Men: Guys Who Holla and the Women Who Don't Appreciate Them

WHEN A YOUNG lady such as myself is walking down the street, it is not particularly out of the ordinary to gain the attention of a man who happens to pass by.

From my experience, if he were in NJ he would say something like " Hey, yellow purse! gray leggings! hey girl!..." [no response from me] ":sucks teeth: you ugly anyway!"

eyeroll..... It's easy to ignore a rude guy on the basis that he's rude.* It doesn't matter that you wouldn't date him anyway since he's dressed all wrong, probably too old or too young, and doesnt seem to have his ish together. But you really don't have to take all that into consideration because he came spitting entirely the wrong game.

In Philly however, they seem to read from a different script. Besides the bums commenting on my figure in center city, there seems to be an influx of polite, I daresay respectful, men who otherwise would never get a second glance passing my way on the street.

Today one of them politely inquired "how you doing today?" while I passed. I looked back to see a rough looking, not necessarily attractive, thick beard having, short, middle aged, Black man, and didn't know how to respond. I said nothing.

He made me question my own quality of civility. Here we women ask for politeness as if we are non superficial beings, and I could not give a second glance to this man simply because of appearance. he was not rude, yet my eyes told me he was unnattractive, unkempt, yet not uncouth.... so what is it that we are looking for?

Men can approach women like they do in the movies and just say "hi. I'm so- and-so" and that takes a lot of guts to initiate a conversation like that, but this effort is barely ever appreciated and probably yields no such fruition at all.

So men, since I have no idea how to approach a woman successfully i ask, what seems to work for you?

*an example of this type of instance can be found in the youtube documentary, BLACK WOMAN WALKING. In it, several women recount the daily annoyance of having men cat call them as they go about their business. I don't necessarily agree with these women as the demonize males, particularly Black men, for "hollering" at them, but this video may give some insight into what it is that occurs in the arena of males chasing females and the utter disrespect that results from poor communication, tactlessness and simple cultural nuances.