Is going up to random women that I encounter still acceptable with dating apps?

[Vaom]

Would you say that approaching random women that I encounter somewhere (e.g., on the street) is still appropriate now or would you say that now that we have dating apps that doing this would be unacceptable and tantamount to harassment? (I’m asking this because I’ve heard people make the argument that with the advent of dating apps this makes the act of approaching women an act of sexual harassment).

I just hate using dating apps and also I don’t want my ability to talk to women to be extremely limited to this context because then it seems that your ability to interact with the women you want to is at the complete whim of something you can’t control. Also the kind of hobbies and what I’m interested in are not the type of thing that incidentally allow me to meet many women (and I wouldn’t want to interact with women under a circumstance that requires a pretext to talk to them anyway, because then I would be being dishonest about my intentions and also because that allows for a huge amount of mind games and passive-aggressiveness to enter into the conversation).

(I obviously understand that it is not acceptable to approach women in professional contexts and I would not do this under any circumstance).

Topic

[Leigh]

What’s wrong with talking to people you see in the street? I do it every day.

Why would that be sexual harassment? It would be harassment if she says no and you keep harassing her in a sexual manner (ie. sexual-based harassment), but if you’re just talking to someone then I can’t see any issue with it.

In saying that, every case is different. You have to read the room.

If she’s making out with her boyfriend in front of her parents, then probably stay away. Use your judgement here to make sure you’re not making her feel uncomfortable or threatened in an enclosed space or anything.

But, yes, you can definitely talk to people on the street. That’s fine.

[Vaom]

OK, great. I was just checking. I think it might have been Dan Savage (not sure though so hope I’m not misattributing this to him) who said something like this in some sort of panel thing a while back and I thought it was kind of ridiculous when he said it.

 

[Author]

Replies