Dear Aunt Izzie,
Sometimes when I go out on the weekends I just want to be with my friends. How do I get guys to leave me alone?
Sincerely,
Girl’s Night Out
Dear Girl’s Night Out,
There are several ways I considered responding to this. I thought about simply referring you to the Jenna Marbles video “How To Avoid Talking To People You Don’t Want To Talk To.” I thought about drawing a diagram of where to elbow a guy who comes up behind you without asking if you want to dance. Hint: not the stomach.
But I’m going to try and give serious advice without giving myself a rage stroke.
The attention is not always welcome.
There are two main ways a guy can try and get you to dance with him. The first, most common way, is by dancing with you without asking. So if you’re at a party (dear God there is absolutely no way to phrase that without sounding like a total square so I’ll just embrace it) and a guy starts dancing with you but you feel you should be a little more civil than the elbow-thrower you could be, turn around and tell him “no thank you.”
Then walk away.
Don’t give him the chance to ask you why you don’t want to, or to dump a drink on your head. Yeah, those are both things that happen. Throw yourself in the middle of a lady-dancing circle and stay there. Lady-dancing circles are force fields only broken into by the bravest souls.
The second, slightly less common even though it should definitely be the most common, way is by asking. “Do you wanna dance?” Don’t panic! If you want to, say yes. If you don’t want to, say no thank you, and don’t feel bad. He doesn’t know you or anything about you besides the fact that you’re at a party, so it’s safe to say he didn’t ask you to dance because of your personality. Maybe one of the next four girls he asks will say yes.
I know I said earlier to walk away after you tell a guy no thank you, but I want to emphasize it again. Don’t fight with him, (“why don’t you want to dance with me?”) don’t let him try and convince you (“I’m a great guy I promise!”) or guilt you (“but I got you a drink!”) You don’t owe him any explanation. Maybe your feet hurt, or you have horrible rhythm, or a boyfriend who considers dancing cheating, but it doesn’t matter. You said no and that is all he needs to hear.
Love,
Aunt Izzie
Aunt IzzieIzzie Gibson Penrose, class of 2016, has 19 years of advice to give. She loves telling people what to do (but doesn’t take offense if they don’t listen) and lives as strange a life as possible so she has plenty of anecdotes to share. Izzie also enjoys making jokes and baking cupcakes. Email her with questions, concerns, or anything LITERALLY ANYTHING that’s on your mind at gibsis01@gettysburg.edu. She promises to read every email she receives at least once, probably six times.
