cosmic agreement to make my plans always fall apart

France, evening

It is raining cats and dogs here. I had to leave the bike at work. I am not sure of what it is going on, but every time I have some sort of plans since morning, they are never going to happen. I guess there is a bad karma on my morning plans. Take spinning for example. I wanted to go, but of course, the tram was late, I had to make a ticket, I got home late completely soaked with rain, I had to change and BUM too late for spinning...so maybe I have to just improvise my day, than maybe it would work out the way I want....bah...

I have a problem, well one of my problems here...I need a manual on how I should behave. You see? I am trying to be myself, but I actually can't. The point is, I am generally a friendly person, except the case in which someone pisses me off. But if a complete stranger at the tram stop begins to talk to me, I feel that it would be really impolite to not answer. So, I normally answer, and I do it being myself, so in a cheerful way. This allows the person in front of me to completely pass the limit immediately and I am not sure how and why, but after a few seconds this person is already asking me where I live, where I work and all this sort of personal information. The result is that I get immediately annoyed and rude.

This is especially true when the person on the other side is a man. This is also true when the person on the other side is someone I know a little. Be friendly and they think you want to date them, be rude and they will think you are a posh. How can I be just myself and not have any problem? The thing is, while man approaching on the street is not such a common thing that happens in every country (it is actually, beside Italy, the first country where I live in which I experience that), a man confusing being nice with "I want to date you" is much more common, no matter in which country you are. Now, I am not for sure anything like a model. I am not particularly attractive and I am sure if I pass by on the street, men don't look at me. The fact is that I think I am funny and even more, I am extremely friendly (or trying to) with the people I work with. First, because most of the times they are the only people I talk to during the day, second because I like to know people and I like people in general. The problem is that if this "people" is a man, 99% confuses my being nice to him and paying attention to what he says with something more. Of course, sometimes happen that I am actually interested in one of these men and I actually would like to date him, but most of the times no. And especially if there are 6 men at work and I am equally nice to all of them, how can a man think that I would like to date all of them (but believe me, they do...and they even think that when you show more attentions to just one of them)?

The unpleasant end of the story is that when the man comes forward and I reject him:
a) of course is always my fault because I was too nice to him and so he thought that I meant something that I actually didn't mean
b) of course how can I possibly not have a boyfriend and even reject him?
c) depending on the self-confidence of the guy, how can I say no to him when any other woman would pay to date him (which makes me think, ok, so just move on to another woman and don't bother me)
d) most of the times the guy after the rejection starts to behave in a really rude way with me, so what it was for me a nice friend before, became a total asshole after (which is even more of a problem if he works with me)

In all this, I am the same person, behaving the same way. Can I like someone, like to talk to him and not wanting to date him because I am not interested/attracted/whatever?
Apparently no. And it is amazing. Different countries, same problem....Italy, Germany, USA, here too I start to fear.....The only difference is that men from different countries take the rejection more or less personally (and thus behave in a more or less rude way to me after) depending on where they are from.

How can I be friendly to men who work with me, without them necessarily think that I would love to date them? In a place of work where more than 50% of the people are men, it is I guess normal that in a day you will spend some time talking to them, right? I should maybe only talk to men who are married or have a girlfriend, but of course, when I meet someone I can't start a conversation asking them "sorry, are you married? do you have a girlfriend?".....come on, that would certainly be weird....
Anyway, I am thinking about this because today I felt like "ok, here we go again" with a guy who works with me. Maybe he is just friendly, maybe I have prejudices....but you know, bad experiences teach you something.....Right? So, I walked to his office to ask if he wanted to go for lunch together, since all the others already went, but then I preferred to eat alone...

PS. If you think that these kind of episodes would make me feel flattered, no, you are wrong. On the opposite I would say. Rainy hard here. My poor bike is outside.....