by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Of all our local cultures and activities, I see charm in, or at least understand, almost all except one, which has been irritating me for years.

Periodically I will meet a female, introduce myself all gentle and cool and indifferent, and she will appear full of anxiety and look for a quick exit. No matter how polite I try to be, she sneers at me as if I'm Steve McQueen who just hammered Ali McGraw on the head with a four-slice toaster.

Such incivility is a cancer on the joy of living here. In most urban social exchanges people seem polite, but we also indulge a lot of rudeness. Yes, you're encouraged to yell at the driver who almost runs you down or squawk at the repeat muncher who grabs the last sample off a tray in a grocery store.

And snobbery can even be justified. In local nightclubs, francophone women are known to routinely perform the Montreal Rejection Pivot, walking away from male suitors in midsentence. That's no fun, but it's fair. You've presumably been evaluated - albeit perhaps too briefly - and deemed lacking. At least they didn't waste your time.

Even some prejudicial rejection can also be okay, if the person socially shutting you down is in a committed relationship (as if!) or has an incompatible sexual orientation.

But fag hags - or, I'm told, "fruit flies," being the respectable term - really know how to shoot a guy down. I've been personally snubbed countless times by these women. If I'm projecting my anecdotal serial rejection, then this problem must be plaguing a lot of well-mannered gentlemen. I contacted an attractive and articulate self-confessed "ex-member" of the fruit-fly flock to put her on the hotseat about these awkward moments.

She recounts her genesis: "I was in New York. I liked to go out for a drink, and I liked to have a conversation with whoever was next to me. I had two places I went to, one straight, one gay. I went to the gay one much more often than the straight one. Why? Because, at the straight place, a woman by herself who starts to talk to the person next to her is usually interpreted by straight men as someone who wants to get laid. I just wanted to go out and have a conversation. I could do that at the gay club, and I inevitably met a lot of great people there. Thus, I started hanging out with gay men a lot more, going out with them to clubs and bars. Can you blame me?"

She continues: "I don't blame females for being prejudiced against straight men and yes, many straight men think with their penis, often making them sexual predators."

She says women of her ilk frequently and awkwardly reel away from friendly heterosexual men "probably because what was making them feel unsafe was being encroached on, and it's a bit unexpected. If you create a situation for yourself to avoid or shield yourself from someone or something, and then that thing shows up, it can throw one off."

I also contacted a gay male about the connection to these women. He gloated. "In my opinion, straight women are infinitely more interesting company than straight men."

He says they like him "because I pose no threat to her ego, and I do not desire her sexually. We're on a level playing field and we can be buddies. I can tell a woman she looks like she may have gotten fat, or her hips seem wider, and somehow it is less threatening or insulting coming from me." (The fruit fly agrees: "I find them more honest in telling you if you look fat or not.")

In conclusion, it seems that you might see yourself as something but somebody else might see you as something entirely different. Plus, you should tell a woman that she looks fat, it seems to help.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca