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I avoid approaching women in public because I believe it's inappropriate. My parents say that it's a necessary skill. Who is right? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The other day, my parents asked me (22M) if there were any women that I find attractive (I guess because they're paranoid about me being gay lol) and I told them yes, there's a fair number of women that I've seen in public that I've found attractive.

They asked me, "Do you talk to any of them?" and I said "No??? It's inappropriate to approach women in public unless you have business with them."

I told them that it is only appropriate for a man to talk to a woman he doesn't know when the social situation is explicitly designed for meeting strangers—dating apps, hobby groups, meeting friends of friends, etc. In my view, cold approaching women you don't know just because you're attracted to them is harassment.

My parents told me that I'm being ridiculous and making excuses because I'm nervous. They are adamant that I need to learn to approach women or else I will never find a partner. I told them that times have changed and this is disrespectful and potentially predatory behavior along the lines of unsolicited flirting and catcalling. Approaching women is a violation of their personal space and could make them feel very uncomfortable, especially if they feel like they don't have an easy way out.

My parents are almost 60 and they are very conservative, so they don't exactly follow progressive discourse, and I feel like they're super out of touch on this as a result. Particularly, my mom tends to strike up conversations with other women in public, and she's skeptical when I tell her that I can't do the same thing because I'm a man and would be viewed as a potential predator.

But I also don't get out much, which makes me second-guess how distorted my understanding of the social world is from reality. My parents are like a broken clock, and sometimes they DO have a point about something despite 90% of their opinions being insane. Maybe there is a more nuanced reality that I'm not picking up on.

So I wanted to ask here. Are my parents out of touch? Am I out of touch? Are we both wrong? I want to know your opinion.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Look at it this way, it's the same as approaching someone in public to make a friend. Obviously, that's not inappropriate. It's only inappropriate if you're treating it differently (which you shouldn't be).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

How many friends have you made cold approaching people on the street or in shops like that?

Do people often react by treating you with intense suspicion? Ngl, overly chatty/friendly strangers freak me the fuck out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I think you should just make a habit of talking to people around you. You're kind of putting human interaction on a pedestal and that's just going to make you overthink things.

First of all, you need to understand it's not some pre-planned thing. You should be making a point to go out to do things you like doing - not going out with the explicit agenda of just talking to people. That's why I think the term "cold approach" is loaded, and full of shit--It inaccurately makes it sound like something negative and unnatural--In actuality you've done it many times before without thinking about it.

Seems you've gone deep into this analysis, of which none of it is actually relevant though, because you're not talking about the root cause of your feelings. Which is that you have social anxiety.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 34 minutes ago

Is this something people actually do? I've only made friends through shared activities, mostly class, and by meeting friends of friends.