Mission failures in conversation

Introduction

An older page on conversations ([1]) partially discussed problems like excessive passivity. (The current page is best read in the context of [1].)

The topic has remained on my mind, especially with an eye at romance and what else can go wrong there, and another at how often others have failed when trying to engage with me for various reasons. The last has usually been because my own interest has been low, but there are still lessons to be drawn. (In particular, in those cases where my level of interest might have depended on the approach used, the setting that I was in, or similar—a recurring implicit theme below.)

Below, I will discuss some of my thoughts.

Disclaimers and terminology

As with [1], there have been a fair bit of “organic growth”, making the page a bit chaotic and unfocused relative the page title.

While the below examples are women-centric, simply because I draw on own experiences, which predominantly feature women, the same or similar ideas often apply in reverse—up to and including that I could have benefited from being more active in some of the below situations, assuming that I had a reciprocal interest and in the knowledge of female passivity. (A more man-centric complement might follow at a later time, e.g. to include rarer examples featuring men or to give examples of errors/successes involving me as the actor.)

While my thoughts leading up to writing were mostly related to romance, this should not be seen as an exclusive focus and I have tried to be more generic in the actual writing. In particular, I point to the contrast, discussed in [1], between someone who (literally or metaphorically) asks for the time of day for the purpose of learning the time of day, as a conversation starter, and as a romantic approach. (To which the issue of flirting can be added. As in [1], I will gloss over it and leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks. Ditto some other variations.) Parts of the below might apply in one case but not the other two, in two but not the third, or in all three.

I stress that I usually do not know the actual intentions of the woman at hand, because I did not let the situation progress. Neither do I normally make any claim about those intentions with regard to the three above categories of motivation; nor do I rule out cases of coincidence or (cf. excursion) women just behaving weirdly. This is in so far secondary that the examples serve mostly as illustration of principle. (In contrast, real-life situations that did progress either involved a more active and explicit counterpart, or were initiated by me, which makes them poor choices as examples.)

For instance, with the girl asking for directions below, I do not believe that she wanted anything but directions, but her behavior annoyed me and I became less inclined to help her even with that—which is the point of the example. At the same time, the general idea holds in the other cases too—do not self-sabotage an attempt to start a conversation or a romance by annoying the target.

Moreover, the examples give a personal perspective, with no guarantee that a certain behavior would see the same result with other men (also note parts of [1]).

The examples go back in time, the oldest to the late 1980s, and certain scenarios would be less likely today. (E.g. because a smartphone app would obviate the need to ask for directions or, in the case of romance, because those at 50 are less likely to look for partners than those at 15.) Despite the correspondingly large age range of the female parties, I will often speak of just “woman”/“women”. In deviations, I have no consistent terminology, as I do not necessarily have a good age estimate or memory of exactly when an event took place, but I might use “girl” for someone (whom I might estimate at) sub-18 and use “young” (as in “young woman”) to imply someone no older than late 20s and/or no older than I, myself, was at the time. (In retrospect, I seem to be better at recalling an estimated younger/equal/older relative my own age at an event than, say, an estimated five-year age bracket.)

Proof-reading, I find some ambiguous uses of words like “metaphorical”. Here, the intent is typically that something is sufficiently interchangeable in context. For instance, in the context of asking for the time of day, the intent would not be on the meaning in a phrase like “[s]he would not give me the time of day”, but on a question (or other statement) that is interchangeable with asking for the time of day, if intended as a pretext, conversation starter, or similar. (Concrete examples of such questions will depend on a more detailed context, but consider “Do you know where I can find X?” and “Do you know whether Y?” for common templates. An advantage of using specifically asking-for-the-time-of-day as an example is that it fits in so many contexts.)

Being annoying

A common issue is women being annoying (in a wide sense) and getting in the way of what they try to achieve. Once, for instance, I was walking down the street and found myself on a head-on collision course with a young woman. I moved to the other half of the pavement so that we could pass each other—and a second-or-so-later she moved to put us on a collision course again. I moved a second time—and, another second-or-so-later, so did she. We were now, maybe, three feet apart, and I was about to ask what the hell she was doing, as I assumed that she was being deliberately obnoxious, but I was preempted by her asking for directions.

Here, it would have been far better to either begin with an “Excuse me!” at some less intrusive distance or to keep a non-collision course until close by and then to broach the topic of directions.

A repeated case of women being annoying is when they neither take a metaphorical “no” for an answer, nor come clean about what they want. If, for instance, I am reading on a train or a train platform, a woman asks me something, and I answer perfunctorily and return to reading, chances are that asking me something else will not help with, say, starting a conversation. Either come clean about the wish for a conversation at once (allowing the target to either accept or to terminate further disturbances by declining), or leave things be. Note, in particular, that a request for a conversation is less likely to be successful after the target has already grown annoyed. A particularly bad case involved a woman probing me half-a-dozen times in the space of, maybe, ten minutes—the last time, I had to constrain myself in order not to tell her to bugger off. Yes, we were the only two on the platform and it was late at night, so I can understand her wishing to kill some time while waiting for the train, but I have no duty to entertain her and if I obviously prefer my book, how are further attempts going to help?

A really horrifying case (but one where I am very uncertain whether it was an attempt to gain my attention or just idiocy and disregard for others) occurred when a young woman, sitting in the train seat facing mine, stood up, turned around to fiddle with something, and shoved her ass in the direction of my face—so far that I repeatedly had to move by book aside as she moved around. If she had no agenda, she must have been oblivious to both the lack of space and the most basic etiquette, as well as lacking in common sense; if she had one, any chances that she might have had with me were killed stone dead because of her behavior. (She also received very disapproving looks from an older woman sitting next to her.)

For a discussion of more long-term cases, see an excursion.

Using pretexts

Overlapping with both [1] and the annoying women on train platforms, we have the issue of pretexts. Pretexts are often taken at face value and it is better to come clean. The more so, the younger and more inexperienced the target is. (Also, the more so, the more introverted, non-NT, whatnot, the target is, but this can be very hard to judge in advance.)

If a pretext is used for a first contact and fails, either drop the matter or drop the pretext. (Such a drop can take place by stating outright that the pretext was intended as a conversation starter.)

Keeping (when it applies) the wish for a conversation as a pretext for a romantic intent is a lesser error. I speak against it in [1], e.g. in that it might be good to lead with a hint of specifically a romantic interest, but there is room in as far as the conversation can reveal incompatibilities that would make romantic efforts pointless.

Misconstruing non-rejection

A potential problem is that non-rejection can be construed as rejection. This includes cases of pretexts being taken at face value (I have on several occasions seen a woman look hurt, surprised, whatnot, after I, literally or metaphorically, gave her the time of day and then continued with my previous activity), but can also relate to automatic reactions, absentmindedness, or some other factor that does not imply a rejection. (And note that this is not limited to rejections of romantic approaches, or even just conversation starters. Consider the smiles below: some might have been romantic, others might have been mere politeness, but a feeling of rejection is possible even when nothing but politeness is intended.)

A notable early case was when I was 19-ish (and still a potentially easy target). A good looking, likely slightly younger, girl sat down next to me and leaned one of her legs against mine—and I, purely by reflex, moved my leg away to give her some space. While I do not know how she interpreted the event, chances are that she got the wrong impression, because I did not mind in the slightest.

Quite a few other cases involve various female strangers smiling at me, which I either did not notice in time, because my mind was elsewhere, or merely left at a mental observation that “she is smiling at me”, while not reflecting further on the matter and/or while expecting some more specific action, should she actually want something. However, chances are that some type of acknowledgment, e.g. a returned smile, was expected and that the absence of such acknowledgment came across as a rejection of the smile and whatever might have been behind it. In some few cases, I have even seen a hesitating smile slowly get to the halfway point and then collapse, possibly, because the smiler was shy and needed a returned smile to push through.

Poor compliments

I have often received compliments from women over things that were not really worth complimenting, which makes them implausible, dishonest seeming, and not very helpful. My, maybe, first encounter with this was in my early teens when I visited some type of youth center. I sat next to a girl and watched a game of pool, while we engaged in a “beginner’s flirt”. I made some off-hand remark relating to pool and she made an admiring response about how knowledgable I was (also referencing some earlier event that I do no longer recall). However, I knew next to nothing about pool, knew that I knew next to nothing, and had based my remark on nothing but general observation. Consequently, I thought that she was outright mocking me—and the flirt immediately died. Only later did I understand that she likely had been going for a (very inexpert) compliment.

Now, compliments are often dishonest or exaggerated flattery, but they hinge on being sufficiently believable. If they are not believable, they tend to do more harm than good. Another early example involved a love letter from an unknown-to-me girl, who, among other things, tried to flatter my “muscular upper body” (or some such), which, at the time, bordered on the nonsensical and made me contemplate the possibility that she had misaddressed her letter. (One of several reasons that I did not respond. The pool example could conceivably have gone back to a girl who knew even less about pool than I did; the letter example had no such excuse.) In contrast, had she gone with “tall”, “intelligent”, or something else that was simultaneously true and complimentary, she might have had a chance.

While the letter writer was far off the mark, the pool girl could have been successful by just choosing a different angle in reply to the same remark by me, which shows how important the exact angle can be: To claim that I would be knowledgable (in the context of pool!) was a mistake, because I knew that I was not, but something about my being observant or intelligent might well have worked. Likewise, she might have found success, had she gone with “knowledgable” while (a) staying clear of pool and (b) finding some less flawed excuse/reason to bring up the compliment.

Over time, I have learnt to ignore the actual message/compliment and to focus on the “meta-message” and what the fact that a compliment was given might imply, but this was after several instances of more negative than positive reactions and mutually missed opportunities.

An underlying problem might be that women (in general, but younger women in particular) appear to be very gullible to compliments, themselves, and that they might project that gullibility onto others. In some cases, I have had the impression, as absurd as it might sound, that they want to hear certain words, even when they know that the words are not true, as if the words would guide reality. (If so, an attitude that also might be projected onto others.)

However, there might also be an aspect of (some) women being easily impressed and/or using themselves as a measure of what is good—something especially likely to be misleading when it comes to height, prowess in sports, and similar. For instance, one of my step-sisters (so a speech at her wedding to the man at hand) had spoken dreamily to her friends about meeting a tall guy with whom she had danced all night. This resulted in much laughter, as he actually was quite small for a man—it was just that she was quite small for a woman. I would suspect that he could have had a similar feeling of mockery, had she directed the same words to him, instead of to her friends.

Too great passivity

As noted in [1], many women seem to believe that merely getting themselves into the presence of the right man will somehow magically lead to a conversation (and, possibly, a romance down the line). This is representative of an often too passive female approach that (in 2025!) might still involve an expectation that the man should be the one to ask for a first date, that a proposal should come from the man (even should the woman be the one interested in getting married), etc.

However, to look at specifically “seating choices”, I have repeatedly been in an otherwise empty or almost empty train car, only to have some woman forego all the empty space to sit in my group of four seats—and to not say a word throughout the shared part of the journey.

However, given the emptiness of the car, she must have had some purpose relating to me in picking that group, and while such purposes might exist that do not involve us talking, it is hard to imagine them as the rule. (I actually have problems coming up with even a hypothetical example. A possible-but-far-fetched one is to reduce the risk of later, herself, being joined by some less savory seeming man while sitting alone.) Why then not speak up? Is the expectation that I should speak to her instead of she to me, although she is the one with the purpose? Does she view joining me (under such specific circumstances) as enough of a signal that the proverbial ball would be in my corner? All in all, just odd.

(Whether speaking up would work specifically with me is another question, as I am usually more keen on reading than on talking to women, but the general idea holds, because there are many other mentalities than mine among men—and even I might be swayed under the right circumstances.)

A particularly weird example took place in a tram: Waiting for the tram, I heard two women argue (in some foreign language; I have no idea what the issue was). They boarded the virtually empty tram after I did, one went past me, the other sat down next to me—to boot, in one of those bus-like rows. While I was puzzled, I had my book and reasoned that she would speak up, if she had something to say. She never did. A few stops later, I wanted to exit the tram. I now had my first actual look at her, and found a much-younger-than-me and unusually well-dressed woman (not at all what I had expected). Even more interestingly, she did not seem to want to let me through, refusing to move her legs. I had to squeeze past her knees in so narrow a fit that I contemplated giving up and just stepping over her legs instead...

An example of passivity of another type took place during regular railway travel. Contrary to earlier cases, the train was almost full, and I chose to remain standing in the entry area. (Which in this, double-decked, train was fairly spacious.) A woman, again contrary to earlier cases, was already present. As it happened, I had stiff shoulders and a stiff upper back, from an unusual amount of static loads during the day, and my first act was to give myself a good stretch of these areas. I then grabbed a metal bar for stability and picked up my book. Through the course of the next few stops, until we parted ways, the woman performed virtually the same stretching on, maybe, four occasions.

While I cannot know her reasons, I note that even one such stretch is rare among passengers and that I have never seen so many from anyone else. The most likely-to-me explanation is that she mistook my stretching for some type of peacocking or flexing for the purpose of showing interest and/or impressing her, after which she tried to show a returned interest in the hope that I would speak to her—which I, of course, never did, because I had not been interested. But, if she believed that I was interested in the first place, why not just speak up? The approach actually taken, unless she had a shoulder-day from Hell, was just roundabout and silly.

I have even seen some few cases where women appear to think that it would be the man’s job to initiate a conversation much more generally. (But these are rarer, the idea more speculative, and the proportion of women affected could be small.)

Consider waiting for a coffee machine in the office to be free: This is a situation where it is more common to talk, and the hurdles to initiating a conversation are lower, than in a train—even should those waiting be more-or-less strangers. In many cases, much unlike in a train, there might even be an expectation of at least a short and shallow conversation.

One day, I was waiting for the coffee machine next to a woman from somewhere else in the building. I had my mind on a programming problem and, apart from a quick greeting, waited in silence—and she too remained silent. As I left with my coffee, another woman entered, and I could just catch the first woman telling the second that I was “unfriendly” (or some such) because I had not talked to her.

Well, she had not talked to me either. Why was there an asymmetry in her view that required me to talk to her instead of the other way around? Apart from the difference in sex, the only thing that strikes me as having explanatory value is that I was there first and that she came later, but, in my eyes, that would put the burden on her, as the newcomer. If in doubt, my wait was set to be shorter than hers. (I do not remember the surrounding details, but chances are that there was a temporary delay as our predecessor filled up the machine with beans or water, otherwise I would likely not have had a wait at all.)

Avoiding a direct contact

Overlapping with the passivity issue, we have those women who avoid a direct contact. While the above examples might largely deal with a failure to take initiative and/or to make one’s intentions clear, there is an interesting opposite case—that intentions are made clear but the girl stays out of sight. (I use “girl”, as the examples that I recall have all been at “school ages”.)

Take the aforementioned love letter: To this day, I cannot put a face to the author of the letter. I have no clue whether I might have been interested in terms of looks, whether I might at some time have spoken to her without having a name, whether, even, it was someone whom I knew by sight, etc.

At least twice, some girl or girls (whom I also did not know) called me to ask about going steady. Again, same thing.

Likewise, I have observed similar cases involving others, e.g. when some girl queried one of my classmates about going steady—as an “emissary” for another girl.

This not only gives a poor impression, but also introduces unnecessary complications around who is who: Should a boy consent to “go steady” with a girl before knowing who she is? What about the risk that the girl calls or writes the wrong boy?

The use of emissaries of various types can be particularly problematic, as it does not just seem cowardly, but also introduces complications in the “Chinese whispers” family and can lead to other misunderstandings and miscommunications—especially, if the emissary is poorly chosen.

Excursion on train travel

The repeated train examples ultimately go back to how much time I have spent on trains, train platforms, and the like over the years, and how little in e.g. bars and discos (where an entirely different set of rules might apply).

However, I have a suspicion that some women see trains as a natural “hunting ground”. In this, they might be right, but some caution is needed. A particular point is that those who travel from the same station, let alone just on the same train, need not have a geographic connection. If, e.g., a woman lives in the town of the train station and is going away, she will return—but the target might live a hundred miles away and be on the “home leg” of his journey (or just changing trains, or whatnot). Such scenarios are much less likely, say, if she spots a target in a café.

Speaking for myself, I am also usually less receptive to any type of approach on trains than elsewhere (even the issue of reading vs. talking aside): Train travel in (at least) Germany is a chore, with lack of comfort, over-crowding, loudness, long delays, and/or other annoyances being par for the course—especially, when commuting. (The more the shame as train service done right can be a great thing—but it is done so very, very wrong and with a continual worsening over time.) Consequently, I am usually in a mediocre to bad mood when in a train. These days, I also usually wear earplugs, which (a) can make me miss the fact that someone addressed me, (b) would leave me with the choice between having a conversation with earplugs and forgoing the earplugs to hold the conversation in an unpleasantly noisy environment (should I actually wish to engage).

Excursion on differences between individuals

A recurring issue in my readings on topics like romance and relationships is that (a) women have very different, often outright contradictory, opinions on what women prefer, how women behave, how men should approach women, etc., (b) many of these women still assume that all other women have the same preferences (and so on). I have, for instance, seen so radically different opinions as that some man would be a loser for approaching a woman with a line instead of just saying “Hi, I’m X.” and offering a hand to shake and that some other man (in the eyes of another woman) would be a loser for doing exactly that and not even going to the trouble of thinking up a line.

At the same time, men have very different takes on this-and-that, and I suspect that many issues above go back to various individual differences among both men and women that are not sufficiently considered.

For instance, maybe, a certain woman has had many men strike up a conversation just because she happened to be present. If so, however, it does not follow that other men will, nor that waiting for the man is the best way to proceed (if she is the one who wants the conversation to happen). With specifically romantic intentions, a particular danger is that what worked when she and her targets were in one age bracket does not work when they have entered another age bracket. (Similar, but off-topic, issues can arise through e.g. a difference in setting. What works well in a bar need not work well in a train.)

For instance, maybe, she believes that “this is what I want to happen; ergo, other women want the same to happen; ergo, men will have learnt to make it happen”, while the man at hand might have drawn very different conclusions from his own interactions with other women.

For instance, maybe, she has a different cultural or other background than the man, leading to different expectations, social norms, whatnot, that cause problems in communication. (Where contrasts like extravert–introvert, often relevant in my case, can be seen as a special case of “other background” or as forming a separate-but-very-similar example.)

Excursion on long-term annoyances

The issue of women “being annoying” to their own detriment is by no means limited to the short term and what is more strictly on topic. This the more so, if we extend the discussion from just “being annoying” (even in the wide sense used by me above) to what can cause/demonstrate incompatibilities, be turn-offs, or otherwise get in the way. (The issue of subjectiveness becomes far stronger when we perform this extension.)

For instance, I have sometimes been romantically put off by women through annoying habits even after something romantic had developed, including one who insisted on exaggerated imitations of those disgusting, artificial, and overly loud smacking noises that come with kisses on TV. An ever-recurring issue has been whether TV/movies in a German dub are worthwhile: I have a strong aversion towards this dubbing, while virtually all women that I have been involved with have outright preferred dubbing.

For instance, I have found quite a few female colleagues annoying, often because they were incompetent, unwilling to listen to arguments, and/or failed to see the difference between a disagreement on a factual matter and a personal dislike. (Male colleagues too, obviously, but women have been over-represented. In reverse, male colleagues have been more likely to be noisy or unpunctual.)

One of the few times that I had my eyes on an intra-office romance gives a borderline example of both cases:

In the early stages of a new project (which I had joined as a freelancer) one of the women in the team caught my eye and she seemed to reciprocate in that we had several instances of looking-at-each-other-for-no-good-reason. In fairly short order, she racked up three strikes.

Two came during an evening out with the team, maybe a week in: First she spent quite a bit of time talking with me about some topic or topics that did not interest me. We stumbled upon a topic that I found interesting—and she immediately terminated the conversation to speak to someone else. (Rude, showing a lack of judgment, and raising red flags for how a relationship might play out.) Then we ended up sitting next to each other for a meal during which she kept her leg pressed against mine—and the flabbiness of said leg both belied her apparent fitness and made the experience much less enjoyable than I might have anticipated. (This reduced my physical interest.)

Strike three accumulated over the following few weeks, during which she increasingly proved herself incompetent, slow on the uptake, and a bit belligerent. (Very problematic in a colleague; bad signs for romantic long-term compatibility.)

While I go with three strikes because it (a) fits the baseball metaphor, (b) well catches my continual lowering of opinion, only the first two were truly relevant from a romantic point of view—I had pretty much lost interest after that night out.

However, romance is not everything and poor behaviors can affect much more than romance. For instance, the third strike is relevant from a more professional perspective, namely, when it comes to who does or does not make a good and productive team member, with whom I enjoy or do not enjoy working, whom I would or would not recommend to a future employer, etc. For instance, it can affect with whom I am or am not willing to keep a platonic friendship outside the office. (While the second strike, in reverse, is irrelevant to professional and/or platonic choices and the first, depending on details, might or might not be relevant.)

Excursion on tricky judgment calls

One train-related incident illustrates how tricky judgment calls can be:

I was sitting in a car that (as far as I could tell) was full—except that the aisle seat in “my” row was empty. I looked up from reading, had a look around, and briefly rested my eyes on a woman standing next to the door (likely, half a car-length or more away). I resumed reading—and very shortly thereafter the same woman sat down in that aisle seat. (Note the strong contrast to some above examples.)

Among (!) the possible explanations for her relocation, we have:

1. That she had not been aware that there was an empty seat, that my movement made her look in my direction, that she only then spotted the seat, and that she took natural action to have a chance to sit.

   (The rest of this excursion notwithstanding, I consider this the likelier of the two explanations given.)

2. That she found herself interested in me and saw an opportunity to use the empty seat as a source of “plausible deniability”, e.g. by drawing on the possibility of the above explanation.

Here, arguments for and against various explanations (not limited to the above two) can be given, but there is ultimately no way of finding the true explanation without further information. To boot, such incidents illustrate how easy it can be to jump to the wrong conclusion based on a preconceived opinion, “what I would have done”, what is on one’s mind at the time, or similar.

Assume, however and for the sake of argument, that she was interested. (Possibly, having misconstrued my briefly looking at her as a sign of interest on my part.)

Now a dilemma arises: If she does not take the seat (or otherwise approach me, but taking the seat is the obvious way), her cards are very poor. On the other hand, if she does take the seat, she reduces my comfort, including elbow and leg space, which could cause a reaction of annoyance and make her chances less than ideal. (And, regardless of her motivation, did cause a reaction of annoyance—the one moment, I had the benefit of that empty seat; the next, I did not.)

In a next step, she did take the seat, but was not met with enthusiastic conversation. On the contrary (and as the reader likely suspected), I remained focused on my book. Here, still assuming that she had an interest, a new decision presents it self: Should she leave things be (preserving plausible deniability), try to instigate a conversation more actively, or try to take some other type of action (e.g. leg contact in the hope that I would respond with conversation/flirtation/whatnot).

Excursion on girls/women behaving weirdly

Even outside cases where I have had no real interest, I have often ignored “weird” female behavior and/or failed to draw the right conclusions (especially, when very young). A strongly contributing factor is that I have/had seen so many cases of weird behavior that I often see/saw further weird behavior as “some girl/woman behaving weirdly again”, without contemplating, say, the possibility of a romantic agenda.

Consider (and especially from the perspective of a young boy) adult women running around in high heels, even very young girls obsessing with make-up, females of all ages going gaga over horrible screaming and smelly little things (i.e. babies), odd obsessions with celebrities, young girls playing with dolls, making everything pink, writing actual poems about horses, etc.

(Also see the next excursion.)

Why then should some new odd behavior have any implication beyond further random-seeming weirdness?

In a next step, a misinterpreted random-seeming weirdness of today, that did have a romantic (or other) motivation, might simply increase the impression of “women are weird” and the risk that the next random-seeming weirdness is also misinterpreted. (Yet another danger with pretexts and the like.)

Excursion on curiosity / relatives and payment

As a minor disclaimer, I am curious about human behavior in general and, especially, unfortunately, when it is too late to find out the truth. Women, with or without a romantic aspect, have been a great source of examples. (And while I do have a particular interest in how romance works, this and a few related pages could give an exaggerated impression of that interest.)

To take two overlapping and decidedly unromantic examples:

Firstly, when I was young, my mother and my grandmother often got into (positive) arguments over who should pay the bill for something, especially, when eating out. If they settled with less than half a dozen exchanges in the “I’ll pay!”–“No! I’ll pay!” family, it was a rare event. In the end, they payed approximately equally often and approximately the same overall amount. (To the degree that I could estimate the result.)

At the time, I saw this as yet another example of women being weird and did not reflect on motivations. Today, however, I am curious about these motivations. (And while I found it silly at the time, now, when they are both dead, it seems almost charming, something that I would not mind seeing them do again.) It might e.g. have been that both genuinely wanted to pay and that one of the two just happened to surrender a little earlier on the one occasion and the other on the next occasion; however, it might also be that both just wanted to signal a willingness to pay and to do so with sufficient strength. In the latter case, we might even have had a (conscious or unconscious) thinking of “I paid last time and have protested long enough to surrender in good conscience”.

Secondly, when I had become an adult myself, I sometimes found myself as a potential payer. This, especially, in Germany, as I earned my income in Euro and my mother in Swedish Crowns. I naturally tended to grab the bill or otherwise offer to pay, my mother would counter with a “No! I’ll pay!”—and I would let her.

Now, did she genuinely want to pay or did she have her mind set on the same type of argument that she had once had with her mother? Was she happy that I let her pay or disappointed that I did not engage her?

Excursion on rudeness and passivity

Looking back at the above, I see rudeness (in both directions) as a somewhat recurring theme, and spanning a wide range of cases, from the potentially deliberate to the accidental or incompetent, from the objective to the subjective or, even, imagined.

While much of this falls into the category of “annoying”, an interesting angle is the combination with passivity. Consider the girl on the tram: To presumptuously sit down next to me, in a car of empty seats, was not only rude, but also missed an opportunity. If she had begun with a polite inquiry whether she may sit next to me, she would both have removed the rudeness and had a natural point to begin a conversation. If in doubt, I would have laid eyes on her earlier and could conceivably have become interested in further communication in a manner that I certainly was not during the ride-as-it-actually-played-out. Yes, there is a risk that the target says “no”, citing the many free seats elsewhere, but such a target is more-likely-than-not to react negatively to her actual approach (of just sitting down) anyway. An early and upfront “no” would, then, have saved her time.

Similarly, if a conversation is wanted even in a less intrusive situation, a “Mind if I join you?”, or some similar phrase, is a good starting point. The offer of a conversation is almost automatic and the counterpart’s interest can be judged reasonably well based on the response. (Consider, among many possibilities, “Sure. I’m Michael. [extends hand]” vs. “If you must. [returns to reading]”.)

Excursion on women and “interactive approaches”

With hindsight, I suspect that I have missed something important in my original thoughts on some aspects of topic: That a woman might intend/expect/whatnot an “interactive approach” (for want of a better term), while I do not.

Notably, I have a fairly direct communication style, which makes it natural for me to see a conversation as something that is either started or not started. My default expectation, then, is that the person who wants the conversation attempts to start it. Looking at the above women, they might then either not want a conversation or, for one reason or another, rely on the respective man to start it for them. (Consider e.g. a woman who is very shy or, cf. the coffee-machine incident above, who believes that it is the man’s job to initiate a conversation.)

However, what if a woman e.g. sits down near a man in the expectation not of an immediate conversation starter (from either party) but of a smile or greeting, which she intended to return, and which could rapidly lead somewhere else (e.g. to a conversation or a bit of flirting). We might even have something that involves both, as with: he smiles and she smiles back, then he greets and she greets back, then he offers a conversation starter and she accepts. The absence of a male reaction would derail this approach entirely and lead to scenarios similar to some of the above. This the more so, if the woman takes the lack of reaction as a sign of non-interest (which, with me, in all fairness, is often the correct interpretation; however, not always) and concludes that further efforts would be a waste of time. Alternatively, what if a woman is shy, would need a bit of encouragement in the form of a smile, and finds herself ignored? Alternatively, what if she is looking for “plausible deniability” and hopes for a greeting from the man that she could spin as “he started the conversation”?

However, from my point of view, (a) greetings should typically come from the newcomer, (b) such activity from the man (and/or specifically me) would be expected when he is the one with the original interest. When a woman is both the newcomer and the one with the original interest, the ball really should be in her court. A specific complication in many settings is that a newcomer often enters the radar of an “oldie” much later than vice versa, and has a correspondingly lesser chance to have formed even a superficial opinion. Consider e.g. a train where a man reads a book or looks out the window and a woman enters the car and spots him from twenty feet away: If she joins him, he might have his very first, split-second, impression of her at that moment, while she might have accumulated several seconds worth of impressions of him—quite a bit more, if she has deliberately taken her time.

As a positive side-effect, this plays in well with some instances of women potentially imagining me to be interested when I am not, as with the shoulder-stretching incident above, which could be interpreted as repeated attempts by the woman at hand to respond to a (misperceived) sign of interest in the hope that a re-response from me would follow (even if short of a conversation), after which she could have re-re-responded, etc. (But I caution, again, that such second-degree speculation is very tricky.)

Further support is lent by how many (younger?) women seem to enjoy flirting-for-the-sake-of-flirting to a much higher degree than men, and how such interactive approaches could be seen as using a similar mechanism as or (when it transitions into a conventional flirt) as a portion of a flirt.

Excursion on fake smiles, fake friendliness, and the problems that they might cause

The reason that fake smiling and, more generally, fake friendliness are so common, including from the aforementioned “professional smilers”, is presumably that they work with a sufficiently large proportion of the population (the potential customers, or whatever might apply).

However, they might be pointless or even harmful with many, because the fakery is spotted and is counted against the perpetrator. This is definitely the case with me, because the fakery is usually very easy for me to spot. (And, if anything, I might err on the side of assuming fakery.) Consider a random salesman and complete stranger: If he behaves as were he my best friend, why should I take his friendliness at face value? Why should I trust the almost proverbial smile that does not reach the eyes? Words spoken with a voice that likewise seems set to please (like a smiling mouth) but somehow lacks authenticity or somehow sounds “off” (like non-smiling eyes)? Etc.

If in doubt, too many smiles and too much friendliness reduces the value of any further smile and any further friendliness—ultimately, to the point that they bring no value or might be needed just to keep up with the rest of the world. (The latter in that someone who is in an environment where everyone gives fake smiles might, himself, be taken as unfriendly through the lack of fakery and the shifted standards for “normal” behavior—an extremely unfortunate situation.) Indeed, even a single fake smiler might run into trouble if a habit of consistent smiling is broken, for whatever reason, because the absence of a smile from someone “supposed” to be smiling might come across as unfriendliness, a sign that a previously good relation has somehow been ruined, or similar.

With smiles, I have two events particularly worthy of mention:

The first took place during my early college days, when I had not yet had many romantic successes: I ran into a very beautiful girl from the same class just outside school, she greeted me with the most beautiful smile that (at the time) had ever come my way, and I had a feeling of “Jackpot!”—because I could not imagine that a smile like that meant anything less than a very great interest in me. We chatted for a short while, another girl from the same class arrived—and was greeted with the exact same smile. At this point, I understood that that so significant-seeming smile had actually had as much meaning as a spoken greeting. (Well, that or I missed a great opportunity for a threesome, but the one alternative might be a tad likelier than the other.)

The second, while less personal, illustrates how extremely low the connection between feelings/mood/whatnot and smiling can be, especially, among the professional smilers: I was walking down the street when I spotted a good looking woman walking in the other direction. She spoke on her cellphone, while having a shining smile. I thought little of it until the distance had shrunk so far that I could hear her. While keeping that shining smile unwavering, she spoke into her cellphone with a voice so angry and hateful that I had to restrain myself from making a detour around her.