No.

[Trigger warning for rape] - Approximately five people read this but it's good form to show good form just in case.

There are two main types of joke, I think - "That's absurd" and "That's so true".  The above is the latter masquerading as the former, because it is how a whole lot of people act in real life.

Saying "no", especially to people I don't know well, is a skill I'm honing.  I don't want to seem mean or contrary or unfriendly, and I don't want to make people angry at me.  Hearing "no" is a skill some people never bother to learn, which makes my job harder.

Because of this, I try not to be obnoxious in pushing people into anything (except food, I am the very annoying "Ah go, there's only a bit left, finish it off, it'll only go to waste" kind of host).  In particular, I respect 'no' - if a person's default state is not doing a specific thing, I've made it twenty years without it, I can soldier on for another sixty.  Plus, it's someone else body and tastes and it's going to affect them more than me.  Autonomy is important to me.

But the vast majority of people aren't me.  Some people don't seem to progress very far past the understanding of other people that they have at children.  They understand that Sally will think the marble is in the basket, but they don't understand that Sally has a whole set of desires that don't affect them.  They don't see other people outside their own relationship with them.*  If they want a certain thing, and the other person isn't amenable to that thing, well, that just makes no sense!

Where this really becomes annoying and creepy and bad is in terms of consent and pursuit.  In terms of consent, there's a complicating factor in that sex is both pedestalised ("You cheated on me with a stranger you'll never see again?  You whore!") and trivialised ("She broke up with him for not having sex enough?  How shallow is that?").  Instead of "I feel unfulfilled without x" "I want never to try x" "Well, it's been a pleasure, stay friends?/Well, I'll just see how going without it goes" you get people trying to redefine other people's boundaries, frequently with an argument limited to "Ah, go on, go on, go on."  You don't get to decide what food people eat, you don't get to decide that they need to try drugs with you, you don't get to make them sit through a boring show that you love, and you don't get to decide what their sexual proclivities are.  If a friend decides they want me to be their mushroom-eating buddy, and they desperately want a mushroom-eating buddy in their life, we need to either redefine our friendship or part ways.  If someone isn't into this thing you saw in a video that you really want to try, it's no different.  Hell, someone can not enjoy kissing and you don't get to tell them they're wrong in that.

The pursuit problem is people who won't take "no" for an answer from people they're hitting on.  "The justification for this ranges from "But some girls want to be pursued!" to "Sometimes they change their minds!" (which sounds a lot like "Fifty noes and a yesh means yesh.") to "Well, they can say no if they want to." (What were they first four noes, then?)  If you do this and justify it with either of the first two, congratulations, you are en route to being Mr. How No I Not Rape Someone It Is So Difficult.  The first one assumes the minds of women are unknowable and treacherous, and also pretends that tone and behaviour don't exist.  The person who answers "no", walks away and rejoins their friends isn't playing hard-to-get.  The person who gives a non-committal answer and smiles and keeps talking to you ... well, they also haven't said no.  So there's that.  Plus, if you take "No" for an answer first time, two things will happen:

1. You will not be a creep, or possible rapist.

2. People who actually play hard to get by walking away will realise that this no longer works and give straighter answers.

The second only works if everyone does it, but the first works even if you're the only one doing it, which means you get not to be a creep all the time.

(Personally, I always err on the side of not being a creep.  Plus, enthusiastic consent is way more fun that "not no" or even "Okay, fine, whatever."  I can't imagine the latter being anything but boring and creepy and awkward, which is a whole other reason not to have sex with someone who doesn't get "no".)

My second least favourite follow-up to "No" (after "ah go on go on go on") is "Why not?"  Sometimes this is a fair response - if the question is "Could you set the table?" or "Have you finished your part of the project?" or "Can I get my notes back from you this week?"  Not so much if you're hitting on someone.  Like I said above, my default state is not having sex with people (or meeting your mate, or whatever) - it doesn't make any kind of sense for me to have to justify that.  If you want me to change my state, you must give me an incentive to do so.  ("Go on go on go on" is not an incentive.)

Two stories about how to hit on people and not be a jerk:

I was at the college bar, and passed a guy who had stacked a whole lot of pints cups on top of each other.

"Look at that!  Isn't that impressive!"

"Yep, that's something, well done!"

"Yeah. ... Are you single?"

"Nope, sorry."

"Oh.  [some sort of "Ah sure!" noise]" And then he went off being happy about his stack of cups.

How not to do this:

I was walking around a festival, when someone stopped and asked for directions to somewhere.

"Sorry, I'm not sure of the layout myself."

"Oh is it your first time here too?"

"It is, yeah."

"Cool!"  And then put his hand on my waist and tried to kiss me.  When I pulled away he said "Do you mind if I kiss you?"

"I do, yeah, I have a boyfriend."

"Oh, that's disappointing!"

Both people were perfectly chirpy and friendly and good-humoured, but one of them got the order of things right.  Or maybe the second guy is just incredibly bad at both flirting and reading people.

The second one I like in particular because some people who aren;t into consent (...?) complain that you have to spell everything out and it's no fun and...  ALT was very loud so this took place entirely through vague hand-gestures, even less helpful than mime.

I was dancing with friends, which for me consists of flailing a bit and hoping everyone is too drunk to notice, when a guy caught my attention and made "Do you want to dance?/Are you interested?" gestures.  I made a "I'm dancing with my friends!" gesture, he made a "Cool" gesture and went off with his friends, hopefully to have a good night.

How not to do this:

The same night, I was talking to a friend when a guy came over and said "I have a friend who's way cooler than this guy."

"I'm glad for you!" Back to talking to my friend.

"C'mon, come talk to my friend, you'll like him better than this guy."

"I have a boyfriend." (I always get a little annoyed at the fact of having to use this - the fact of saying no should outweight some 'prior claim' to me.)

"Is it this guy?"

He hung around being disparaging about my friend for a while (good tactic bro!) until I told him I wasn't going to fuck his friend.  (I said it in a perfectly calm matter-of-fact way, I thought.)  Then he shouted at me for a while and called me a bitch.

In some exam papers I came across a poem entitled "No." It was about a turtle.  I was going to end with that so that it wouldn't be suite so Serious Business, but the internet will not yield it to me. So instead, this:

[This was a picture of baby turtles, but it got turned into a picture of an overflowing toilet.  Um.]

You deserve it as this post has gone on for approximately a million years.

*I am not saying this to hold up what a special little snowflake I am for considering other people's minds.  Quite the opposite - I'm pretty awkward, so overanalyse things, but fear of making people uncomfortable through being awkward will make me careful in how I interact with them.  So that's an upside.