News Update

Recently, a woman got an oil change at Valvoline. This mundane event became much more significant after one of the mechanics clumsily texted her number to call her pretty, and she posted the message on X, along with the caption “So because I got an oil change you think it’s ok to save my phone number to text me? This is beyond creepy … I’ll be reporting this.”

This post has dominated discussion on the platform formerly known as Twitter for the past two days. Or at least it’s done so in the place that matters most: my feed. This discourse has been, predictably, high minded and civil.

Ha, made you look, didn’t I? No, everyone lost their minds.

While this interaction has been a massive net negative for both parties to it (aside from the oil change, which appears to have been satisfactory), it says something worth discussing about our dating culture and the fundamentally anti-social character it’s taken on. This anti-romantic outlook manifests on both dimensions of reaction to this post. On the one hand, you have the feminist-coded narrative that men are bad and are gross pigs for even thinking about talking to women. On the other, you have the redpill/manosphere-coded narrative that women are shaming good and decent men for no reason at all and that dating is simply not worth it.

Many of the manosphere types have said something to the effect of: if she was into the guy, the invasion of privacy wouldn’t have mattered. Perhaps not. But you have to judge things by their fruits. She obviously wasn’t receptive to the approach, and therefore the invasion of privacy does matter. There’s nothing inherently wrong with taking half court shots if that’s your only option, but don’t be surprised when you miss. And when there are consequences for you missing, you’d best think about if the shot is worth taking.

Furthermore, this would have been highly taboo even under the best circumstances. If hitting on somebody while they’re at work is sketchy because they’re a captive audience, hitting on somebody while you’re at work is even moreso, because you’re risking offending a potential customer. That doesn’t mean you can’t. But it does mean that if you’re going to, you better not fail. And, it should go without saying, taking this woman’s number from work for personal use was a legitimate invasion of privacy.

This was a bad approach, in other words. It was high risk, because of the socially taboo setting, and low reward, because there wasn’t any prior indication of interest on her part and no particular reason to think she’d be receptive. I’m sure there is a “how I met your mother” story out there that went something like this, but that’s obviously not this case. Indeed, it appears the consequences for the individual could be quite dire: in addition to posting his texts on social media, the woman in question reached out to his employer to, presumably, try to get him disciplined or fired.

Even absent the social shaming and knowledge of how it turned out, I would have likely let discretion be the better part of valor in this instance. If our mechanic friend still insisted on making a move, however, the best time and place to do it was in person. I would have advised him to try a light flirt with some plausible deniability, see how it lands, and decide whether and how to move forward from there.

Therein, however, lies the problem: I suspect this fellow had no idea how to do that, struggled to work up the courage to do so, or maybe even didn’t realize that was the proper etiquette. That’s why I feel for him. Not because he did the right thing, or because this was a good and respectful way of approaching. He didn’t, and it wasn’t. But I’ve been an awkward guy who’s made passes at women that, in retrospect, were stupid and cringeworthy. I wouldn’t presume to say that I’m some sort of expert, but I’ve learned through repeated, painful trial and error that to be good at something, you have to be bad at it first.

The most basic ethical rule I can give is that men should be direct. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Women, if not interested for whatever reason, should be firm but also polite. This is a basic pro-social behavior because so many men are scared to talk to women these days. If you’re rude to him, you’re much more likely to make him gun shy about ever trying it again. There’s probably some woman out there who’d be quite happy with him, if not now, then sometime in the future, and you’re doing both of them a disservice if you make them less likely to connect.

Even if you think he’s otherwise repulsive, if he’s respectful about it, being rude to him is the romantic equivalent of bullying a fat person at the gym. At least he’s trying, which is more than most people can say. There’s no need to choose between letting someone down and being gentle. Looking for love is a good thing! We should be encouraging people to do good things, even if they’re not the right fit for us. And men, obviously, should be graceful and accept when it happens, as it surely will if you don’t live under a rock.

When one party violates the format laid out above, only then should it be “acceptable” to defect in kind. Even then, most of the time it’s best not to. Rudeness and creepiness suck, but they just as often come from a place of ignorance as they do malice. It therefore pays to be charitable even when somebody oversteps the lines in some small way. It certainly can’t hurt you.

For men, getting rejected sucks; getting rejected rudely sucks even more. Learning how to take it on the chin and move on is a life lesson that, unfortunately, you have to learn the hard way. It can happen for all sorts of reasons outside of your control and that have absolutely nothing to do with you. Sometimes it has to do with things you can control: your confidence, fitness, fashion, or what-have-you. Or maybe she just thinks you’re ugly; happens to the best of us. Chin up and have some dignity, and even if the absolute worst comes to pass and you get shamed online, the only thing fair-minded observers will see is a good guy acting admirably.

While this mechanic was certainly being creepy, to my eyes his message indicates a lack of courtship understanding rather than any sort of danger. While this was a terrible way for him to “shoot his shot,” as he said, in my view the better thing to do was either ignore the message or send a polite “sorry, but no thank you.”

Many feminists might argue right about here that the stakes for men and women are different: men are worried about being emotionally hurt, while women are worried about being physically hurt. How could anyone possibly say that women are part of the problem here?

For one, this advice is good for women as well, even those narrowly focused on that objection. While no good man would ever hurt a woman for being rudely rejected, there are plenty of bad men out there, and being polite could make the difference to one teetering on the edge. As to the others, women should carry guns or, where liberals make that impractical, pepper spray.

And for the good men, it takes a terribly twisted moral compass to rationalize that because you can be rude to them, it’s fine to do so. One of my least favorite catchphrases of modern life is that “nobody owes you anything.” In an abstract sense possibly not, though there is an irony that many of the people who speak the loudest about how their politics are based around empathy and say “it’s called being a heckin’ good person” ad nauseam turn into the most pitiless, doctrinaire libertarians whenever social relations are concerned. 

The problem with the phrase is that humans are social creatures, and the premise behind it is fundamentally anti-social. If we are going to be a society, a polity, a civilization, or whatever else you want to call it, we do owe each other something. Not romantic relationships; don’t lump me in with those polyamorous types. But what we owe to others is kindness, or at least politeness, unless and until they breach the social contract. And if a polite, civilized approach by a man to a woman is classified as such, then humanity will cease to exist in short order.

The mechanic who sent that text deserved to be rejected. He crossed an ethical line, and it ought to have been a learning experience for him. However, it seems likely that his punishment will be draconian. Rather than learning a lesson in proper etiquette when dealing with the opposite sex, what he’s likely to take away is that an awkward or clumsy approach will be punished ferociously. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were to conclude what far too many young people already have: looking for love just isn’t worth the trouble.

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