There is a guy who keeps hovering around me. He tries to make the randomest excuses to talk to me and ask me questions. He has not asked me out. But my instinct says that he has a crush on me. I do my best to not engage or respond minimally (pretending to listen to music, pretending to be extremely busy with work etc and giving one word responses). But he hasn’t given up on the ‘hovering’. I am afraid that I will say something rude to put a full stop to this. How do I deal with this?
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Sucks to say, but start talking about your bf or husband, even if you don’t have one
Guys seem to respect others guys property 🤢🤢🤢more than girls autonomy
Same thing you do with any person who hovers around you and who you suspect has a crush on you
Explain politely that you aren’t interested, and be prepared for when they play it off as a misunderstanding to save themselves the embarrassment
I think it depends on the context of how you’re having to deal with this guy. Is this at work/school or is it just in a friend group?
I work in a male dominated industry and am often the only woman in the room. Over the years I’ve experienced this a lot. The best way I’ve found to deal with it is to ignore it. They usually get over it on time and go back to being normal. I try to not engage too much with them so I don’t encourage it. A couple of times they’ve confessed and I’ve declined. I usually say I’m seeing someone.
Crushes are normal and mostly harmless. If I’m not interested I don’t see the point in bringing it up if they don’t. It will just cause embarrassment. Of course if he starts crossing lines absolutely say something.
Talking about a boyfriend works really well. Not engaging seems to encourage them to try harder. Here’s something I wrote about this before:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1lr5e2y/comment/n1atcnv/
What context is this in? Do you work with him? Is he a friend or acquaintance and it’s during social situations? Is he a stranger hovering on you in a public place?
How you handle it really depends on the situation but if it was me and it was a work or social situation and it was making me uncomfortable, I’d say “Can you step back and give me more personal space? You’re making me uncomfortable.”
If it’s a stranger bothering you in a public place – i’d probably just exit that place and stop spending time there. There’s enough other places to spend time that doesn’t have to include strangers with boundary issues.
It’s not rude to say exactly what you mean and exactly what you need the other person to do or stop doing. As women we really need to get it out of our heads that saying what we need will hurt someone or upset them. You can’t control how people will react but you have every right to advocate for yourself and ask someone to back the fuck off. You don’t have to apologize and you don’t have to say please. A man wouldn’t. You just say what you need and they should listen. And if they don’t – you remove yourself from the situation. You don’t have to put up with people’s unwanted behaviors to keep the peace. You get to stand up for yourself and you get to take up space without it being encroached on. And it’s a really important skill to learn how to speak up.