Posted on 05/29/2018 5:46:43 AM PDT by Cronos
Tbowling alley in my small town in central Pennsylvania. An older man bought me a beer and talked to me while he shot pool. Smoking and drinking in that grungy bowling-alley bar in the seediest part of town, I felt cosmopolitan and mature. I was oblivious to the transaction taking place: by drinking his beer, I was entering into an implicit and unwritten contract in which I was expected to fulfill a sexual obligation. One of my more astute and experienced friends told the man that I had a boyfriend and had no intention of being intimate with him. He became irate and threw a lit cigarette into my hair as I left the bar. I went home scared and confused as to why my acceptance of a beer and friendly conversation had gotten me into a terrifying mess.
What I learned that day is that attention from unfamiliar men is implicitly transactional, and a failure to pay the price can result in some traumatic consequence. I admit that on this point, I have been proven wrong repeatedly over time. But I have also had enough disturbing experiences that every male stranger is suspect. It’s always possible that I am going to be expected to acknowledge a tacit, unwritten contract and obey its terms and conditions. It’s a contract only a man can create, and sometimes it feels like only a man can break it. Women are expected to sign on the dotted line.. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
It happens frequently in the South with people who want to talk.
I’m filing her story under “S__t That Never Happened”.
I'm not surprised. Clubs are in business to sell drinks and entrance fees. If there were no women for guys to talk to, then guys would stop coming, so you need an inducement for women to show up. Getting free drinks, or a sales commission, is such an inducement.
It doesn’t happen so much in nightclubs or dance clubs. There, I would suspect that a guy offering to buy me, another guy, a drink meant he wanted something. But, in smaller bars you’ll find that it’s just a nice gesture on behalf of someone you happen to be sitting beside and conversing with. It’s a way of saying you enjoy the conversation, just a friendly thing to do. Next round you reciprocate.
It’s an implicit offer for 5-10 minutes of conversation, that’s about it. Where it goes from their is usually up to the woman.
Wow! I’ve bought “beers” for women in bars for years! And never thought twice about it.
To me, it has been basically an equivalent to holding a door open for a woman. Nothing more.
Boy, all the missed opportunities!!!!!
“.....I don’t know you and besides you’re really not all that cute.”........
Works every time. :)
Richard Feynman said he eventually settled on doing what you said as the ultimate pickup technique.
Nor should a woman engaging in sex with a man be seen as putting him under an obligation to provide her with beer. Equal rights, y'know.
The woman is going to be offended no matter what eventuates.
Some of it is also that women like feeling desired. It's a game. She gets status points from her peers for every reasonably attractive guy who displays interest.
The article left me somewhat confused.
Does she not understand that almost every man talking to almost any women has at least some small part of his mind thinking of sex? That doesn’t mean that she owes him anything for the beer but we are all here because our fathers (and mothers) at least one time were thinking of sex. It’s what makes the world go round.
Then she goes on about the “Pound Me Too” (#metoo) movement which seems like a horrible name for an anti-sexual harassment campaign.
And of course she relates that last story where the guy didn’t ask for her number. If he HAD asked would he suddenly be a violent pervert who needed to be socially ostracized? Or would he still be a nice guy who just wanted to build a relationship with her?
Feminists are so very confusing. I don’t THEY even know what they want!
You confused the heck out of them, perhaps even insulted them. You were supposed to want her bad, in which case she’d be insulted anyway if she wasn’t interested in you to begin with. Make sense? Nah. Me neither, lol.
All I can say is that the pinball machine segment of the Accused might be the best 15 minutes on film.
This woman is so full of herself.
In college, I worked as a commercial landscaper. Government contract, big fields to be mowed. Really dirty,dusty work. And, tiring.
One day after work, my co-workers and I stopped in at the nearest hole-in-the-wall bar. A gorgeous brunette walked in and I asked her if I could buy her a drink. She said, “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that line?” Without batting an eye, I said, “F*ck you, buy your own drink!”
She went home with me that night - true story.
bingo
She understood all that from one interaction with a greaseball in an admittedly seedy bowling alley in New Jersey?
I would call that an unwarranted extrapolation of evidence. Otherwise known as pasture putty.
He became irate and threw a lit cigarette into my hair as I left the bar.
Yeah. Bet that never happened.
—
Really, me too.
Besides, how many states still allow smoking inside any kind of public establishment?
Sounds like a story from 1978. In a made for TV movie. Starring Sharon Gless.
If a woman asks you to buy her a drink, your only response should be “No, but you can buy me one.”
“...when I was twenty-four and in graduate school at Portland State University...”
Well, Kira, there’s a lot of your problem right there.
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