When Friendliness Is Seen As Creepy, We All Lose
The other day, I had a frank conversation with my friend Sam* about the local bar scene as of late. Sam had stopped using Tinder as a result of the fact that he was literally getting zero bites on the app — and that’s actually the norm these days.
I mean, Tinder’s literally over 80 percent male. He’s looking for a lady. It’s not a good place to go if you are a man looking for a woman. (If you’re a woman looking for a bad time, it’s great, though. I’ve seen the shitshow.)
Sam decided to go to a bar to try his luck. Though he’s incredibly kind and decent-looking, he got no bites. Hell, people didn’t even want to talk to him He did, however, feel bad and drink a bit. He turned to me and asked me if he was doing something wrong.
I thought about it, and realized something. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve actually had a man approach me at a bar. In fact, I thought back to that weird yacht party I went to where no one spoke to me despite how friendly I was.
It felt so isolating and wrong.
And that made me realize something.
It never really hit me until now, but there is a growing stigma around being friendly to strangers.
Did you ever have a moment where you wondered why things are so fucked up, only to realize that you weren’t behaving the way people expected you to behave? I’m known for being aggressively friendly — and I always knew that was a bit weird for some.
What I did not realize is how unusual it’s become to actually meet people who are friendly without any ulterior motives these days. This is especially true if you’re male or older. To a point, it makes sense: