John, I feel you’re missing the point — there’s plenty of appropriate places for men to meet women, talk to women and form friendships or relationships. Some examples would be at bars, through friends, hobbies (dancing or book clubs for example) etc. Approaching women while they are going about their day-to-day business such as shopping, in the street, libraries, supermarkets etc with the intent of getting something out of them is creepy and predatory. Of course just talking to random strangers is fine, but talking to random strangers in order to get something out of them is not ok — this is objectifying a person.

Imagine if there were salesmen everywhere you went, in the supermarket, library, in the street that constantly came up to you trying to get you buy something or get something out of you. Now imagine that some of these salesmen got very angry when you refused to buy what they were selling — you would dread going about your day-to-day activities. This is the reality that many women live with.