CONTENT WARNING: links below contain horrible misogyny and violence.

Dear Gentle Butch,

Hello, I am a white, heterosexual male and I am having trouble chatting up women. Could you give me some advice please? Thank you for your time!

Dear WHM,

Oh, honey no.

No, I cannot give you advice about chatting up women, even though you said please and thank you.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I am 100% hoes before bros. Also: women are not a monolith. If I WERE interested in helping you, I’d probably say a bunch of sexist bullshit others have said, like: Women like a confident man! Women like a man who listens! Women like a clean-cut man. Women like a rugged, tousled man! Women like a man who is clever! Is Alpha! Understands that the idea of Alpha Males is based on not only misogyny and patriarchal wet dreams but also displays an astounding ignorance of how wolf packs actually WORK!

There is nothing that I can tell you, even if I were inclined, that will help you to chat up this group of identically-minded people called “women,” because this group doesn’t exist.

But while women are not a monolith, most women who fit the extremely broad demographic of what men find sexually attractive are sick to death of men endlessly hitting on them. Sometimes literally.

Please keep in mind that when you approach a woman you don’t know at all to immediately begin expressing either sexual interest or to begin pretending that you want to make a new friend when what you really want is to have sex with her, that you are somewhere in the middle of a long, long list of men who have done the same thing to her.

Men do this when women want to be alone. They do it when they want to converse with their friends without putting up with constant entitled interruptions from men who believe that their own sexual desires matter more than whatever unimportant prattle these silly women are engaging in; men do it when women are trying to do their laundry, walk down the street, study, have a damn drink/read a book/sip a coffee (or serve a coffee) in peace.

And it’s beyond annoying.

Again, literally. It’s not merely annoying –it is also fucking scary.

Because when random strange men start ‘chatting you up,’ as you put it, things can get ugly. Fast.

And it doesn’t really matter what a woman does. She can try being kind and polite, but then he’ll rage because she ‘led him on.‘ She can be incredibly clear that she isn’t interested in the least, and then he will pull out misogynistic slurs and maybe, oh I dunno try to drag her into his car.

Plenty of men are just genuinely trying to get laid or find a girlfriend after getting laid, and a handful of them even take no for an answer with perfect grace.

But most of them will pester the women all night, or try to argue with her in the moment, or do something shitty to save face.

So just don’t.

I am not saying: don’t threaten women who reject you or try to abduct them or sexually assault them, because that should go without saying.

Just let women be. Let them have their night out. Enjoy your meal or your drink or the karaoke or whatever. Don’t be yet another reason that a woman has to hesitate and feel fear in her gut mingled with intense annoyance and anger, considering every word she says back to you carefully, her sole focus on doing whatever she can to prevent violence or at the very least an unpleasant conversation that might very well go on all night.

Now.

You wanna get laid? Go make a bumble account. You want a girlfriend? Go to okcupid or whatever app the kids are using these days.

But I don’t think you’ll have much success.

I know this doesn’t sound very gentle, but believe me when I tell you that I’m doing you a favor: I don’t think you’ll have much success because you are boring.

I know that you are white, straight, probably cis, and male.

So what? There are hundreds of thousands of you.

What do you care about? What can you DO? Who do you love? Do you have one unique thing to say?

You want a woman? Go out and learn things. Learn things about yourself and the world and languages and music and art and politics. Give things. Attention and money and half of a shit about something that is real. That matters.

You want a woman? Go out and become something more than merely a ‘white, heterosexual male.’ Go around doing cool and empathetic and fun and truly important-to-the-world things. Make sure when a woman wants to talk to you that you have something interesting to say — and the social skills and soul to listen to her with genuine interest and curiosity.

Be a person, damnit.