English Bar Reminds Men To Stop Confusing Kindness For Flirting

Photo by Scott Harrison / Getty Images

There’s a dilemma women face that most men will never understand. When a woman is nice to a man she has just met, often times the guy misconstrues her kindness for a sign of sexual attraction. In fact, a study released by Psychological Science discovered that men who viewed images of women misidentified their body language and facial expressions as sexually suggestive 12 percent of the time. This can pose a problem, especially for women in customer service.

A bar in Exeter, England, became so fed up with its male customers confusing their female bartenders’ friendliness for flirting that they purchased a sign to spell it out. The Beer Cellar recently tweeted a photo of the sign with a message alongside that reads, “...if dudes could stop trying to kiss our female bartender’s [sic] hands that would be great.”

“We basically just printed it out after we had a very sex-pest heavy weekend about three months ago,” bartender Lauren Dew said. “People really laugh, people support it. One percent think it’s a bit offensive, which is funny to me because those are the people it’s aimed at.” The sign was created by illustrator Charlotte Mullin, who had to deal with creepy men when she worked in retail. “I wanted to make it clear that female staff are nice to you because they have to be!” Mullin said. “And, of course, most of us are decent human beings and would be nice to you anyway, but in no way does this mean we’re dying for your d**k.”