Talking with the ladies last night, I was reminded of a story from when I first moved from Saskatchewan to Toronto. I was 25 years old and I moved into a basement suite. The guy living upstairs (who remained in my phone as Creepy Dude Upstairs) was 40 years old, with 2 teenage kids. Within my first week of living there, we bumped into each other and he said he’d take me out to show me Toronto, as a welcome gift. At 25, I never in a million years thought that a 40-year-old would be hitting on me, because that was just gross (see my post about how 20-year-olds are ruining it), so I agreed to go.

A few nights later, he showed up at my door with flowers, chocolates and wine. At that point, I just thought that’s what old people did when they were being nice to younger people. We went out for dinner, and then martinis, then to a cougar bar. I still didn’t clue in…until he put his hand on my thigh and leaned in to kiss me. I was able to shrug him off pretending to lose my balance due to alcohol (ok, maybe I didn’t pretend), then I left to use that washroom. On my way back from the washroom, so guy approached me and asked if I was ok because I looked really uncomfortable. It was that bad.

Though I think I have become somewhat wiser in the 5 years since that happened, it still happens from time-to-time that guys will pretend they just want to be friends, but then WHAMO, you’re ducking from their slobbery mouths. This goes back to what I’ve complained about before- passive-aggressive men. If a man wants to go out with me, he should just say so- that way I can make an informed decision about whether to go out with him or not. It’s probably in their best interest anyway. Think about Creepy Dude. If he had told me he wanted to go out with me rather than “welcome me to the city”, I would have said no, he would have saved $200, and I wouldn’t have yelled at the hookers (no, I didn’t tell that part of the story).