Dancing

[dancingguy]

In a couple of places, there have been threads / comments about dacning, getting dance partners, interactions between older males and "cute young things", etc. I'm going to comment here, and post likes elsewhere, so that I can get all my thoughts on this in one place.

1: Compliments.
A couple of people (purchasemonkey and corpsefairy come immediately to mind) have

Comments

[dancingguy]

the solution is for the men to listen when the women say "please stop doing that".

You know, you can "prove" anything once you get to make up the terms of the debate. The question has never been "what is appropriate once someone has made a request?" The question has always been "what is the basic appropriate behavior?"

What I have said to Robynne is that "if you go to a dance event wearing clothes that show off your body to good effect, you do not get to be offended when people notice your body."

Now, let's divide the men there into three groups:
1: Her friends
2: Her acquaintances (people who recognize her well enough to know her name, but don't know her well enough to qualify as friends).
3: People she doesn't know.

Over the course of an evening, Robynne will probably dance with men from all three groups.

Robynne has chosen to wear a dress that's good to dance in, and flatters her figure. In short, she looks good in this dress.

Guys in group 1 probably (should) know Robynne's quirks well enough to know that she doesn't like being complimented for her figure. They should say to her "nice dress".

Guys in group 3 can, depending upon the circumstances, while standing around chatting w/ Robynne (before the dance starts, during a break), compliment her on the dress.

At least some of the guys in group 2 are going to say "hey Robynne, you look great tonight."

It is my contention, which you seem to disagree with (although you've worked hard at avoiding actually addressing it), that by choosing to wear that dress, Robynne has forfeited her "right" to be upset by those men's behavior. Those men are not being jerks, they are not being rude, and your dislike of that behavior is an outlier, which makes it your problem, and not theirs.

Now, would you care to actually respond to what I've been rather consistently saying for the last two days, or would you prefer to continue your fight with the straw man you brought along?

[whitechocchip]

I personally try not to get offended when someone notices me. I don't think the blame can be laid completely with the guy or the girl in this situation. Personally, I have the policy that I never get mad at anyone for looking at me in any outfit. It's when they try to cross the line between looking and touching that I start to have a problem. I also try to make sure that if I am wearing an outfit that might cause me more attention than I would necessarily want I also have friends around to back me up if a problem should arise.
To sum up:
Women could be a little more gracious in accepting compliments.
Men could be a little more careful in offering a compliment that makes the woman involved feel treasured and appreciated rather than ogled and evaluated as a sex symbol.