn't it be easy to self diagnose such outlandish grandeur and delusion?

This tale of woe is dumber and more trivial than the one at the center of the Rebecca Watson blowup last Summer. And at least Bolick had a boyfriend (or twenty) before finding her way to the Dark Side. And before her, Gottlieb somehow had the wherewithal to go AI in time to come out of it with a baby.

Angst filled single women are shredding our culture.

And they want us guys to think it's our fault! It's not. We know feminist's stories never have a happy ending.

Aren't these comments a little unfair? They seem markedly one-sided to me. There's another article that's been highlighted recently. The one about men misinterpreting women's smiles:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201112/sex-a...

From the story, it all sounds like a simple case of mixed signals on the part of both parties. There's no need to get so heated, and make personal attacks on the writer's character. This incident could have happened between any two people of any gender and station, and not just exclusive to a "well-educated white woman" and urban male. It's a mistake to assume that either party plays the role of victim here.

Dear KB,

Thank you for your comment- I greatly appreciate it. I would not have guessed that after calling myself an “outcast” in my first paragraph that I would be opening the door to being called arrogant. I agree with the article you posted-one of my colleagues from Duke has worked extensively with male perpetrators of violence against women. He has shared that what is often forgotten is that women are socialized to be wary and afraid of strange men coming up to them and attempting to engage them. Men can misinterpret with grave consequences, just as women can be perpetrators of violence against women.

The location of this very incident is in the same city where a woman was in fact abducted for 20 years. Granted, this is an extreme case. But in truth, I could have written this same article with the same content with a very different tone. It appears that my sense of humor was lost on some readers (perhaps I should have taken that stand up comedy class with the man). But it could have been written from the perspective of a female asking that men be more conscious of interpreting cues.

We know that in scenarios that are interpreted as being potentially dangerous there is a fight or flight response. However, literature on sexual abuse indicates a third “F”-freeze. I would argue that in the moment I froze. Despite avoiding eye contact, physically turning away, and opting for a Pan-Am smile as opposed to the Duchenne (very sparingly, I might add), I was unable to lose the gentleman in the crowd. As women, we are socialized to “be nice,” and so there was some cognitive dissonance. Be nice or be mean seemed like two polar extremes, both inappropriate. So act casual seemed to be the primary route. Thus to be completely honest, while I made light of the situation in my post, I was in fact afraid. Further, I think the harsh comments only perpetuate the woman as ignorant and guilty stereotype. It is the same as “she asked for it” when she walked into a club wearing a short skirt. As therapists, we hear how these seemingly innocuous situations seriously upset our clients, and rightly so. No one deserves to be made uncomfortable.

Relatedly, DSM is of course made up, and made to be a joke. I apologize if anyone took it seriously and was offended. The terms “desperate and clingy” appear in quotations because they are as such labels that have an inherent value judgment in them. This said, why is it that we can have a book and subsequent film entitled, “He’s Just Not That Into You,” but no equivalent for men? Are they flawless? Do they never fall into some of the same very traps that women may? Finally, I’m confounded when the term “feminist” is used as an insult. In truth, anyone that believes women should vote and be entitled to equal pay as men would be deemed a feminist by some theorists.

Happy reading and happy holidays!

What you said is interesting, and I agree that men can be "desperate and clingy", but I really don't think that a guy hitting on you or making conversation with you is necessarily a sign of desperation. Some guys get nervous, can't really read nonverbal signals too easily, and like to talk. Of course I wasn't there, so if you got a sense of desperation from him, well, it could be on par or it might not be. I mean, you simply look like a kind, friendly person, and I think that people are more apt to get a good feeling around people who look warm, regardless of the "hints" they try to give off. Like, next time a guy tries to talk to you when you're uninterested, frown, scowl. Seriously. :)

I sort of admire guys in a way who have the guts to approach women in public and spark friendly conversation. But of course, not to a point where it is annoying (or scary, god forbid) to the woman. I recently had a guy approach me who caused me to feel pretty nervous, but after he approached me again in the same place and we began talking, I learned he was a pretty peaceful person who wouldn't hurt a fly (literally). Maybe it's nerves that might make a guy come off as more "threatening" than he really is? I dunno. Not condoning disregarding fear though.

Hi Liz,

Thanks for your comments and perspective- I agree, I don't think one can make a definitive assertion of his intentions at all based off of 10 minutes. The scenario was mostly a springboard for broader reflections on the "desperate and clingy" stereotype in general. But it's helpful to see how it may have been read that way too. I'll be sure to attempt the scowl next time, though I'm also prone to nervous giggles, so we'll see how well that goes :)

Goal,just some book suggestions. They are women that share similar backgrounds to you that you may find interesting. Hirsi Ali,Wafa Sultan, Bridget Gabriel,Nonie Darwish

And a happy new year