Try evaluating the situation at each milestone - and not from the end point.. and rethink what you've said. I say that, but I know you won't because you're not interested in objectivity here, but have a foregone conclusion. The only solution that works in your perception of the world is that no one talk to each other unless there is a specific, explicit practical purpose to do so.

Is every person that says "wow, I like your shoes?" - boning you in their mind right now too?

Maybe in a generation we'll all wear hats with lights that signify if we are open to being approached by someone. Or maybe someone will come out with a google glass that gives you red light, green light indicators if the far end is willing to accept your engagement of social conversation.

In the interim.. we'll all keep retreating inward, and be forced to avoid contact for fear of the other side's reaction and the consequences.

re-evaluate your position from the perspective of a dude addressing another dude. what are the chances of one telling another to smile? i am betting it has not happened to you since you were a toddler. then imagine yelling across a cafe to a stranger at them to smile, and then getting pissed off when they ignore you. do you feel like a creepy weirdo yet?

I was thinking the same thing -- reminded me of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction arguing that foot massages aren't sexual.
Vincent: Would you give a guy a foot massage?
Jules: F#ck you.

two logic fails there.
One - I wasn't there, but neither were you.. we only have the view of the party who interpreted the action. So you can't clearly state what his intent was... but neither did I to start. I only pulled back from the conclusion that it was some sort of creepy to say it COULD be either

two - the escalation could have simply been in response to being IGNORED and the hurt that person may have felt from that - not necessarily that there were advances that were not recieved. If you pass someone on the sidewalk each day, make eye contact, and say hello... but then the next day you see that person run to the other side of the road to AVOID you.. and does that each day.. do you not take note of that? maybe if you were in conversation with your friend and the topic came up would you say positive or skeptical things about the person who goes out of their way to AVOID you simply because you said hello?

I'm not defending him... but as with many 'sensitive' topics people can't address them objectively so I'm out.

I look forward to the world we are building where everyone is scared to lose their job by actually acknowledging the people around them.

Never knew there were bad girls in pinball. Hope to find more bad girls than good girls of pinball.

Stupid topic.

Now Politically Correct yourselves to death already

Yup, he handled it in a way I wouldn't have. I would have yelled at the guy and probably threatened him. If he was joking around it would be one thing. But when he starts crossing the line as a control freak psycho, then he needs to be put in his place.

Wow....this thread is like the twilight zone...I find myself agreeing with Kaneda AND Pezpunk.......

haha.

flyingbus, maybe the harasser was an undercover orthodontist looking to pad his sales on braces by slyly evaluating potential customer's smiles?

She hoped by avoiding him, he would drop it. Who knows what would happen if she confronted him. The guy obviously has issues and the LAST thing she needs is for him to start stalking her outside of work, or worse yet, follow her home.

Maybe this is why society is going down the tube... we advocate AVOIDING your problems as the solution to things. When has avoiding something ever drawn it to closer to conclusion?

Owe someone money? Just avoid them!
Facing an overdue deadline? Just avoid them!
Have a touchy subject with your S.O.? Just avoid it!
Kids actingly poorly? Just avoid it!
Tension with coworker? Just avoid them!
Doctor has bad news for you? Just avoid doctors!

Avoiding is just deferring problems.. and like in this example, that normally means things get worse.

It's funny how we argue about needing equality, etc... yet people won't even advocate facing things. Instead they just want it to magically happen by hiding from the issue. We want to give people equality, without expecting them to at least stand up for themselves. That's the death spiral of creating needy people.

Depends on if it is my dentist or not. Could even be a photographer...

Or perhaps this guy.

fantasy baseball island rm.jpg

Thanks for posting Blondetall,
That's tough story to share and glad you did, and sorry that you'll receive flak for it. No this is not a Pinball topic, but it is an Internet topic, and though it doesn't seem relevant to you, it is relevant to many.

For those that don't get where she is coming from, and why this situation would make a person uncomfortable, I'm not really sure what to say to you. She had no obligation to engage with this guy, but to him she did, so she's immediately in a no-win situation:
- Smile and play along and this will go on forever, be uncomfortable
- Ignore the guy and he keeps making a scene and calling from across the room, be uncomfortable and embarrassed
- Confront the guy and ask him politely to stop, be told to loosen up honey, it's our "thing", be uncomfortable
- Confront the guy more aggressively, be labeled psycho bitch, be uncomfortable and embarrassed
- Have husband confront the guy, possible physical escalation, best case scenario she gets dirty looks from the guy going forward, be uncomfortable
- Request the aid of Management and/or HR, be labeled a whistle-blower, have things said behind her back, be uncomfortable and embarrassed
- Stop eating lunch where everyone else does, laugh off questions why she's not eating with others, be uncomfortable
- Leave job, start over, hope for the best, try not to have eye contact with next checkout guy for fear of repeating cycle (This happens more than you might think)

A lot of you will see the above choices and say it's no big deal, lighten up, grow a pair, etc... But remember, all this person wanted to do was eat her lunch just like everyone else. But because this guy, like so many guys, got it in his head that he was dominant and wanted to have some fun. And this is just lunch. Similar situations have probably happened to her in the office parking lot, conference rooms, liquor stores, movie theater, basically any place a guy has marked his territory.

My wife years ago would walk to school every day and get catcalls from grown men sitting on stoops waiting for their workday to start. Some of them were fathers or brothers of her classmates. She was 12.

perfect-_edited_1.jpg

Again. Imagine yelling at another dude -- a stranger -- across a crowded cafe "hey bro ... Hey ... Smile! Yo, man, smile! hey, don't ignore me, I know you can hear me! Yo, smile bro, I told you before!" And then getting pissed off.

It is creepy weirdo behavior. Pointing that out is not whining. Pretending it's anything other than a shitty and weird way to behave requires an incredible amount of ... I don't even know ... Something i do not possess.

???

Silvio.gif

A seriouly big lol at the irony of using a sopranos gif in a thread that is by and large about misogyny and sexism.

Thanks!

maybe time for some Boobie pictures?

two-blue-footed-boobies.jpg

For every story like Blondetall's, there's one where the woman doesn't even know what's happening. I had a boss in the 80's who openly told his team "I won't hire women". This was for a software engineering job. Worse, he would occasionally bring them in for interviews - to keep up appearances. Wasted a whole day of their time just to keep his sorry ass from being fired.

I will say that I haven't seen anything like that since then, so maybe there's hope for this world.

Whether he was hurt by being ignored, thought his advances were being ignored, or is just a straight up creep, he has no right to act out and get angry for being ignored.

Yes, or it goes completely the other way.

At the Little Caesars near my hotel, the male manager was bragging to me that he only hires good looking girls.

He will take a man's application, but then once they are out the door, he puts it in the trash.

Sounds like he has the right idea.

Good luck to all trying to eliminate the exceptions to the rule.

Exactly. Stuff like this sucks, but being harassed at work, in a bar, at the zoo, etc. etc. doesn't mean we need special rules on a pinball forum.

I had an office stalker. English was not her first language so while she grammar-checked the hell out of everything she sent me, it was still pretty obvious. It never got threatening so I never had to report it to HR, and I'm really glad for that. She was married with two kids and it would suck if she lost her job.

A manager of another department was harassing me. He was constantly playing little mind games. One time he yelled at me over the phone and I hung up on him. Of course, he called back. My manager was right over the pony wall of my cube and I said, "Hey Janet", then answered via speaker phone. Of course, he kept right on yelling, so I hung up again, but my manager heard it. He then comes over to her office, and now he's sweet as pie, not realizing she heard everything. "I don't know why Jon doesn't like me. All I want is some help..."

Point being, I've technically been a victim of both sexual and non-sexual harassment in the work place. It sucks, and I feel for anyone who goes through it, but would it be valid for me to expect changes on this forum because of that?

That's BS. When I did a lot of customer service I would get told to "smile" all the time by men and women.

Instructional video:

BLOCKUSER-DUH.gif

............... Membership denied!

I suppose that's the best way to maintain the position that sexism is all in peoples heads. Literally ignore anyone that points out otherwise.

This thread was on-topic (good/great women in pinball) until jonnyo and Xenon and zizzlemeplease took it down this stupid "PC" rathole (go back to page 2 if you don't believe me).

Let's here it for more great women in pinball: Gary Stern must have had a mom, right?

lol nice ad hominem.

Uh, no. Believe it or not, not everyone agrees with you on what constitutes sexism. Everyone has their personal standard. So, if your personal standard is in sharp disagreement with another person's, ignore them. If you can't come to agreement with another person, given the option, the mature thing is to turn your attention elsewhere, which is what the Ignore User tool allows you do very easily.

Yes, disagreeing is "taking it down this stupid "PC" rathole." I forgot that you lose the right to disagree when it comes to topics like these. Thanks for the reminder sir.

If it is a term that is used to try to make someone feel guilty about the way they feel then it will not be in my head. Especially if it has to do with political correctness.

[edited, no point in saying anything further]

There are instances where reasonable people can disagree on what is and isn't sexist. Blondetall's story is absolutely not one of them. It's a story of a creepy weirdo acting in an unambiguously sexist manner. To deny that is to deny that sexism has ever or ever could exist. I mean we are not talking about someone whining about some perceived minor slight.

I agree with this 100%. But I also deal with people that have certain learning disabillities or mental deficiencies that can repeat themselves over and over again and not realize they are doing anything wrong, but are blessed that somebody will give them a job in this society.

I was not disagreeing with Blondetall's story. I was disagreeing with this statement, based on my own experiences in customer service:

"it IS saying "dance for me". it's saying your own personal space is my decoration and your private inner mood is my right to invade uninvited. the chances of a dude doing that to another dude are LESS THAN ZERO."

You then took a few logical leaps and came to the conclusion "SEXISM!!!" That's your problem, not mine.

You can have the last word, sir. Clearly we are never going to see eye to eye and I don't see any point in discussing this with you further.

For what its worth i get asked to smile quite frequently at work. By guys and girls and there is no sexism going on. im just a grumpy guy that doesnt smile much.

It sounds like the management at your company are complete amateur's and have zero clue about what they are doing. Anyone in management with even a rudimentary understanding of business and dealing with employees would know to *never* laugh at a complaint by an employee who is having these kinds of issues.

It's like you've gone off the deep end lately. I used to enjoy your posts.

This whole thread is pathetic

Also some good guys too with a great sense of humour and simply stop reading if offended!
" Some people are like slinky's, they are not fun until you push them down the stairs! "

this was pointed at anyone! just a bit of a general assumption

Pinballz arcade has run several seasons of a women's league, same setup and prizes as the other leagues.

If I get permission ill post some scores. Those ladies were killing it on batman dark knight the other evening, pretty sure I saw some 100m+ scores on ball two.

People who love pinball will form communities around it. If pinside is too old fashioned or immature to be that place, that would be a shame, because there's a lot to like about this site.

Reminds me of another one that doesn't seem to want to end..

TRIGGER WARNING: This off topic thread on the 2+2 poker forum contains images of beautiful Asian women in sexy poses. Offendotrons that are offended by the site of scantily clad women in sexy poses are advised not to click the link as it may trigger feelings of guilt for being male. It may also trigger the need to lecture others about muh soggy knees.

(link removed)

I thought for sure there would be a twist ending where the managers took blondetall aside and said in a whisper. Sorry, Bubba is a bit slow. He is here on a work program please just play along. Nope, I guess the guy was just a douche.

Jonny ya bastard! Don't use me as an example. I can see my avitar in that little gif you have done there.

/r/pinsideinaction

It may be time to start a thread about men that love pinball and their achievements as well.

I run a pinball group for women in my city, and we have over 40 members. We are players, collectors, restorers. Some of women in pinball are fucking HEROES in regards to tech, playing, organizing, but most of us are just fans who want to participate and play some pinball.
And yes we see some of the b.s. that gets posted up on pinside because of that "boys club" assumption.
And yes many members won't comment or will use gender-ambiguous icons/names to avoid taking flack.

Things have gotten better in the last 5 years, but there is still a long way to go. We still hear men talking about how the "raped that machine", or how something is "gay". (lots of LGBTQ people love pinball, btw, pinside could do WAY BETTER on this front overall.)
Pinball, and pinside, has a long way to grow the hell up and realize it's not just a private space for dudes to relive their teenage years.

I haven't read this thread in the entirety yet, but kudos to y'all that call out the misogynistic b.s. and thumbs-down it to oblivion.