This Modern Woman entreats all modern men to read this article and learn from it. She wants you to find love, really she does, but men seem to continually engage the opposite sex using semi-autistic and sometimes downright rude tactics. I'm hoping you're all just ignorant of how these actions are perceived and maybe you just need some guidance! So if you have any hope of enticing a woman into your life, do not partake in the following acts when approaching her.

I daily find myself wishing I could go back to the days before Mr. Ford came up with his lovely automobile and encased us all in little glass, metal and plastic bubbles of egocentricity. It seems that as soon as a man enters his ultimate domain, his personal vehicle, he is suddenly endowed with worse than average manners. Lately I have found I am unable to walk down the sidewalk without being honked at or yelled at by men passing in their cars! Being that I now take public transportation to and from work most days, this is a daily annoyance. Seriously, guys! What the heck do you think is going to occur when you honk at me from your car or yell something incoherent from your buddy's passenger seat? I don't find it flattering. I don't find it humorous. In fact, I often have scary scenarios pass through my mind: is this man going to follow me to my home or work, will this man note that I am on the street every day at this hour and come back again, is this man going to turn that corner and pull over to abduct me -- any number of very scary occurrences that could very well happen to a woman on her own. I don't like being honked at. Stop it. It accomplishes nothing but to make me nervous and upset and cause you to look like a desperate jackass with no manners.

Another thing men do to me that I dislike is the dreaded command to "smile!" WTF?! I can personally guarantee you that if I felt like smiling, I would. If I'm not smiling, it's because I'm thinking about something or I'm tired or I'm worried or I just plain don't feel like smiling. I am a working woman with things that need thinking about and if I were to smile to myself all day for no reason I would be considered a lunatic. I'm not here to decorate the world with pretty hair, pretty clothes and pretty smiles for your benefit so please don't ever command a woman to smile as if that's her job. Think about this: would you ever tell a man to smile? No. So why is it appropriate to tell a woman to smile? It's sexism in its most dressed up form and it only serves to guarantee that no smile will cross my face while you're in my vicinity.

Hitting on me while on public transportation -- I hate it. I'm positive that men don't know what it's like to be taking the train or the bus to work and have someone chatting you up when all you're trying to do is stay awake long enough to make it to your office for your first hit of caffeine. I'm not on the train to make new friends. I'm on the train to get to work. So when you start talking to me and I politely lift my attention from my book or my phone in order to answer you with one word and immediately go back to what I was doing, I'm not interested in becoming your friend. Then when you continue to ask me questions to which I continue to answer with one word or a grunt, sometimes without even really lifting my attention from my book, it means "shut the f*&k up and leave me alone!" Why are men so dense?

So listen, I totally get that you've got to take a leap when you see a pretty girl that you would love a chance with. Really, I get it. It's totally part of being a heterosexual man with healthy hormones and all that. But women are trained to be polite, to a fault. If a woman you have engaged with in a public place does not smile at you, gives you only a quick smile but answers with one word or a small, insincere laugh or replies with only a grunt or a "yeah" or a half word, she's not interested. Believe me. The more you try, the less interested she will become. Your only hope is to have said something really engaging on your first attempt at talking with her and, after she has done her polite ignoring you thing, you have ignored her right back and she's intrigued. You will know if you've piqued her interest if she actually makes good eye contact with you, smiles at you genuinely, plays with her hair or, duh, finds a way to start a conversation. So guys, I give you total permission to take a chance with interesting women but the moral of the story is don't honk or yell at women from a moving car, it's just rude. Don't further sexism by telling a woman to smile because she won't appreciate it in the least, I guarantee it. Don't badger a woman who gives signs of being not interested, especially when she's trapped on public transport. She will not become any more interested in you, plus you will force her to be a bitch and that's just not something you or she wants to have to endure. Oh, and P.S., the same goes for elevators too! Good luck and just play it cool.