Men.

Two unbelievable incidents today. The first, while walking in the city with my friend Maura, happened right outside of the Uffizi. We were chatting about our lit class when a clearly foreign, somewhat young man lept into our path, cell phone outstretched. He spoke directly to Maura in heavily accented English. “Do you have a telephone number?” When she didn’t respond, he whined, “but I like you soooooo much…..” We walked by him without a word, but I exclaimed my disbelief to her afterwards. I had heard that she had a lot of trouble with the Italians when out, but this was too much. “Oh, that’s not even the worst,” she said to me. “I once had a guy tell me he wanted to sex me. You just basically have to ignore them.”
Later, as I walked along the Arno to my bus stop, a crowd of Italian ragazzi were walking my direction. Fixing my gaze on a point beyond them, I walked resolutely by. One boy started making comments to me, even grabbing my sleeve as I passed. I tried to step out of their path, but the group stretched across the whole sidewalk. They didn’t bother me after I passed, but I was left a bit unnerved. It reminded me of my incident with an overly-friendly Moroccan man on the bus a few weeks ago, who then felt it necessary to return to my bus stop to find me when I didn’t call him after a few days.
What is it about these men that makes them think this is acceptable? Is it strictly a cultural thing? I have definitely never received comments like these in America, or, not from American men (maybe from Hispanic men while walking in West Chester a few times). How harmless is it? I always thought this kind of thing, while irritating, was fairly harmless, until I found the overly-friendly Moroccan waiting for me at my bus stop. How does he think it is acceptable to try to come back and find me? Didn’t he understand that if I were interested, I would’ve called? I’m sure American men make comments like this, in certain situations, but not as excessively as Europeans. Is this just part of the culture, harmless, just something to adjust to? I feel like it’s a major problem. It makes me really uncomfortable. I’ve been warned about “foreign men” (most strongly by my former Latin teacher, of course) but I really had no idea it was so obnoxious. I understand that this is mainly a cultural thing, but American men will do similar things, in certain situations. Is this a MAN thing, then? Do women behave in similar, blatent behaviors? What IS this?