This was a sensible response. You can tolerate a certain amount of social engagements that are not your “ideal crowd” if you are being nourished by good ones.
The worst thing you can do when you’re in an heavily male dominated social environment that has degenerated, is laugh and pretend you don’t mind. Men are absolutely fine with honest feedback, even if they initially react with anger or petulance (usually because they are ashamed). You won’t loose a male friend/aquintence in the same way you’d loose a female friend by saying “no, I don’t think that joke is funny. It’s crass and boring. You’re better than that.” Often within a couple of weeks they are. Especially if you have your husband backing you up.
Two very important conversations happened in bars for me. Once, I mentioned to the bartender that I had seen a beautiful morning when I woke up in my sleeping bag by the river (I was without housing, and also without faith at the time) and wished there were someone I could thank for that beauty. He mentioned that the community church in town was a cool place, and that they also offered free meals fairly often. And so began a timid, tentative, return to faith. Years earlier, in another bar in another state, a woman who seemed more a bar-person than a church-person told me bluntly that it wasn’t right to be spending time with another woman’s husband. You’d think I would have known that, as I was raised in a Bible-believing church! But I needed to hear it from a non-church person, in a non-church setting. Truth matters!
Yes, I've noticed men usually respond much better than women when I express a joke or certain behavior making me uncomfortable! Men want to please women (usually).
This was a sensible response. You can tolerate a certain amount of social engagements that are not your “ideal crowd” if you are being nourished by good ones.
The worst thing you can do when you’re in an heavily male dominated social environment that has degenerated, is laugh and pretend you don’t mind. Men are absolutely fine with honest feedback, even if they initially react with anger or petulance (usually because they are ashamed). You won’t loose a male friend/aquintence in the same way you’d loose a female friend by saying “no, I don’t think that joke is funny. It’s crass and boring. You’re better than that.” Often within a couple of weeks they are. Especially if you have your husband backing you up.
I’ve done it, in a bar too for good measure. 🙃
Two very important conversations happened in bars for me. Once, I mentioned to the bartender that I had seen a beautiful morning when I woke up in my sleeping bag by the river (I was without housing, and also without faith at the time) and wished there were someone I could thank for that beauty. He mentioned that the community church in town was a cool place, and that they also offered free meals fairly often. And so began a timid, tentative, return to faith. Years earlier, in another bar in another state, a woman who seemed more a bar-person than a church-person told me bluntly that it wasn’t right to be spending time with another woman’s husband. You’d think I would have known that, as I was raised in a Bible-believing church! But I needed to hear it from a non-church person, in a non-church setting. Truth matters!
Yes, I've noticed men usually respond much better than women when I express a joke or certain behavior making me uncomfortable! Men want to please women (usually).