Hacker News Reader

Comment by Crito | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I do not feel comfortable doing anything even approaching policing other people's relationships. The most I would feel okay with doing is asking "Is everything okay here?", but even that is quite an ask and I would not consider it unless I noticed that one of the people was visibly upset.

Yeah, before you say it, "me feeling uncomfortable" is a pretty selfish excuse for not helping somebody that is feeling a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than I. I'm not going to make excuses for that. I'm just not going to start interrogating people in public about the nature of their relationships.

View on HN

If you care: Sometimes, just looking may help. Just don't turn a blind eye to it, which is what most men do in such situations.

If the woman feels she has a sympathetic supporter, it is easier to defend herself and if the jerk thinks there is an eyewitness to his assholish behavior, he may tone it down without you needing to say something. I think saying something may be counterproductive (because when accused people are quick to justify, and that makes them LESS likely to back off, not more) but just being aware can sometimes help.

Sure, that's fine.

If I see something that seems off, I might try to enter the conversation. If I see something that really seems off, I might ask if both of them are okay. If it is more extreme than that, I am open to taking more extreme action.

What I'm not going to do is orbit the room interrogating people about their relationships without seeing any warning signals.

Nobody ought to ask you to do something you're uncomfortable with, and nobody ought to expect you to be the social enforcer or whatever. I empathize 100%.

But if a woman's body language seems particularly bad, or you know your friend/acquaintance only just met this person? That seems like a good opportunity to speak up without "interrogating" people, as you put it.

Truth be told, it's more about friends who enable their friends' asshole behavior by looking the other way. Assholes cannot be 100% friendless, nor only friends with other assholes.

> But if a woman's body language seems particularly bad, or you know your friend/acquaintance only just met this person? That seems like a good opportunity to speak up without "interrogating" people, as you put it.

That seems reasonable to me. You make a good point about friends enabling assholes too.

But people can (and many do) engage in socially unacceptable behavior more, or exclusively, in contexts in which their friends (or people that know them more generally) aren't around to recognize them and observe it.

Who's suggesting you need to police everybody? Think of it like being an ally or a spotter, not an enforcer or inquisitor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com