I'm not going to lie... There are actually a couple public places I avoid now because a guy aggressively hit on me, insisted on getting my number, and I blocked him afterwards. I was just too afraid to outright say no, and then too afraid to risk running into the dudes again.

It's made me frustrated and I wish that men wouldn't flirt outside of bars/meetups dedicated to that. Is it really so hard to become friends with someone with no ulterior motive? Then again, I realize I'm part of the problem for not being able to be honest upfront.

I pretend to be a man in most online communities just to avoid this. Going along with a man's flirting and then finally breaking it off has ruined more than one of my social groups, but I'm not sure rejecting him from the start wouldn't have ruined it, too.

In the past year I've gotten better. The best thing I do is not assume. If he tried to pay for a meal, or ask me out to any event that might be seen as a date, I ask him if it's a date before rejecting him. I think it's easier to immediately reject the guy when we are told what his intentions are in a way that couldn't be confused with just trying to be friends.