Chatting up, going down

So further to this rant the other day I can do no better than point you towards a much better read at The Sabotage Times, "5 Ways To Approach Women Without Coming Across Like A Perv", which comes via Lindsay.

Look, I don't want to give you the impression, with all these posts, that I'm constantly being badgered by men everywhere I go and oh Lord it's just so exhausting and if only I weren't so devastatingly beautiful maybe life would be easier because that... does not happen. But I also think some men just don't realise that there's a big difference between being trying your hand in an appropriate setting (this = good. We like this!) and unrolling that same behaviour in inappropriate setting (this = bad. We don't like this!). For example, Random Street Dude, I'm not being an uptight bitch for keeping my eyes on the ground when you say somethng to me as I walk past at night en route to the pub or the taxi line: I'm trying not to engage with you, as a random, stronger-than-me stranger, because I'm scared there is, on some level, a chance you might rape and murder me.

But why am I still talking? TST says it better than I can:

"If a man were to smile at me across a crowded bar, start a conversation and/or offer me a drink, I’d think “how charming!” If that same man were to try and start the same conversation by tapping me on the shoulder as we walked along a quiet road I’d be rummaging for my rape alarm. Being chatted up is lovely when you’re expecting it, but when you feel like you’ve been ambushed it’s not flattering, it’s frightening."

Yes. This.

Again I feel a bit odd writing about this here because my blog readership, such as it is, consists mostly of friends and family, plus a few of Lindsay's readers she has bullied into coming here occassionally (keep it up, L, you're doing God's Work) and the lovely boys/men in my life are, you know, IN my life because they're Already Good People.

Still I've posted it for two reasons: one, in case someone who really could benefit from the advice stumbles across this blog. And two: because the article itself is pretty amusing and entertaining. To that end, I'll finish this Rant #2 with the bit that made me laugh out loud (or LOL, as the kids were only too recently saying):

"I know that everyone from 50 Cent to JLS has sung about the interesting stuff that goes down at “the club” but as far as I know, Fiddy didn’t say “she hit the floor, she’s looking fly / so normal assault laws don’t apply.”