Do men need a license to be allowed socialise (MOD NOTE IN OP)

Well I've said before that your "compliment" is some other persons street harassment, so as they are on the recieveing end of it, they dont need to accept your definition of it.

It's been clearly demonstrated here that some people here see whistling as a compliment (they'd be chuffed) when whistling is street harassment Rule 1. So your idea of a compliment and someone elses are clearly very different. So they might think they are complimenting someone by whistling at them, when clearly they are not.

The word "compliment" is wide open to interpretation and as lad said yesterday and you never really answered.....have you eve considered the mad idea of just minding your own business?

Yeah, needing a licence to go out socially. As in how to behave.

You can talk about what you like, you asked me to post links, no, do it yourself.

I tell you one thing, and I don’t mean to offend, but you are coming across as someone very unwilling to compromise.

And when folks disagree with you, they’re met with stuff like “you’re not listening.” It’s quite patronising.

even in the last post or so you’re again bringing up me and this whistling stuff. Seriously, let it go. We disagree on parts of things.

Actually she pulled the "you'd better not leave me to fend for myself in this state" card and "made" me add her on Facebook to message and make sure she got home safely. Sneaky shenanigans at their finest 😂

Wasn't a long relationship we ended up having but it's been a lifelong friendship ever since.

The colour coding thing is tongue-in-cheek obviously but the issue behind it is very real - it's very clear that anewme and some other posters on this thread just don't want to be spoken to by strangers in the public realm, and certainly not with a view to flirting. Others, however, myself included, absolutely live for such interactions and are delighted when someone randomly decides to approach us in such a manner.

The issue I have is that one side is portraying itself as universally "right", and denying the other side's existence. By extension, they are attempting to write and enforce a universal social code based on their own introverted way of wanting to experience life in the public realm - even if it means that those who are extroverted end up being absolutely miserable as a result, because those of us who are, desperately do want to be approached by strangers for everything from platonic chats to flirtatious encounters. For me, such interactions (rarely initiated by me I might add, due to the aforementioned confidence issues!) are very often the highlight of otherwise very dull days - and I absolutely do not want to live in this world others seem to be calling for, wherein "someone out in public is to be considered to be in an unpoppable bubble and not to be communicated with, certainly not flirtatiously".

I wouldn't ever want to exist in such a bubble. The pandemic largely forced us to and my mental health took an absolute nosedive specifically because of the lack of interactions and small talk, flirtatious or otherwise, with random people I'd meet. Maybe my local town is different to most or maybe I give off a particular vibe, I don't know, but in non-pandemic times these kinds of random comments would happen to me fairly often, and as someone who grew up feeling perma-rejected, they mean the absolute world to me when they happen.

By the standards of this thread, more or less any woman I've ever dated (apart from those met through Tinder or other apps) "harassed" me by approaching me since she was a stranger. As indeed did the first woman I ever kissed. As did someone I ended up kissing after we won a table quiz in the pub. Etc. The standard some folks here are pushing for would see actual come-ons like this automatically regarded as "harassment" despite the fact that while some people don't want any kind of flirtatious approaches from strangers during their average day, others, like myself, take enormous confidence boosts from such approaches and are rewarded psychologically with a gigantic dopamine hit and an extra "spring" in our step if someone randomly says "oi mate, nice hair!" or "your shirt is class!" or "you remind me of <insert attractive celebrity here>".

Personally I can't imagine anything more depressing than a world in which people never vocalise those thoughts because they've been taught that it's wrong to do so. I live for those moments. Always have. So there are definitively two sides to this situation.

Obviously people who want to exist in a bubble have every right to want to do that and every right not to be bothered by strangers - but there has to be some middle ground other than moulding the entire structure of society around people who feel that way, at the utter expense of those of us who feel the opposite. A poster like anewme never wants to be serenaded by a stranger, a poster like myself absolutely does. As things stand in this thread, those of us who crave such interactions are expected to go without them in a hypothetical future in which nobody initiates them with us in case we're one of the people who isn't into it. But that feels hugely unfair, because for those of us who do enjoy being approached in this way, surely our belief in them as happy moments is just as valid as others' belief in them as horrible moments of 'harassment'?

It's a matter of perspective. The idea that a come-on from a stranger is a horrible violation is one valid perspective. One. But it's not the only one. The perspective that such moments are immensely enjoyable ego-boosts is an equally valid perspective. And the latter shouldn't have their enjoyment of life sacrificed to appease the former. Some posters here never want to be spoken to by strangers in the street, others such as myself absolutely welcome more or less any and all interactions (flirtatious or not) with strangers in the street, if they decide to approach. Our perspective is not "wrong", just as the perspective of those who don't want any such interactions is not "wrong" - but many of them are acting as if their perspective is the universal truth, and people like me don't exist at all - or should just be quiet and allow those who want to socially outlaw such interactions to lead the charge on that without any opposition from those of us who don't want to live in a world in which it is considered socially unacceptable for strangers to speak to us in public places.

There are two sides to this. Currently, only one side is seen as having a valid opinion - and if the people holding that opinion get their way, those of us who hold different opinions will see our enjoyment of life sacrificed as "collateral damage". Our worlds will become lonelier and less enjoyable in order to appease those who don't share our enjoyment of strangers coming over to talk to us.