Manly Thor's Day Special additional bonus item

This is beyond pathetic.

An atheist activist I've never heard of named Rebecca Watson commented on an experience she'd had at some sort of atheist/ skeptic/geek conference thingee. The incident happened after she'd stayed up until four AM with other attendees at the hotel bar. At that point, she said she was tired and going to bed. And one of the guys from the group gets on the elevator with her and says this:

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting and I would like talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?

And she explains, quietly and politely why she doesn't like this:

Just a word to the wise, guys, don’t do that. I really don’t know how to explain how this makes me uncomfortable ... I’m a single woman, in a foreign country, in an elevator with you, just you, don’t invite me back to your hotel room.

That all seems reasonable enough to me. Not to Richard Dawkins, however, who produced a reaction that was so far over the top it was unreal. Here is an excerpt:

The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that....Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behavior, presumably not his.

'Cause  asking a woman you barely know to your hotel room to have coffee, alone, at four in the morning is a completely non-creepy thing to do.

And it gets worse, he prefaced this with a comment that she should feel lucky that she isn't living in a  Muslim country and getting her "genitals mutilated with a razor blade". Really! He wrote this.

You can watch the Rebecca Watson comment on video here and you can read about the whole chain of responses and counter-responses from Dawkins and others here. (Warning, there seem to be very few atheists who are not creepy losers.)

Seriously, guys, never open with "Don't take this the wrong way". If you really think that something you are about to say to a woman you barely know might be taken the wrong way then you shouldn't be saying it.

And be honest, if you want her to come to your hotel room and have sex with you, ask her to come to your hotel room and have sex with you. Unless you are a rock star and she is groupie that is doomed strategy but it is at least a non-creepy doomed strategy.

This guy may as well have worn a button saying, "I'm the sort of guy you'll be reading about in the tabloids someday."

Here, just so you know, is how a non-loser would have handled the situation.

He would have let her get on the elevator alone that night. The next day he would have gotten up and hoped to run into her.

If he wasn't so lucky, he'd simply think it was unfortunate and let it go easily because there are thousands upon thousands of likeable and intelligent single women in this world.

If he was lucky enough to run into her, he would have complimented her on something she'd said the night before. And he would actually remember what she had said because he would have been paying attention. He would let the conversation proceed taking the time to gauge her response. If she was interested in talking, he would ask her if she'd like to go for coffee.

He'd have asked her for coffee at a neutral location and not in his #$%&ing hotel room!

Then, if and only if that went well, he might ask her for a drink later. (Again in a neutral location and he would make it clear he was asking her on a date with all that implies.)

What the guy actually did was rushed, desperate and creepy. It's not just that he made her uneasy, he also made it very clear that he is loser because that's the way losers act. Non-losers never think, I've got to make a move right away or else I'll never get a chance again.

Final thought: Wouldn't it be too funny if it turned out that the guy who made this creepy move turned out to be Richard Dawkins himself? I have no reason to suspect such a thing—beyond his reaction proving that he is creepy enough to fit the bill—I just think it would be funny.