I do not accept acts of chivalry from strangers unless absolutely necessary, and I will not make small talk with strangers unless I am completely certain they are harmless and their intentions are benign.
Why this drastic policy?
As you may know, there are men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them sexually. And there are men out there who think that their having the impression that a woman is interested in them sexually is an open invitation to aggressively pursue her, or even rape her. And there are men out there who think that if they do a favour for a woman, she owes them something.
You may well not fall into any of these categories, but I have no way of knowing that. You are a stranger, I know nothing about the way your mind works, so I am going to err on the side of caution.
On a less dramatic note, there are also men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them romantically, and take that as an invitation to pursue her within the bounds of propriety. I am already in love and am not interested in any attempts at romance with anyone else, so I attempt to take strict measures to avoid leading people on.
Now I don't always read people well. You might not actually be interested in me. Perhaps you just have that Dale Carnegie Charm School approach to social interaction and you act like that with everyone. Perhaps you're gay and my gaydar is jammed - that has certainly been known to happen, especially cross-culturally. But I honestly do not need anyone else in my social circle, I have all the friends I need, so I would rather miss the opportunity to have a lovely chat with you than give you the impression that I'm available. That's just where my priorities lie.
So I tell you that no, I do not need any help with my recycling, back off and stop trying to take the box out of my hands. When your attempts at elevator small-talk are met with a cold, non-smiling "Hm," it's because I heard you say to your buddy "Let's get in the elevator with all the girls," so I think no good can come of anything resembling a friendly response. When you try to give me your card and I get confused and say "Why?" don't force the card on me. Maybe you really are harmless, but I have no way of knowing that. "But I was just trying to be FRIENDly!" Someone whose intentions were not benign would also say that. So stop making my life less pleasant and wasting your time, and go give your attentions to someone who is not actively trying to make you go away.
(Addendum: I am not addressing women in this letter because, while I have received unwanted attention from women, they do seem to consistently back off at the slightest sign of my disinterest.)
Update: In a Usenet post on some unrelated topic, some random Usenet person mentioned in passing that there's a certain system of "honour" among cads, in which they don't flirt with women they're not actually interested in just for the hell of it. Apparently cads who subscribe to this "honour" code only try to charm women they're interested in, even though less "honourable" cads might go around trying to charm everyone and anyone in order to, I don't know, feel all manly and shit? For some kind of strange middle-school schadenfreude? ("Ha ha! I talked to her and she thought I was serious!") I'm not sure the exact motivation.
But anyway, my point is, please allow the women you're attempting to flirt with to display the same "honour"! When we try to tactfully make it clear we aren't interested in you, leave us be rather than pursuing to the point where we have to be harsh and then calling us all sort of petty middle-school names!
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