They're baaaack! Entitlement Attack!

I've been out of my Blogger account for a few weeks because they changed it over, logged me out and I couldn't remember my username and password. But, I finally set to work and got it straightened out today. Thanks for the impetus, Melville!

Lately, I've been coming across way too many men who have been discourteous and rude to me at best, and at worst, harassing me and my acquaintances. What do they all have in common? A sense of entitlement. Just because they want my attention, they think they deserve it, and therefore, I'm a horrible and hostile person for not giving them the attention they deserve. Never mind that I might be busy with my own thoughts or activities -- I'm the one who's rude if I don't drop everything as soon as they want my time.

That's why I have a bone to pick with Men Who Think They're Entitled To Women, or MWTTETW for short (pronounced "mau-tet-ew"). Most of my encounters with MWTTETW have been on the Internet recently, thank goodness. Encountering one in the real world is scary to say the least: Because such a man thinks he's entitled to you, he'll often get angry when you don't play ball. Any subsequent hostility or violence on his part is thus "justified" in his skewed little brain, because none of it would have happened if you just wanted him back like you were supposed to! Presto, now it's the woman's fault he's angry and violent! Neat trick, huh?

I figured I've been really unlucky these past few weeks, I've been coming across MWTTETW on websites, IMs, chat, anywhere on the Internet I go, it seems. Now, if you're an Entitled-feeling Man yourself, you're probably thinking at this point that I did something to deserve this negative attention. Sorry, but in all but one case, I was doing absolutely nothing to attract attention other than being online when the Entitlement Attack hit. In the one other case, I was involved in a public discussion that led to the guy messaging me privately to tell me he wanted to get to know me and be my friend, while I tried to parry his advances.

A typical Entitlement Attack:
- I'm around, minding my own business and doing my own thing, with or without friends.
- Man notices me, tries to get my attention, start up a conversation.
- I politely decline, mention I'm busy, act otherwise disinterested or unavailable.
- Man gets angry, attacks me for being anti-social, rude, hostile for not wanting to socialize with him.

If you've ever been the male in this scenario, please consider the following for a moment: If you're the kind of guy who gets angry just because a woman doesn't want to talk to you right then, why would she want to talk with you EVER? It's not fun, it's not social and it's not enjoyable. It's annoying, irritating and unpleasant at best. At worst, if you continue, it's threatening, stalking and harassment. What part of this is she supposed to enjoy? Why should she like you at all?

I was hoping I was just a freak of nature, getting a lot of bad luck from MWTTETW, but then I went surfing on the web and found that not only are there men who do this to unlucky women like me in private, but there are men out there who do this and still feel entitled enough afterwards to publicly talk about about how they should have put the girl in her place!

Take a look at BATG participant Niels Hoven's blog article, "Apparently I'm a Psycho". While the article is aptly named, unfortunately, it appears that he meant it ironically. No, I guess we can't expect self-awareness from MWTTETW who blog about it like it's cool. Basically, the typical scene goes like this: Niels goes to a nightclub, sees some hot girls and approaches them to flirt. One girl doesn't want him there, and one doesn't seem to mind so much. The "unfriendly" girl hints that he should scram, but Niels invariably overlooks these first hints and responds instead by "bantering" or "vibing" with the girls. The hints become less subtle, so Niels blatantly disregards increasingly explicit requests to leave, and often even jokes about the requests instead of respecting them. The scenario ends when the girls can't take it anymore and leave because he won't, or more recently in "Psycho", he finally takes the request semi-seriously and makes his exit. Good to know that he has evolved somewhat...

The good thing is that he DOES leave after being explicitly asked (let's not even talk about how he grabs the first excuse to return to their table). The bad part is the so-called lesson he's learned from this recurring experience. Does he perhaps learn that he shouldn't sit down uninvited? No. Does he learn that he should respect earlier hints and requests to leave? Nope. What Niels Hoven learns is that some girls are "beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside" and that he "[needs] to lay down the hammer and just tell the girl that her behavior is unacceptable." Whoa.

Am I the only one who thinks that telling the girl that her behaviour was "unacceptable" would have been inexcusably rude considering how he insinuated himself into a "social situation" with her that she didn't even want to be in?

NEWS FLASH: She is NOT rude simply because she wants you to go away. YOU were rude for ignoring her less-than-subtle hints to get you to leave after sitting down uninvited at her table. Just because you want to talk to a girl, doesn't mean that you deserve her time or that she's obliged to give you any. It's this kind of attitude that eventually leads to a man harassing a woman and telling her it's her fault for not wanting him back.

The scary part of this is that Niels is a coach at Art of Attraction workshops, where he apparently teaches men how to flirt with women and be the most attractive versions of themselves. Is he teaching men to ignore women's wishes? Is he teaching men that it's all right to violate women ("It's okay as long as she's hot and you wanna talk to her")?

This is just wrong. Her desirability never justifies your sense of entitlement. And if you're afflicted with a sense of entitlement, at least keep it to yourself and don't infect other perfectly nice men with that attitude.