this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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It's strange to me that this would be considered out of bounds. "Pickup artists" aside, this really ought to be more normal.
Maybe a Generation and location thing, Gen Z here from Western Europe and i definitly would not dare/think about trying to pick up a person outside of a space thats specificly labled for dating.
For me its kind of a consent thing, outside of specific dating spaces i cant be sure that the other person wants to be botherd with dating.
But I didn't say anything about picking a person up except to explicitly exclude it from what I was talking about. The comment I responded to was specifically about starting a conversation.
Yeah 90s born here and the idea of just wandering up to someone while they’re out in the street, shopping or pretty much anywhere that isn’t like a bar (and even then unless they give some sort of indication) and running a line is wild.
My mates older brother in high school would insist that sort of stuff is how you do it. Fuck that. I hate people, mostly sales people or weirdos, bothering me when I clearly have every indication about my demeanour not to talk to me, do it. So why would I? It’s weird.
You should just talk to people to be nice. If it turns into something else, then great! But I hate when somebody starts a conversation with me and they have an agenda: like, they want me to give them money or join their religion or something like that. Just talk to people because it's a nice thing to do!
And if somebody's giving social cues that they want to be left alone, then...don't do that. Because that wouldn't be nice.
Probably it is just Americans being Americans.