Want to ask the barista out

Exactly. And the fantasies people have about their local barista..... unless all is appropriate (your the same age roughly, same level of life experience)- please. Keep your fantasy to yourself. Like I posted before: Don't be 'that creep'.

Interesting. How would you define "same age roughly"? 2 years? 5 years? And what if we're the same age but one of us has more "life experience"? And what if she is 20 years older than me? And what if I happened to be 18 and attractive? Then surely it's ok right?

And what if I am 27 and a cute 19 year old girl at the gym smiles at me? Should I "lower my gaze" and run the other direction whileasking god to forgive me for my sin of glancing in her direction? Please enlighten me o holy prophet.

If you like younger women then go for 40 years olds. Still 20 years younger.

Pursuing 20-25 year old girls is just going to rub many people wrong way including those same girls and their loved ones. I have a daughter and a niece. My daughter worked in restaurants and shops while in school. In few years my niece will be working in some place like coffee shop and a 60 year old man will be looking at her for months dreaming of dating her just rubs me the wrong way

Go for younger women but please just be reasonable

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So I grew some potatoes in my garden and dug them out today. It was pretty impressive the number of potatoes I actually dug up. They were delicious and I think they tasted so good because I grew them myself. Peace.

Awesome. This is a great thing for the soul

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An older female, let's say a teacher, begins dating a man of age 19/20 - just out of high school. Guess what everyone is going to think? That she's been inappropriate with students - even if the guy had never ever been a student at any school she worked at and she hadn't met him until he was 19/20. Stuff like that happens frequently - when older people approach people significantly younger it does often bring up negative reactions because it's too close to being pedophilia - because if you were to subtract say 20 years, you might go from a 50+ adult and a 20 YO, to a 30+ adult and a newborn infant. People just automatically do that math.

That is why people can jump to the word "creep" (Mac, no one on here has thought you were creepy, at least that isn't how I've read things).

When I was younger I used to attract "creepy old men". That's now expanded to "creepy men" as I've gotten older myself (haha... 30.. not really old!). I wouldn't describe Mac as creepy - he hasn't done anything wrong. Mac, you just happened to misread a situation and that's a shame - but at the same time, you are proud that you took a chance and that is great!

But, without knowing Mac's side (like we do here), you have to think about what the barista might be thinking - she's just had an innocent friendly regular ask her out. If she isn't used to that happening then she's likely going to spend the next while very uncomfortable at work because she wouldn't want to be leading on anyone else - because not everyone will respond respectfully to rejection like Mac did. Now, will she definitely feel like that? No, some people are pretty easy-going about stuff like that! But others aren't. And, seeing as she needs to work and earn money, she can't avoid the situation or Mac very easily.

That's what a lot of us have been posting from - the perspective of women who've been there. You can't always tell creepy from not-creepy or safe from dangerous until it's too late. So, while Mac is non-creepy and safe, there's no way for the barista to know that for sure. Which is why most of us encourage leaving people at work alone - because it can potentially make someone feel unsafe at work, and who wants that?

Bottom line... it's your life and you get to live it as you choose... when you ask an opinion about the situation, your getting others values being voiced. As long as no one is being abused mentally or physically - you choose what is best for you and your life.

But the girl in this scenario is not 19-20, she is 25. I usually see people saying there is a big difference between these two.

I think that if a 60 year old woman posted saying she was interested in a 25 year old male barista and that he was being extra nice to her, people would not be so quick to assume he is just doing his job and had no interest in her.if the woman was in her 40s, it would pretty much be unanimously agreed upon that the barista is interested and wants some "cougar action". However, when it's an older man and a younger female barista, everyone is insists that there can't possibly be any interest on her part and she is just doing her part. And thus wpuld even be the case if the age gap was smaller, like 35 and 25, or
27 and 19.

So I am wondering, why do people find much much harder to believe a younger woman would be into an older man than that a younger man would be into an older woman? If you look at the statistics, young women date older men way more often than young men date older women.

or you could also say a shining example of how ugly it can be
when women are nice to men because they give them money

No. You are flat out wrong.

It is part of her job. If she wasn't extremely pleasant to customers she would be fired. The men that work there are also expected to be extremely pleasant to customers. Same with being a waiter/waitress. Or anyone else in the service industry.

Being nice isn't flirting. Having friendly conversations isn't an open invitation for friendship or more.

We believe this thread has run it's course and been taken off topic a number of times as well as become unsupportive. For those reasons, this thread will now be closed.