It Doesn’t Count Unless I Know You’re Hitting on Me.

http://thetechnobody.com/it-doesnt-count-unless-i-know-youre-hitting-on-me/

by toddtimes • 16 years ago

80 97 16 years ago

rue2• 16 years ago

Also, it doesn't count unless I know you're hitting on me.

wyclif4• 16 years ago

A male hit on her, in San Francisco. Context is everything, no? This is possibly amazing, but amazing enough to generate a blog post?

I've seen a lot of comments in social media from SF women stating that they can't get a guy to even look at them.

nixy• 16 years ago

That's not what the post is about.

CodeMage• 16 years ago

Context really is everything, which is why I found your comment misleading. The topic of her post is not that a male hit on her anywhere in San Francisco. What she's talking about is the fact that some male(s) interpreted exchanging of business cards as "giving out a phone number" which can then be used for personal reasons, such as hitting on her. Furthermore, she finds herself facing an interesting dilemma: she feels she can't be "harsh", because they're a business contact.

It is an interesting topic, at least for me: I'm male, so I haven't had to go through a situation like that and I don't have a clue how I would respond to something like that if I were in her shoes. Had I heeded your summary without reading the blog, I would've missed a mildly interesting topic.

wyclif4• 16 years ago

Yes, but the "hitting on her" part is why she is aggrieved. I agree totally that using business card exhange for that is creepy.

Egregore• 16 years ago

I have anecdotal evidence that if women will show that she is more versatile in some hi-tech/IT fields she will get more attention from men, compared with women who don't show it.

aneth• 16 years ago

I'm a man and I've certainly questioned the intentions of quite a few women who "network.". I've also had questionable intentions with women I've networked with. So what? Flirting happens when sexes meet. Sometimes even more. If you want to close the door on that, say you have a boyfriend or your not interested in dating, or just don't flirt back. Otherwise you're the wuss for being unable to handle the facts of life. Disrespectful or overly persistent is another matter, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

A lot of people go to networking events to meet partners as well as network.

And American men are aggressive? Try Italian, Spanish, French, ...

msy• 16 years ago

You're missing the point, it's not the flirting, it's the getting of contact information under the false pretences of doing business that's she's understandably annoyed about.

jscore2• 16 years ago

Two things:

1. You're a woman, and men will hit on you, and that's not a bad thing; it's biology.

2. If you think SF men are aggressive, then obviously you haven't been out much. I don't think I've been anywhere in the world that's LESS aggressive than SF when it comes to dating/mating. Go to Brazil and see what aggressiveness is.

buro9• 16 years ago

#2 doesn't make it right.

Does a woman not have the right not to face that? If you've got a girl, don't you feel personally that she shouldn't have to face that?

At what point are aggressive come-ons just harassment?

jscore2• 16 years ago

"Does a woman not have the right not to face that?"

Are you speaking for ALL women?

In Brazil, women love it when you aggressively peruse them.

In SF, men don't talk to women, and women's number one complaint is exactly that.

enjo• 16 years ago

From my perspective? No, she really doesn't have the right not to face that. She's a woman. It's biology. Part of being a human being is interacting with other human beings, many of home would like to sleep with you.

She should have to deal with harrasment? Nope, but that's a different thing entirely. Somebody scoping out your card and then asking you out on a date isn't harassing you. They're asking you on a date. It's what happens after you say 'no' that things become different.

hugh3• 16 years ago

All she's complaining about is not that she gets hit on, but that she keeps getting hit on in the wrong way. She gives her contact details out to men whom she thinks want to be business contacts, who then wind up calling her for dates.

It's a simple rule: if you meet a woman and you're interested in her in that way, then hit on her properly and ask her for her number in a way that makes your intentions non-ambiguous. If you're interested in her professionally then by all means exchange business cards. If you're interested in her in both ways then... well, choose one.

_b8r0• 16 years ago

The article does come across as though she's acting very much the 'self-involved woman pirate whore' she's trying to avoid, but it's her site, her prerogative.

Casting that aside for a moment, biology happens. I'm a guy, married and have been hit on in the past (my best defence was to stop working out and put a few pounds on, hasn't been a problem since then although it may have introduced new problems which I'm now working on).

It's natural for men and women to flirt, to hit on each other in an attempt to achieve evolution's goal. It's what we're all wired for. However, having said that as long as boundaries are made clear it shouldn't be a problem.

I'd also like to say that I have both been 'that guy' and been hit on by 'that woman'. In both cases there are worse things in the world to worry about. In the case of 'that woman' I made a pretty good friend and business associate, in the case of being 'that guy', you chalk it up and move on, or in my case make friends with someone who you wouldn't have perhaps spoken to if you weren't initially attracted to.

I'd also second the context. A woman being hit on in SF is nothing like being hit in Cairo, Delhi or even Paris.

thret• 16 years ago

I see her point, but I don't blame any of those guys. The hottest chick at the party is going to get hit on in every way possible and there is really nothing you can do about it. "My wallet's too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight."

acgourley2• 16 years ago

She did do something about it, didn't she? It's not going to solve the problem overnight but it's more likely to create change than just bucking up.

wnoise2• 16 years ago

How are so many comments misreading things?

She's not complaining about being hit on. She's complaining about a bait-and-switch -- pretextually getting her number or other contact information in a business context, and using it later for personal contact.

FooBarWidget• 16 years ago

She explicitly said that she will reject anyone who hits on her. How's that not complaining about being hit on?

wnoise2• 16 years ago

Rejecting is not a direct complaint. She seems to understand that this indeed is just part of life. Yes, she doesn't want to be hit on. But that's a straightforward interaction she can deal with -- by rejecting it, as she says, and moving on.

The bulk of the post, the actual problem she's complaining about, is being hit on by "stealth", where she can't bluntly reject without compromising other interests, whatever the context is supposed to be on the surface.

EDIT: Whoever downvoted you is an asshole. Explaining the reasoning for your interpretation is a necessary part of this conversation.

jasonlotito• 16 years ago

No.

She's saying that anyone who wouldn't hit on her, but still take her card and use it to get a date, are the types of guys she'd want to reject if they did suddenly decide to hit on her.

Estragon• 16 years ago

Wow that youtube video she included was the most annoying thing I've seen all week. I lasted 30s. And yes, she does sound self-involved, as she speculates at the end of the post. Of course she gets to have her rant (why ask?) but I have to wonder why... it doesn't come off very well.

GiraffeNecktie• 16 years ago

Well she's got eight, count em, EIGHT pictures of herself and her shiny red lips at the top of the page. So yeah, self-involved? Could be.

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

True. That's a flirty rather than a professional image by US standards. That said, it can take some time to adjust when you move here from the UK (or is it Australia/NZ? Didn't check). I found California quite strange for the first year. Also, Americans like foreign accents a lot. I get flirty remarks about mine all the time despite being here for years and a wedding ring.

hard1p4• 16 years ago

Self-involved? It's a personal site -duh?

Grinnmarr• 16 years ago

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. If she has as big a problem with this as she claims then she has greater challenges facing her then learning how to set (or correct) a boundary. Seriously. I was recently fired by a client after rejecting her sexual advances. Maybe I'll make a blog post bragging about my animal magnetism to assuage my disappointment over my professional failure.

etherael7• 16 years ago

So after examining her site a little more closely, I'm not sure what she actually does? I see vague hand waving towards a facility for schmoozing in some fashion and copious hand waving toward her having very little idea what's going on in her field with a healthy dash of self deprecation thrown in.

If all you do is schmooze then is it really so strange that someone might mistake your intent as unrelated to acting as a supplier, partner or client to their business? How cut and dried really is it? It's not like she's a developer looking for a new project or something that would clearly qualify as "serious business".

It does have the not-so-faint whiff of life is so hard everybody wants me.

Benjo3• 16 years ago

As far as I can tell she does social media.

etherael7• 16 years ago

This is not a sarcastic question but what does that actually mean? Anyone? I'm genuinely curious.

tptacek3• 16 years ago

I'm not sure what this comment has to do with the article at all. Try to evaluate the idea, and not the author.

Whether or not you think women are treated unfairly in the industry (I used to bristle at the idea, then watched my wife interview for jobs and radically changed my take), and whether or not this particular woman endured any real unfairness:

It is still worth considering how totally unprofessional and inappropriate it may be to ask a woman for her business card in order to abuse it for your personal benefit. It's not something I had thought of before. It's worth discussing.

If gender politics makes your brain turn off (and, it used to do that to me too), just pivot the story in your head so that instead of asking for a date, the guy takes her card at a tech convention and later calls and tries to sell her a dental insurance policy. It's spam. Spam is bad. There's an implied agreement when I give you my card that you're going to use it for its intended purpose: to contact me about something relevant to my business.

etherael7• 16 years ago

I don't think your analogy is a good match, someone selling you dental insurance out of the blue is also considered a nuisance, someone asking if you would like to go out on a date out of the blue is par for the course on normal human relations, and the author admits as much and points out that it is easy to simply refuse in this instance.

I have been propositioned for this kind of thing in a business context and have refused and not had negative blowback from doing so. That was actually the first mental shift I tried to see if it made any more sense to me that way, but it still seemed overblown. I can't think of an invitation that it is socially acceptable to make to a new acquintance that it is not socially acceptable to make to a new potential business contact, admittedly I guess that might be a consequence of the extremely limited array of things I consider to be socially acceptable invitations to new acquaintances.

Just saying no thanks is really not so hard, and if it continues after that point it becomes a hell of a lot less ambiguous or defensible.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

I'm surprised at the arrogance and even offensiveness of several of the comments posted here. (I'm also reminded of the currently trending article about sexual harassment and assault at OSS conventions.)

The author's issue not with men hitting on her, as she clearly explains. Her issue is with men obtaining her contact information ostensibly to do business and then using that contact information to hit on her.

Really, is that distinction so hard to understand? Stop excusing bad behaviour under the guise of "biology" or other lame rationalizations. They are as demeaning to men as they are insulting to women.

tome12• 16 years ago

I think there are two different realities that fit the evidence we've been presented with equally well. One is unacceptable -- and she's well within her rights to complain; the other is acceptable -- and she's making too much of the issue.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that the following is the case:

  The men "hitting on" her are perfectly polite and 
  interested in her professionally, but also want to see if 
  there's a chance of a date.  If she were to reply, "sorry 
  no", they would leave it at that.

If that reality is the case, her comments are completely unwarranted. She hasn't presented any evidence that excludes that reality, therefore she comes across as whining.

Robin_Message• 16 years ago

No, I think that sounds unpleasant. Just imagine some guy you met once phoning you about business and then asking you for a date. Still think mixing business and pleasure is okay?

It's also obviously totally unprofessional of the person. I mean, what are they going to say to their boss?

    I met the smart freelancer we're looking for,
    but then I asked her for a date and now she isn't
    returning my calls. Sorry boss.

It's unprofessional and unpleasant.

parfe6• 16 years ago

Would you find it acceptable for someone to call you after finding your resume online but then after the business pretext asking you on a date?

StavrosK• 16 years ago

Oh man, whenever sexes are involved the comments read like World War II.

To the posters here: Getting a girl's number to ask her on a date on the pretense of networking is creepy.

To the author: Some guys are creepy. Deflect them like you usually do.

This doesn't seem such a big deal!

stuhacking2• 16 years ago

Why doesn't she get a second phone/line for business only. If someone abuses that then at least they don't have her personal number and she can deal with the inappropriate use of her business number accordingly.

She could also make it clear on the card that it is a business number.

hard1p4• 16 years ago

How does that make a difference? All numbers are the same to predators haha! I doubt she advertises the number on her business card as a personal one anyway.

acgourley2• 16 years ago

It doesn't really matter, I've had an ex get asked to dates over email by potential business leads. Especially awkward is the "half and half" situation where they asked you to dinner to discuss business. For her it was especially hard to turn down because it wasn't just a networking client is was often a potential client for her firm.

stuhacking2• 16 years ago

The point is you take steps to separate your business and personal details so that some percentage of your encounters will get the picture.

For those that don't, you should be able to deal with them quite candidly. If they persist and start harassing you then block their number or report them.

If you can't do this, then maybe the problem lies on your end. Stop putting yourself in the position where you are helplessly being tormented.

wyclif4• 16 years ago

Why is this story still on the front page?

getsat2• 16 years ago

How long were Noirin Shirley's false allegations on the front page? Once the white knights finish their posturing, it will disappear (until next time).

wyclif4• 16 years ago

Good point. I think Michael Arrington redacted the relevant TechCrunch post, didn't he? My respect for Arrington picked up a lot that day.

rue2• 16 years ago

If you feel the need to pull that in here, at least provide sourcing for your allegations of falseness.

alex_c• 16 years ago

Because it's... hacker... news...? :-/

This is what the flag button is for, IMO.

niels_olson• 16 years ago

I suspect the bait-and-switch wouldn't be such an issue in a more sexually equal environment. Physicians are about 50:50 and while I've heard plenty of female doctors complain about being called "nurse", I've never heard a complaint about "bait-and-switch". I have heard a few complaints about "where'd all the men go?"

The environment in tech sounds about like the military: women have to be prepared to physically fight their own team. Which is deeply unfortunate.

Benjo3• 16 years ago

It's not clear to me if she's a) complaining for the sake of it, b) looking for advice on how to handle this, or c) offering advice to guys on what not to do. Point c is probably really good advice to a lot of people, but she's muddled it so much with points a and b that it's not going to help anyone.

lhorie5• 16 years ago

You know, some people say a woman mind is a mystery, but this thread is making me think that some guys simply don't make any effort to actually understand what women mean when they say something clear and to the point...

tome12• 16 years ago

In my opinion she's anything but clear. She doesn't explain, for example, when she gets asked out on a date (is that exactly what she's suggesting these men are doing -- it's again not clear) why can she just not say "no thanks" and leave it at that?

lhorie5• 16 years ago

I fail to see how "when we’re at a business networking event, and we exchange cards? Yeah, that’s not me ‘giving you my number’." is not clear. Got the business card, don't call her for a date. It's not rocket science...

>> why can she just not say "no thanks"

You don't rant when some business contact you just met asks you if you'd like to go hit a gay pub later. You do it after it has happened for the hundredth time this month.

parfe6• 16 years ago

>In my opinion she's anything but clear.

Seriously? You miss her saying that trading business cards is not an invitation for personal contact?

I found it blatantly obvious that she finds direct flirting acceptable while the subterfuge of faking a professional interaction to acquire contact information to be creepy and spineless.

I think a lot of people here are taking this woman's complaint personally which is actually quite funny.

grammaton7• 16 years ago

Plenty of people make every effort to understand what they mean - but it doesn't work so well when the woman is saying one thing and lacing it with tons of subtext that say something else.

lhorie5• 16 years ago

From the TFA:

>> when we’re at a business networking event, and we exchange cards

You're really stretching the definition of subtext if you're suggesting that a woman giving you her business card actually means she wants to get personal with you.

fooandbarify• 16 years ago

Hmmm. I'm frustrated, because I think the author is making a very important point in a very, very poor way.

Gender issues are important. They are important everywhere and they are especially important in industries like ours where the gender ratios are so unbalanced.

That being said, I find it extremely difficult to take this author seriously. I don't think I can critique her writing in a way that doesn't either come off as mean or completely expose me as the curmudgeonly bastard that I am, so I will just say that I found her style distracting. It's her blog and she should by all means write however she wishes - and to be fair she may not have expected the attention she is getting - but it's disappointing to me to see this issue represented in this way.

Hopefully, though, people will be able to see past that and realize that it's pathetic and rude to collect someone's personal contact information under the guise of business networking with the intent of calling them later for a date.

tome12• 16 years ago

Sure, it's underhand, but she hasn't said anything to suggest that they're not interested in her both personally and professionally.

This is agreement with you: she's very unclear.

grammaton7• 16 years ago

So....girl writes a blog that is half blog, half glamour photo shoot, and is obviously trading on her appearance. Fine, it's a free country, work an advantage if you've got it. She openly admits in the "about" section of her blog that she has all of one year of experience. Then girl is shocked, just shocked, when business professionals don't take her seriously and are only interested in one thing. A superficial girl (with little experience, to boot) running into a bunch of superficial men.

Hmmm....

hard1p4• 16 years ago

How is she 'obviously' trading on her appearance exactly? If she was minging and had exactly the same online presence you wouldn't be saying that. Tard

ergo98• 16 years ago

Anyone with any common sense can see that she's attempting to exploit sexuality to her advantage. In no way does that diminish her potential competency, nor does it excuse sexism and pigs, but come on -- project "consider me sexually" (from a male/female relationship perspective), and that is exactly what people will do.

And it's not exactly surprising that someone writing about being hit on, and their concerns with being hit on, does such a thing. It's all a part of the same visage.

To bring up Reddit, because this is a very Redditesque story, this reminds me of the hilarious comic someone submitted there of the difference of guys and girls showing off something in a picture for other Redditors to appreciate, be it a game, animal, etc: every guy picture is just the object. Every girl picture is 90% the girl, 10% the object. Wish I could find a link to it because it is far too true.

grammaton7• 16 years ago

Huh? This comment makes almost no sense, but if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that I wouldn't think the same thing if she showed up at a tech conference in crimson lipstick and a black dress and made pouty faces all over the place?

Um...yes, actually. Yes I would think that.

drallison• 16 years ago

She's right on point, IMHO. It's not the fact that she's being hit on that bothers her. It's the fact that the people who ask for her card give no clues as to their intentions. She wants people who ask for her card for personal reasons to say that is what they are doing. Makes sense to me.

rorrr• 16 years ago

What a complainer she is. Problem totally blown out of proportion. She is not even that hot (6 out of 10, maybe).

A girl with barely any experience who goes to networking events. WTF does she expect?

hard1p4• 16 years ago

What a dumbass you are - I bet you're one of those guys.

P.S. 10/10

Reply

trustfundbaby• 16 years ago

<snark>Yeah ... it reallly sucks to be goodlooking.</snark>

I understand what she's saying, and I empathize, I really do, but its is a hazard of being attractive ...

SUCK IT UP.

Its bad form to rant about that kind of stuff ... its almost like some dude who owns a Ferrari/Aston Martin/whatever, complaining about how people are always crowding around his car wherever he parks it. (Yeah how dreary it must be to own a Ferrari!) ... It just comes across wrong.

If she really wants to solve her problem and stop ranting ... let her put on 30 pounds. I promise the shennanigans will stop ... abruptly.

Reply

marknutter• 16 years ago

I think she had better get used to it. Hot women, and she is hot, are hard to approach, so guys will take any segway they can get, even if it's somewhat disingenuous. I have a feeling if she really wanted this to stop she would put on a fake wedding ring, but I somehow think that might put a damper on her professional success... sadly enough.

Reply

It Doesn’t Count Unless I Know You’re Hitting on Me.

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