I was just sitting at the mall taking a break from mall walking. A man walked over to me when I wasn't even looking up. He said "I haven't seen you here before. " I said I wasn't really here to talk to people and got up and walked away. He said he would leave, he may even have said sorry. I said I was ready to leave anyway. In retrospect I think he may have just been slightly mentally challenged so I wish I had been a little softer, he did not turn out to be aggressive. Looking for suggestions on something still clear and firm but more polite? This scared me for some reason, I think how fast he walked up and sat down near me.

Editing to add a key detail, he sat down close to me which is probably what made me more nervous than I would have otherwise been. I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback I've gotten and interesting discussion.

I think it's good you listened to your instincts and were firm. If he has a disability that makes social things complicated, being obvious was a favor to him. If he did have bad intentions, your immediate willingness to leave showed you weren't an easy mark.

There are probably good scripts for this, but I don't know them. I just think you should know it doesn't sound like you handled it badly.

You’re fine, he may have been mentally challenged, he may be immersed in a mall walking social group that has formed there and thought it was a risk worth taking based on previously successful or milder experiences, but you are well within your rights socially and everything else to be firm and curt and avoidant. I applaud your continued assessment and concern, it shows you actually care about people’s feelings, so imo you’re fine and will do great with whatever options you go with in the future. If you want my suggestion for a slightly easier refusal, I’d maybe just say “I really do appreciate your being social and being welcoming, I’m just not up for socializing today, sorry” and that should do it. But I think you did fine.

Unfortunately, apologizing in that way is another tactic that some men use to try to trick you into engagement.

He might have been manipulating you. Fear was the proper response.

/ am a man

// have met men who do that

/// I avoid them, too

Wow that's really good advice, thank you!

That's good phrasing, thank you!

I appreciate it!

Looking for suggestions

With a username (feelings67@lemmy.world) that matches \w+\d+ and has no comments since its creation (2 weeks for you), I would tell you to lurk more because we are flooded by spam and your account is suspicious.

It is totally reasonable to react the way you did. You don't owe it to other people to be comfortable around them. They should be thinking about what they can do to make you comfortable, ideally before they do it, and this guy clearly wasn't. If it is because of some disability or something that's totally plausible too, but that's his problem and his cross to bear, not yours. You weren't rude or cruel, but you were uncomfortable, and you're allowed to be. If he is capable of learning from that, maybe he will, and I think it would be a good lesson for him to learn.

You don't have to feel bad about it, it makes sense that you regret how the interaction turned out after the fact, but that regret comes from the additional information and processing time you had afterwards to think about it. If you want to reconsider that guy as a possibly decent fellow who deserves another chance in retrospect that's alright, and maybe if you see him again you can extend a little more tolerance for his behavior if you think it's safe. But it doesn't mean you were wrong in the first place. In general, you should trust your instincts and listen to them, they're just trying to keep you safe, and better safe than sorry. You should not have to be scared of a man sitting down next to you, but the way some men act in the world we live in, you have every right to. It's sad, but it's realistic, and you are not responsible for solving this problem on society's behalf. When we've built a society where you can have a man sit next to you and feel safe about it, then that'll be great. But we're not there yet.

‘I’m not really here to talk’ and leaving isn’t rude at all, don’t sweat it. If you had screamed at him that he was a creepy POS or something then you’d have a good reason to feel bad if he had some kind of intellectual/developmental disability, but you didn’t, and even if he does there’s a point where you have to learn you’re not a cute kid who can just walk up to people at random and start talking to them anymore (or at least not have everyone be as receptive to it).

People have to shoot their shot somehow.

It's fine to not be interested, neither one of you did anything wrong.

You know, somehow we have got to get back to the place where strangers can talk to each other in public places. I understand your position and why you needed to do that. I just regret the fact that conversations in public seem to be a lost art.

My dad is one of those people who makes friends everywhere he goes - talking to people in elevators, etc. and people react well to it. Everybody can't be that outgoing and shouldn't be. But I think the % of people who can do that now is going to be much less than it was in the past, which is a shame.

Most people are told to be afraid because of TB/Twitter and internalize it. That makes them, partly, losers. The people that go out and make human connections usually know this, and do it to remind people that real life isn't on the internet or in their heads. I do it too sometimes for fun, other times I'm like the rest of them.

Thank God I'm not single.

I think people who are socially inept are often advised to strike up innocuous little throwaway conversations with strangers in public places to improve their ability to interact. Unfortunately this is also exactly the MO of killers in CSI programmes.

I don't know what it is but recently I'm seeing a lot of content about people "approaching" strangers and people saying it's normal and people want to be spoken to. Some weird social media trend maybe.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply! I've worked in some dangerous settings and had to be a bit firmer and these suggestions have been helpful while still being clear!

Men try to trick you into engagement?

Trick you into what? Having a conversation?

If she wasn’t comfortable nothing says she has to stay(she’s free to leave), but what was he trying to trick her into?

Meanwhile women post videos asking “why can’t I find a date? Why won’t anyone say hi”.

Before social media this was totally normal. See someone you want to talk to? Walk up and say hi. There’s nothing odd about it

I worked with adults (and children) with developmental disabilities and this was a common thing we dealt with. We would take groups of guys out into the community to work and get some socialization. Since I’m a man, I usually worked with guys while women worked with women.

A lot of these people typically don’t get out into the community often so we were there to help them understand what was appropriate and what wasn’t. It was somewhat common for some guys in our groups, and we usually knew who was more prone to it than others, who would do this so we’d have a closer eye on where they were. We also had some who had sexual assault records and we made sure to be very, very close to them in proximity and not letting them out of our sight while ensuring that they had the same opportunities to have a normal life in public as possible.

We worked with both high functioning and low functioning populations, that is to say those who you can tell have some type of disability are lower functioning, as we referred to them back in the day and there may be some more politically correct term used now, with higher functioning population being less recognizable and more like anyone else you’d see in public, usually people with autism.

I say all that to say that if this man had a developmental disability, just from what you said here about how you handled it sounds fine. You didn’t sound rude or violent or anything. Just sounds like you were firm and polite and aware of your own safety which is great.

Most women who were approached by our population handled it very well. I can’t think of a time when someone didn’t and acted inappropriately in return. I think most women could tell seeing our groups and then noticing us as the staff coming along to redirect the guy and prompt him away from what he was doing that was inappropriate.

I remember one guy we had in particular who had a deep fascination for black women (he was Asian but at the same time would talk about how much he hated “Mexicans” and was part of the KKK) and would almost cross the line multiple times with women any chance he got. Not like violently attacking anyone but just overly verbally creepy. But even with him and how aggressive and creepy he’d be, women were very kind and polite but firm and did almost like you, just tried to make their escape. We’d make sure to be near him as much as possible but sometimes he’d get away from our sight and go do things like this. I remember one time he was very much into one woman but she was interested in my coworker who got her number and that set him off into a rage when he saw them talking and her handing him something.

I know I have watched videos about this also, that people say they are not approached or feel like they can't approach others. My thing is body language and eye contact, if I'm out walking around making eye contact and we exchange a hello and see if more occurs fine. But if someone is totally closed off looking away.... take the hint. And like dear lord don't sit down without being invited to ! Chat a minute and ask first.

Trick you into what? Having a conversation?

I think you know perfectly well what women fear from men. That's not to say it was necessarily the intention of this person to have anything nefarious happen.

Meanwhile women post videos asking “why can’t I find a date? Why won’t anyone say hi”.

Strawman. OP didn't, and she's the person we're currently discussing.

Yes. Some people, including women but more often men, will initiate a conversation in a way that puts the other person on the defense which prompts additional interaction. While saying "I haven't seen you here before" could be an icebreaker while pushing buttons on an elevator at an apartment building saying it after rushing up and sitting down next to someone who is looking down is basically invading someone's personal space when they weren't ready and comes across as pressuring for a reaction.

I had the same thought at first until the last sentence that said how quickly he approached and sat down. If he came in slower, asked to sit next to her, and if she said yes he said the same thing it would be completely different. I'm a dude and I wouldn't want someone rushing to sit down next to me and start a conversation when I was looking down at something.

Or, you know, he might have just been friendly and awkward.

I talk to folks around me all the time. Standing in line for checkout at a store or something? I'ma talk to you.

I don't walk up on folks out of nowhere, but if we are in near proximity for more than a minute, I'ma talk to you.

yeah im not sure how prevalent it is now but in my city in ages past it was pretty common to talk at public transit stops and grocery lines and such. I mean there is a casual way to strike up a conversation and a creepy way and movies by and large have these two. Even comedies about someone seeming creepy who did not mean to.

It is a shame, but it's not simply individual personal attitudes that's causing this. People are afraid of strangers. The problem is, there are too many cases where that's actually justified now.

The bad people have in fact ruined it for everybody. They have made it legitimately dangerous to have this sort of openness and trust in most slices of society, at least for people who look and behave a certain way, or were born certain ways. The problem is, under the influence of traditional media and social media and government and all the other dysfunctional and corrupt systems in our society, we've started tolerating the actually bad and dangerous people in society, instead of punishing them. Often we're actually celebrating them, and in some cases even electing them President. It makes it almost impossible to sustain a functioning society when bad people are allowed to do bad things with impunity or worse, reward for their behavior. This is what's causing the breakdown of society. Trust is hard to build and easily broken, and now it's been broken and it seems like fewer and fewer people are interested in trying to rebuild it.

Why the fuck would women trust anyone in this society when allegedly half of the people in the world's most economically powerful and culturally influential country voted for a party who is now occasionally saying women shouldn't have the right to make decisions about their own bodies or even have the right to vote. These horrifyingly regressive attitudes are not just extremist throwaway comments because they are being paired with actions in the US and around the world, and they have serious consequences.

And yes, I am allowed to bring politics into this, because society is literally made out of politics. That's what politics is, it's the primary ingredient for making civilization function and it defines how it functions. Our aversion to discussing contentious "politics" is what has allowed society to decay to the point it has. This is not about being "woke" this is about being intelligent enough to want to live in a civilized society. Civilization requires not just moral boundaries but also the willingness to treat those who push at or exceed those moral boundaries as an existential threat, because they are. If you want your society to be good, you cannot tolerate evil. The boundaries and definitions are not always clear, but we must grapple with them as they stand, not avoid them. Grappling with these issues is the day-to-day work required to make civilization function. It is not a failing that we will always have these issues and always struggle with these issues, but it is a failing if we stop trying to struggle with them, because then we're no longer keeping society functioning. Politics is life. Life is politics.

Feedback unrelated to your core problem. I’ve found that when describing people it’s more appropriate/respectful to use man, woman, person or whichever way you like to describe people, save for male/female. The latter is good for speaking about subjects or patients in a more scientific/clinical/biological way, but can sound impersonal in an “othering” sense. Noones going to throw a fit over this unless you’re in a weird place online, but it does make your language softer and more personable

or real life expereince with people like the OP have taught us it's not worth it.

Frankly, I don't want to interact with people who assume I'm mentally ill for being friendly to them. And where I live at least, that's the way a lot of folks react to friendly conversation if you are like standing in line with them. they act like you're trying to assault them.

Then they go on reddit and lament how body wants to be their friend... well because you reject anyone who tries to be friendly to you and you mischaracterize them in your mind as some terrible person.

and it's very aged based. I have a dog. people over 50 have no problem petting and asking me about my dog. millennials and younger folks, are like visible anxious and paranoid about interacting with me and asking me to pet my dog. I am also a millennial, I do not understand any of it. But I'm not on social media and I barely use my smart phone for anything other than phone calls and email, so I understand I'm an outlier in the way I interact with people. People my own age think I am weird for not wanting to text, and think my preference for phone calls and face to face interact is 'demanding'.

This is insane.

Other people are not psychic. They cannot read people's minds.

This is the attitude that is destroying things, right here. This expectation that an absolute stranger should know your preferences and what you want without ever expressing it.

The only way they can realize or understand any of that is if you talk to them first. This attitude is basically 'everyone else should cater to me and they are shitty if they don't do that'. Who, in their right mind, would ever want to interact with someone who is that massively entitled? Who thinks their comfort, their preferences, are the only legitimate or relevant ones?

Talk about epitome of self-absorbed.

Don't assume of other people, and you'll think less about thinking less of them. I get ignored most of the time, but that's the game isn't it. I secretly know you're a human down there, even if you want to act like I'm not here. Let's see just what I can get away with - sorta thing.

I don't assume. I observe and I listen.

The problem with a lot of folks is that... they are massive massive hypocrites when it comes to this stuff.

And they catastrophize ordinary harmless interactions into these hyperbolic experiences in their head and make insane conclusions about absolute strangers who gave them no evidence to support their judgements. I also encounter it a lot when dating too. I meet strange women and they start lecturing me about myself... when they know absolutely nothing about me. But the weird fiction in their head they have already written so intense and real to them, that often they totally reject any real facts about me that don't fit the story they have already made up. Especially the past few years I had so many expereinces where people tell me about myself, and I go 'well that's not true, I did x instead of y' and they go 'NO, YOU'RE LYING I KNOW YOU DID Y'. And weird shit like that.

I wonder if OP has legit dealt with mentally ill folks at all. I have. They don't act polite and respect your boundaries, they get up in your face and scream and threaten you. And usually fixate on something bizarre. Last time it happened to me a few months ago it was a guy on the subway who started screaming at me about my boots being gay and how he wants to fuck me because they are so beautiful.

It's the MO of every human being when they are interacting with a stranger for the first time...

I suspect this might be cultural. In some parts of Switzerland (e.g. rural LU) you're expected to greet strangers walking past you. Do that in Zurich and you might get the same kind of negative feedback. OTOH, OP's case was more than a courteous "hello"...

Well, you got up. Point made. No reason to fear anymore.

I would not exactly answer to what he said, but say a different thing, maybe like "You want to sit here?" (polite on the surface, stating the obvious, but implicitly putting the focus on on his action, not yours)

I'd say that's a little bit overly dramatic take on what I was trying to say. I understand where you're coming from, but I wasn't calling for anyone to read any minds. But a little bit of sensitivity to the facts and statistics is not an unreasonable ask:

Approximately 4.7 million women in Canada — 30% of all women aged 15 and older — have been sexually assaulted outside of an intimate relationship at least once since age 15. [Source: Statistics Canada, 2019]

That's almost 1/3 of women, that's a serious statistic, and it means that, as a man, you have a responsibility to approach unfamiliar women with at least a reasonable measure of respect for their safety and comfort. And it doesn't even account for any potential bias towards exactly the sort of "attractive" women who tend to get approached by men much more frequently than others because they are in fact attractive: they literally attract these sort of situations and you can't assume it's because they choose to.

For someone throwing around accusations of being entitled and self-absorbed, you sound very much like you're in fact the one saying ‘everyone else should cater to me and they are shitty if they don’t do that’.

100% this ☝️

Yes, it's cultural. It's also part of the 'loneliness epidemic' that is affecting most westernized countries. As a larger and larger cohort of the population becomes socially isolated, especially young adults.

And frankly, I've noticed a huge cultural shift in my own city the past 5 years. I used to have way more casual interactions, and now many of those same casual interactions are viewed with hostility and suspicion... just like OP's reaction.

10 years ago if someone dropped something and you picked it up for them they'd thank you. Now they act get angry with you for trying to help them, and sometimes accuse you of theft or harassment. And that type of reaction basically teaches folks to just not bother, it's a type of death spiral. Even personally, as the years go by and the hostility ratio goes up, it makes me increasingly want to socialize less in general. Even many of my closer friends from years ago have gone down this rabbit hole of hostility and suspicion, and I stopped interacting with them because it was so exhausting and miserable to be around someone who thinks the bartender is 'looking at them funny'... no it's you whose looking at the bartender funny... you idiot.

It is increasingly difficult to find folks who are receptive and open minded to strangers, which is the building block of any/all socialization. And what's incredibly rare is folks who can just politely say no without demonizing the other person.

The irony here is that... you are one of those bad people.

You're entire attitude here is the pure hostility and suspicion without any evidnece to back it up.

A random stranger on the street has nothing to do with Epstein or Trump, and your assumption they do until otherwise proven 'innocent' an incredibly toxic and hostile way of living life.

Perhaps you should stop obsessing over this stupid shit because you have no control over it and never will. Nor will anyone else who isn't also part of the social elite.

Your political beliefs also have no bearing on your personal deeds with other people. Plenty of hardcore leftist liberals lie, cheat, and steal and would do so from you if given the opportunity. Perhaps even you yourself have done those things, and you certainly seem to think they'd be justified against the 'enemy' you imagine is lurking around every corner.

I grew up without social media and to me this is not at all normal. The only strangers who talk to you want to sell you something, or they have some mental issues.

Yes, using "male" or "female" as a noun (rather than an adjective) is bad form when referring to people. At least, it's non-standard.

That said, language is constantly evolving, and when there is a need, it will be filled. Convention be damned. And there is a need for a noun that means "girl or woman" that isn't clunky. There's no good "standard" word to use. I think that's one of the reasons this usage is becoming more common. (Personally, it gives me the ick, probably because I heard it used mostly in misogynistic contexts c. 2010 and it's hard to shed that connotation. But I see it more and more without that subtext more recently. I suspect in 50 years it will be "standard".)

Similar deal with the singular "they". Some people still complain about that, even though it's been in use for a very long time (centuries, I think).

I, for one, am a strong proponent of...well, my username. After all, "bro" can be short for Broseph or Brosephina.

I've been raped by women. More than one.

I don't assume every woman I meet is a rapist.

Because women aren't rapists. Rapists are rapists.

But please tell me more how I'm a rapist and every woman I talk to, regardless of her attractiveness to me, means I'm potentially going to rape her.

Also you leave out the fact most women are reaped overwhelmingly by people they already know, friends, co-workers, etc. Not random strangers. Not a convenient fact for your '1/3 random men you see are going to rape you' worldview.

A perception of forced rather than incidental interaction is common from those practising chitchat and those set on murder was my point.

Maybe it's a cultural thing? Apparently America is unusually friendly compared to the rest of the world, and striking up conversations with strangers is pretty normal.

Nope. You did nothing wrong.

They should be thinking about what they can do to make you comfortable, ideally before they do it, and this guy clearly wasn't.

I agree that OP's reaction was reasonable but what about the guy's actions make it so clear to you that he wasn't thinking about OP's comfortability? They tried to strike up a friendly conversation and backed off immediately when it wasn't well-received.

It's fine to not want to talk but people really shouldn't have to avoid basic human interaction just because 1% of people might not be interested at that time.

OP wrote mentally challenged, not mentally ill.

I would never approach someone who was not looking up at me unless I really had to, like they had dropped something. I can't think of a time a woman has approached me in this way.

I think you did fine. As a guy with nieces, my standard for how I'd approach a woman socially is how I'd like another man to approach one of my nieces socially. In a public place where she has several outs if she gets a bad vibe from the situation. But also confident and direct. But just because he shot his shot respectfully doesn't mean you owe him conversation. Being at a mall to shop or to walk or to kill time is perfectly fine. A lot of younger people do use it as a meeting place because it is big and public and you can explore similar interests while shopping, or even window shopping. When I was younger, I avoided the mall because "mall people" weren't my kind of people, but now I can see the advantage.

I'd ask you how you'd prefer to be approached, but it's beside the point since you weren't looking to be approached in the first place, and that's fine too.

Okay so I assume TB isn't tuberculosis here, but what did it stand for?