Dan Bacon is oblivious. He’s written this longish article explaining how to get a woman to stop what she is doing and pay attention to a man, and never once stops to think about what the woman might want. He seems to think that if he’s cute and ingratiating enough, someone will like to be interrupted.
I have a shorter article explaining How to Talk to a Woman Who is Wearing Headphones, and here it is.
Don’t.
That’s all. Have some respect and understand that other people aren’t necessarily all about you, you narcissistic dork.
That article gives a lot of suggestions about how to annoy women under the pretext of trying to have sex with them. Here’s what you’re supposed to do when you see a woman with headphones on.
1. Stand in front of her (with 1 to 1.5 meters between you).
2. Have a relaxed, easy-going smile.
3. Is she hasn’t already looked up at you, simply get her attention with a wave of your hand. Wave your hand in her direct line of vision so she can’t ignore it.
4. When she looks at you, smile and point to her headphones and say, “Take off your headphones for a minute” and pretend to be taking headphones off your head, so she fully understands.
If she doesn’t understand (most women will), simply gesture that you want to talk to her by briefly pointing back and forth from you to her and say, “I want to talk to you for a minute.”
Jesus. Imagine that you’re out for a walk, listening to music (something I do every day), and some guy comes up to interrupt you with his mime routine. It better be something important to warrant that kind of intrusiveness. But no; Dan Bacon gives you a script for what you’re supposed to say.
You: [Smile in a friendly, confident manner] :) Hey – I know it’s not normal for people to talk to someone with headphones in, but I was walking along and saw you and thought – wow, she’s a cutie, I have to say hi. I’m Dan, what’s your name?
Woman: [Usually flattered by the compliment and impressed by your confidence to approach her like that] Jessica.
You: [Add in some humor] Cool…nice to meet you Jessica. I don’t normally talk to girls with headphones, but your big green headphones were just calling out to me.
Woman: [Most likely laughing, smiling and enjoying the interaction].
You: [Let her know that you have something to do/somewhere to go, so she understands that you’re not going to stand there talking to her for 30 minutes] Anyway, so I’m just out doing a bit of shopping at the moment. I’m on my way to a store up the street. How’s your day going so far?
Then keep the conversation going, get her phone number or transition to her joining you for a coffee or juice. Or, if the vibe between you is great and she seems like she has free time, sit down with her and have a chat for a while before getting her phone number and leaving.
This is a person who has zero empathy for the person he has just selfishly interrupted; he seems to totally lack a theory of mind. But he thinks he is a master of feminine psychology.
There are videos at that link. Don’t watch them unless you want to lose all faith in humanity.
And yet, he proceeds anyway.
PUA?
ugh
I had to stop there. Fucking hell.
This sort of interruption reminds me of telemarketing. “Hey, stop whatever you’re doing and run to the phone and hear my prepared patter and become enthralled and enchanted with whatever it is I’m selling. Isn’t this so much better than being alone and otherwise occupied?” No.
I’m almost always polite to telemarketers because it’s not really their fault: people need money and presumably nobody says to themselves “if I could have any career in the world, it would be selling things over the phone to strangers.” I can well imagine that the salesperson is disabled, at home with children, or otherwise desperate enough that I don’t need to give them any more grief.
But this gentleman — and I used the term loosely — could bear to be taken down a peg, I think.
Somewhat related, Gad Saad started attacking PZ on a recent JRE at around 1:42:00:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjBgeuTvnnk
Interesting that within about five minutes he’s praising Philipp Rushton.
more likely
You: [Smile in a friendly, confident manner] :) Hey – I know it’s not normal for people to talk to someone with headphones in, but I was walking along and saw you and thought – wow, she’s a cutie, I have to say hi. I’m Dan, what’s your name?
Woman: [Replacing headphones] Get the fuck away from me.
Smiling and laughing can be defense mechanisms done to sooth the crazy guy who just interrupted your day. They do not mean what he thinks they mean…
Woman: [Most likely laughing, smiling and enjoying the interaction]. Most likely making a fuck off face, and getting out the mace/keys/ sharp pointy objects we carry around with us at all times, while walking away very briskly.
You also need to workAaand … when she refuses, then what? O
Sorry, computer is glitchy.
Do you need directions? OK. Do you need some kind of help? OK. Do you just want to chat? Sorry, I don’t know who you are and I’m not interested.
Ye dogs.
I can sum up Bacon’s step-wise approach in one line: “Hi, I’m really creepy, and not at all averse to displaying my creepiness in public!”
Yea, that’s going to work well.
God help the poor sot who actually buys what this man is selling…
“You: [Let her know that you have something to do/somewhere to go, so she understands that you’re not going to stand there talking to her for 30 minutes] Anyway, so I’m just out doing a bit of shopping at the moment. I’m on my way to a store up the street. How’s your day going so far?”
Woman: Who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck? And just great until you turned up.
What a bellend. Somehow I’m skeptical he’s ever interacted with an actual woman in his life.
Or, you could talk to the woman who gives you a flirty smile and isn’t busy reading/listening to her ipod/working on the laptop/on her way somewhere/in the middle of a conversation/at work, and if she blows you off* then gracefully leave her alone. Otherwise, what you’re basically doing is “I noticed that you probably don’t want to talk to me, but since I want you to talk to me, you’re going to.” Not giving two fucks about what the other person wants is not a good way to begin an interaction.
*The blow off can be annoyance, it can be cool but polite aloofness, it can be ignoring you, it can be a myriad of responses. If you’re treating the other person like a passive target whose defenses should be pushed through rather than like a fellow human being with her own life and her own feelings, you are unlikely to notice and/or heed the blow off. This is a mistake and it will not– I repeat, NOT– lead to sweet, receptive giggles of interest. If she’s laughing, she’s either nervous about how to get out of this situation you’ve put her in without you turning aggressive or insulting, or she’s laughing at the absurdity of the situation: “Dog save me from “clever” randos with zero respect for boundaries, this is the third time today and I am done!”
Best comment I’ve seen. How to talk to a woman wearing headphones? Step one, create a podcast.
Even if you accept the idea that it’s ok to intrude upon someone in this situation -which it isn’t- the script is still stupid. Why not ask “I overheard a bit and I’d really like to know what you are listening to”. At least that way you don’t reveal yourself as the creep you are right away :P
Poe’s law?
I feel filthy having the same gender as this asshat.
penalfire, #5
And the same name as this one.
When I was in my late teens and taking buses all over the Twin Cities, I wore headphones deliberately to block out men. I was already with the person that I ended up marrying, and all the men that approached me were my father’s age anyway. (The “best” one was the guy that tried to lure me into a panel van with no windows in the rear compartment.)
That conversation is hilarious! Have Bacon ever really tried to approach a woman like that?
Headphones are the universal “Fuck off” signal. How can this tool not know this?
If he’s going to interrupt her day just to talk, it better be for something more important than “strip for me, please”. Personally if someone waves and interrupts me when walking with headphones, I’d expect the next sentence to be “You dropped your wallet back there!” or at least “what time is it?”, you know, something relevant.
Make it worthwhile a little…odds are the girl saw you just fine and didn’t care. mostly because your timing on showing interest sucks. If you’re going down that road, just have a business card handy with the details of your number and sexual preferences, hand it to her, then leave. It’s still creepy, but at least it’s over quickly.
Yeah, no. Headphones in is the universal signal for “do not bother me.” It’s the real world equivalent to an afk tag. If someone has their headphones in, you should bother them only for necessary stuff (“you dropped your wallet,” “look out for that charging bull,” “I’m bleeding from the head and need someone to call 911,” etc.), otherwise fuck off.
Here’s the thing I don’t understand about these PUA assbags: why do you insist on bugging people who don’t want to be bothered when there are plenty of people who are willing to talk? I mean, it’s really not super hard to find people willing to chat if you spend any amount of time in public. Of course, you have to actually treat women as people rather than targets…so maybe that’s the disconnect. Maybe it’s just a matter of having so little regard for a woman’s desires that it literally just doesn’t occur to them to even consider them.
Steps one and two are actually not that bad if you double or triple the distances. Smiling at people should be encouraged and I’d imagine many friendships and pleasant chats have started that way.
It swings straight to obnoxiousness after that. Sigh.
That’s as cringe-worthy as the commercials in the 70’s for Mr. Microphone where a car full of guys pulls up to a woman and one of them with the microphone says “we’ll be back for you later!”.
“…your big green headphones were just calling out to me.”
Bacon is really raising the bar with clever quips like that. Pure gold!
The problem is that too many men are going to take a brush-off, however polite, as an excuse to loudly call their target a frigid bitch if not much, much worse, and the author must surely know this (and not care). Women are all too aware of the perils of ignoring or rejecting that sort of man.
I read the whole article and mentally replaced “she” or “her” or “woman” with “the fantasy woman who exists only in my brain”.
The problem is that too many men are going to respond to a brush-off, however polite, by loudly calling the woman any number of nasty names, if not worse, and I don’t see how the author can be unconscious of this. Women are all too aware of the danger of ignoring or rejecting a man like that.
I read the whole article mentally replacing “she” or “her” or “woman” with “the fantasy woman who exists only in the author’s head.”
Another thing, is this guy really that oblivious or he actually doesn’t want his disciples to succeed? Maybe it’s a marketing ploy.
“Sure, go bother that obviously busy woman instead of that other runner who’s resting on the bench without anything to distract her.”
I mean, I don’t want anyone to bother me while I’m staring out in space and wondering what the hell was I thinking taking up running in the mornings, but in principle at least this would be more decent and might have a higher success rate than starting up with inconveniencing the other person.
Sastra@4 “I’m almost always polite to telemarketers because it’s not really their fault: people need money”
They do and they get paid by the call and by the sale. I think “being polite to them” is actually wasting their precious time, especially if you keep them talking. I just hang up the phone without a word so the worker can get on with his real job, lousy as it is, which is hooking suckers. At the most I say “sorry, can’t help you” and that may not be doing them a favour so much as making me feel less guilty about cutting them off. I’m doing less of that because my feelings don’t matter to them, nor should they. Do I have any right to salve my conscience at the expense of their income?
The combination of Gad Saad and Joe Rogan is like swirling shit and vomit together; either one is unappealing alone, why should I think the combination would be interesting?
I think it’s more finding the idea of women having desires of their own, and those desires mattering, unappealing and wanting to find socially-endorsed ways to send the message to women that their desires are irrelevant and that shouldn’t be seen as odd.
Ed Seedhouse #30 wrote:
Agree. By “being polite” I meant a short and sweet “no, thank you” and hang up before they get to the “But …” Which is how I’d probably react to Dan Bacon’s approach — headphones off, a no, headphones on.
If he’s lucky. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten bolder. I might give him a motherly talking to, which he’d hate like fire but too bad, he ought to know better than to try to hit on someone who’s old and gray enough to deal with this sort of shenanigans. Could be I’d fix his bacon and put a flea in his ear. Politely. Age has its privileges.
My first thought was “pepper spray”.
I just know if you interrupt you’d better be more entertaining than Han whatever I was listening to or on fire (an emergency).
@26 Larry: “…We’ll be back for you later…”
Well, that sounds ominous! I’d run in the opposite direction.
Fixing that for you
1. Yes, women are nice and polite to strange men who insist on talking to them. They also smile a lot. This is for the same reason you that you don’t yell at a big strange dog without a leash: You never know what it’s going to do. You appear calm and try not to show that you’re afraid as fuck.
2. What I want to know from these guys is: How can a woman actually signal that she wants to be left alone? What reaction would make you actually believe that she means “fuck off”?
+++
All women do. They keep ignoring you on purpose.
The Captain has some advice for Mr. Bacon and his acolytes. If you are a lonely guy and would like to talk to someone, rather than interrupt women who are sending all the socially acceptable “leave me alone” signals they can, talk to the other lonely guys!
Caveat: Preferably about something other than how to get women out of their protective coating and into your grubby maws, lest you end up right back in the same place you started.
@Sastra
That’s exactly why men like Dan Bacon usually only approach young women, no matter how old they themselves are: they know that more mature women are less likely to put up with their crap.
#37: maws
Erm, that was supposed to read *paws. Either way.
I didn’t have much to add, but thanks to twitter, now I have:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrHiXWJVMAAyH1q.jpg
“[W]e fill our ear holes to stop you from getting in.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2016/aug/30/how-to-actually-talk-to-a-woman-wearing-headphones
Wow. A guide for hitting on women that’s clearly not interested. Nice, I’ve always wanted to learn that. Hope there’s a part two with drug recommendations for those “tough cases”.
Dear Dan, I’m a straight, white guy who likes to sexually harass PUA for fun and profit. Should I do this to guys listening to your podcast, or just neg their fedora.
Yours
GiJoel
Since nobody else has mentioned this yet, Jezebel had a parody column titled “How to talk to a woman who is trying to take a dump”. http://tinyurl.com/gov9exd
Quick guide on how to approach any person wearing headphones:
Step 1: Ask yourself whether what you’re about to say is literally “Oh shit there’s a fire! Run!” because there is actually a fire.
Step 2: If the answer is “Yes! Fire!” then continue. Otherwise, do not approach.
Oh!?!
Insert obligatory “you do know that’s actually a trilby” diss here.
Sili, #46
I may have worded that very poorly. I meant in the sense that he would assume me to be his target audience by default.
For me, anyone who refers to human women as ‘females’ is to be presumed Ferengi until otherwise indicated – culturally steeped in misogyny, and generally someone human women would and should avoid.
@ tigtog You know I was thinking that as I wrote it.
i think the best response when a creeper stops you like this while you’re out minding your own business listening to some music or whatever with headphones on is to take out a gun and unload the entire clip into his chest. if you’re not busy you can always reload and unload a second clip into his skull.
Kinda hyperbolic, isn’t that?
Sophia Daniels, that’s disturbingly violent, regardless of the non-funny picture that accompanies this OP. Toxic masculinity and the use of force are both aspects of the same issue in our modern cultures.
The thing is: if a woman even went as far as pepper spraying the guy, guess who’d be in trouble.Even loudly yelling “leave me the fuck alone you creep!” Would make all bystanders automatically side with the poor guy who was just being friendly
We don’t have to even go as far as yelling at the guy.
IT’s enough if he starts the conversation, you ignore him and he loudly comments how he just wanted to talk to you. Bystanders will probably notice the interraction only at that point and more often than not it’s the woman who is supposedly “overreacting”.
Because ignoring someone talking to you is rude, because making a face at the stranger who’s bothering you is rude. All because he was being “nice” while bothering you. Except that being a nuisance isn’t nice. It’s disrespectful and rude.
Readers may enjoy How to talk to a girl wearing headphones: A NewsThump guide to sexually harassing women who enjoy music and Headphones for women rebranded as ‘arsehole repellent’.
I hate these PUA losers. It’s just good manners not to bother someone who’s clearly demonstrating they do not want to be bothered (which headphones clearly do).
I think Bacon is rushing through a critical step of the process here. How do I get her to understand the difference between humor and not-humor, or at least make her laugh at my jokes. I’m not kidding here!
It bothers me when people see I’m reading a book and just have to interrupt. Doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or a man.
What if she just reaches one hand into her handbag, tilts the bag in his direction, and doesn’t say anything? If it were me I’d immediately wonder just what she has in the bag.
“Smile in a friendly, confident manner” might as well be “stare at them in Japanese” for all the sense it makes.