To all the men who say street harassment is no big deal: Imagine the following situation. You have recently bought the house of your dreams and have spent the last several months fixing it up, painting it, decorated it, and planting a garden in the yard. It’s an ordinary Saturday morning, and you are sitting in the kitchen in a T-shirt and boxers, drinking a cup of coffee, reading the paper, perhaps watching TV, and generally relaxing and enjoying the time you have to yourself. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the front door. You open the door and see a complete stranger standing on your front porch.

“Hey, mister, I just wanted to let you know that you have a beautiful house,” he says.

How do you respond? You may feel flattered, and at the same time you also may be annoyed and bewildered that a complete stranger interrupted you in the privacy of your home when you weren’t exactly looking for compliments. Then, he says something even more perplexing, “I’d like to buy your house!”

You say, “I’m sorry, sir, my house is not for sale,” and close the door. How would you feel in that situation? Angry? Disturbed? Perplexed? Most likely, you’d find it totally bizarre that someone offered to buy your house when you didn’t have a FOR SALE sign on the lawn.

Now imagine that over the next few days/weeks/months, several more different strangers knock on your front door. Sometimes it’s during dinner, sometimes it’s when you have friends or family visiting, sometimes it’s when you’re on the phone, sometimes when you’re watching TV, sometimes when you’re doing housework. When you tell them that your house isn’t for sale, they often respond in a variety of ways. Some of them will say, “What’s the matter, your house isn’t good enough for me?”

Others will get angry and call you an asshole as they storm off. Then there are the ones who say, “But if you don’t want to sell your house, can I at least rent a room for the night here?” The creepiest of all are the ones who won’t take no for an answer and continue to press you into selling your house, “But you’ve got a fine piece of real estate! I can make a great offer for you!” More than once, you’ve threatened to call the police if they won’t leave. In one case, the person turned violent and broke your window.

Then there are the ones who aren’t looking to buy your house, but simply knock on your door to tell you how beautiful your house is. While their intentions may be good, they are every bit as annoying and unwanted as the ones who want to buy your house. And you face these people with just as much apprehension, as you never know if they will become violent at well.

When you tell your friends about this problem, some of them react by discounting your fear, apprehension, and annoyance, and telling you how they think you ought to feel. “But they’re giving you a compliment!” they say. “You should be flattered!” “I wish someone would knock on my door and tell me how beautiful my house was.” “Someday when you get old and have to move into a retirement community, you’ll miss people knocking on your door and asking if your house is for sale. Enjoy it while you can!”

And then there was that one friend of yours who said the most bizarre thing ever, “Why not just talk to them? Even if you’re not interested in selling your house, you never know, you just might end up becoming friends with them. And then maybe one day if you decide to sell your house, you’ll automatically have a buyer!”

Some of your other friends even blame it on you, saying, “Well, if your house isn’t for sale, then why the heck did you put so much time and energy into making it look so beautiful?” They fail to understand that you may have your own reasons for making your house look attractive: you enjoy living in a beautiful house; you want people to stop and admire it but not knock on your door or offer to buy it; you want it to look good for your own sake and not the sake of others; you find house and yard decorating to be a sign of self-expression; or you simply just enjoy renovating, painting, and decorating houses and planting gardens.

Some of your other friends are more sympathetic, saying things like, “Yeah, that’s got to be annoying, but unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it except to politely say your house isn’t for sale and close the door. And call the police if they ever turn violent.”

Yet you seem to feel that the “that’s just the way it is” attitude isn’t enough. People simply SHOULDN’T be knocking on your door or offering to buy a house without a FOR SALE sign on the lawn.

Now, I imagine some of you are saying, “But that’s not the same at all. I would never approach a woman or a girl in the privacy of her own house- only in public.” Just consider this- women have the right to feel just as safe on the sidewalks, buses, and stores of their communities as you do in the privacy of your own house.

“Okay, I understand that women have a need for privacy,” you say, “but then how am I ever supposed to find a date or a girlfriend if I don’t approach women? Women don’t put FOR SALE signs on themselves, so how am I supposed to know if they’re available?”

Here’s the solution: go to singles bars, clubs, parties, concerts, Match.com and other dating sites, and other events and locations specifically designed to meet dates. The women there are available and looking and have put themselves “on the market,” so to speak. If we’re going to continue to use the analogy of the house, going to events and places catered for singles is the equivalent of putting a FOR SALE sign on your lawn.

I’m sure there’s a few of you out there saying, “But I know someone who met their spouse at a coffee shop, walking down the street, or standing in line at the bank.” I’m not saying it never happens, or that there aren’t women in public places who are available and looking. However, keep in mind that if you approach women in such locations, there’s a risk that they will reject you simply because they aren’t looking. Rejection can range from a polite, “Sorry, I’m not interested,” to a more forceful, “F— off, you PIG!”

If you don’t think you can handle this kind of rejection, then simply react to a beautiful woman you see on the street in the same way you’d react to a beautiful house that isn’t for sale- admire the view, keep the thoughts in your head, and move on.

– Anonymous