I usually walk everywhere with my headphones on, but I had them in my bag and I was reading a book on my phone instead (I do that when the foot traffic is light). A young Latina was coming down the street as I was coming up the avenue, and when she got to the corner a few paces ahead of me, she turned to walk in the direction I was going. We were traveling at the same speed, but since she was like ten paces ahead and it’s bright outside in the middle of the day, I didn’t feel the need to fall back or slow down to give her more space. At night, I try not to walk too close behind women just so they don’t feel like I’m any sort of threat.
We got to a corner and this dude standing outside of the bodega was like, “Slow down mama where you goin? You don’t have to work today, you can stop and speak.”
She didn’t break her stride. “I’m going to the gym.” The Walk sign was on, so I didn’t break mine either.
A block later, a young guy was coming toward us on the sidewalk riding his bike.
“What’s good shorty?”
She didn’t respond.
“Well you was lookin, you can say something, stuck up bitch.”
We kept walking.
In the middle of the next block, an older man was walking toward us and he put on a friendly smile and said, “Smile young lady, it’s a beautiful day.”
I don’t know if she smiled, but we kept walking. She went into the gym and I kept on toward where I was going thinking about how that was just five minutes of her day. How many other blocks of five minutes are just like that?
Only one of them was truly aggressive. The other two guys seemed nice enough and it felt more like a pleasant compliment. It felt like the kind of thing a guy says who argues with women online about catcalling. “We’re not all bad guys. We can’t even compliment women? We can’t even say something nice?”
No. You really can’t. I was annoyed in that five minutes and I just happened to be walking behind her with no headphones on. Can you imagine those five minutes over and over every day of your life? Nobody wants to be spoken to by strangers day in and day out forever regardless of what they’re saying.
So no. You can’t say anything. The quality of your life has not decreased because you aren’t allowed to say nice things to strange women on the sidewalk, but your silence greatly increases the quality of hers. So just be quiet, and let her go where she’s going.
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I’m gonna add to this.
You want to be nice?
“Good morning” works just fine. And that’s IF the person makes eye contact and seems open to it. Y’all KNOW when someone’s in a don’t-talk-to-me-don’t-even-look-at-me mood. It’s written all over their face and shines beacon-bright through their body language.
In that case don’t. Just leave them the fuck alone.
Also on the subject of just being nice by giving complements.
If that’s all you have in mind, then you’re complementing EVERYBODY right?
You’re saying something nice to fat women right? And butch women, and grizzled old guys, and nerdy people with zits, and homeless folks, right?
RIGHT?
Or is it just thin, conventionally attractive women and no one else?
Yeah.
I thought so.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ that last bit of tea was piping hot!
I was walking behind a woman for five minutes and she got catcalled three times.
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Brie 