MDgonnabe said:
you mean i shouldn't have gone to work in my belly dancing outfit???
It really wasn't about appearance. The two women I mentioned dressed well, but not provocatively. It really was about their vibe.
and you are correct, sir. i am not all that hot.
First of all, I don't presume to make any guesses at all regarding your 'hotness,' since I haven't any idea what you look like, and I certainly did not mean to imply that I could guess otherwise! I was just speaking of the cases I saw IRL.
Second of all, I am a woman (not a 'sir'), and I've noticed this at work in my own life. I have only once been approached inappropriately in any professional/academic setting (although it happens a lot on the street and in casual social settings). It happened when I was teaching high school students. At the time I was only a couple of years older than they were, totally inexperienced, and I had absolutely no control over the students other than what they chose to give me. Most of them were very nice, well-behaved kids, but one or two of the guys used to say totally inappropriate things to me.
What was the problem? It was my demeanor. Because I was not experienced, I didn't know how to project an aura of being in charge. I felt like one of the kids myself, and that came through. After a couple of semesters, I figured out how to act like a teacher and I never had that problem again. So it wasn't anything about my appearance, which didn't change significantly over the time that I was teaching. It was my vibe.
Being married probably turns a good number of men away from attractive women; and i've honestly contemplated getting a fake wedding band to turn people off...
I'm not sure men have a good eye for those subtle details. I've been asked if I'm married many times; sometimes I feel like just holding up my bare fingers, but perhaps that would be rude.
i'm not a touchy-feely person at all, dress conservatively, and am downright asexual in the way i behave towards others (never had a boyfriend, don't go around looking for one either).
Again, I'm not accusing you directly of being like these two women (how could I, since I don't know you?), but if you were, you might not realize it. One of the two was also conservative in her personal life and had not ever had a boyfriend (she came from a relatively strict culture).
But she still saw everything in pseudosexual terms. She would always mention men who she claimed had crushes on her, would always declare a man to be 'cute' or 'not cute' when she met him, would suspect innuendoes in situations that seemed benign to me, etc. I actually sometimes thought that if she had had a little more personal experience with men, she would have realized that they are human beings too, and that there are many other ways to relate to them than just in this one way.
The other woman had had relationships in the past and was sexually experienced, but she also seemed to have this habit of viewing everything through the prism of her own sexuality. It was weird; I thought both women's behavior was a little off in this respect throughout the first two years, and I confess that I was not at all surprised when they turned out to be the two who kept having troubles of this nature on the wards. (Or maybe the first one was making a lot of them up, since as I mentioned she seemed to see innuendo in a lot of seemingly platonic situations.)
i really can't figure any of this out at all. but i am pretty good at picking up on others' body language and i notice a lot of guys checking me out wherever i go.
Well, men do do this. I think it's mostly habitual, though. They seem to do it to just about any woman in the right age range (and even many who aren't), and it doesn't necessarily mean they are interested in any further contact. They're just checking out the scenery.
so when i notice this, i try to modify my body language accordingly to give them signals to stay away (ignore them, avoid them etc), and it usually works (guys seldom ask me out). but perhaps some think i'm just playing hard to get?
No, they probably just think you are acting strangely. You really don't need to give men 'signals to stay away' because you notice them looking at your legs or whatever. You just need to ignore it and behave in a normal, friendly and/or professional way (or whatever the situation demands). Usually that is not too difficult, because most men have learned how to check women out without creating a disturbance.
Seriously, just because a guy 'checks you out' doesn't mean he is going to 'ask you out,' and it is really weird to ignore and avoid somebody because of this. Honestly, this *is* kind of like the behavior of girl #1, seeing everything in terms of sexual relations.
If a guy 'checks you out,' that basically means that he has noticed you are a young woman. He may think you are ugly or cute, nice or nasty, approachable or off-limits, or whatever. If cute, nice, and approachable all apply, maybe he will ask you out, or maybe he won't. You can just deal with that when it comes. Who knows, maybe you will even like him back. Anyway these cases are a miniscule percentage of all the guys who will ever look at your legs.