They can use social humiliation, which is way worse than not trying.
"Ugh who the fuck are you, get out of here you fucking weirdo. Why are strange men approaching me? UGH! Get away!"
It hasn't happened to me but I've seen it happen. The guy imo was behaving normally and reasonably. I think the girl just didn't want to bother. Fucking shameful on the girl's behalf when she could have politely turned him down.
Just finished watching The 100 on Netflix. The writing was pretty terrible.
Literally every bad action performed by a character (up to and including genocide) was justified as "I had no choice". They should have called it, "The no choice show". I would have loved to have seen a counter in the corner of the screen that ticked up every time that was said, which was at least once per episode.
Seconds before any kind of solution that would have solved major problems was enacted, a character (different each time)- previously rational, but now for some reason completely chaotic- would jump in and destroy the McGuffin and fuck everyone over because it was in their personal interest. Every single fucking time, even in the final episode. It's no longer a plot twist, it's just lazy AF writing. It also meant that the characters had no consistency or predictability of motive, which meant their believability went down the toilet.
I'm going to stop there but believe me, that's the tip of the iceberg.
That show was proof that Netflix will greenlight just about anything.
Re-read the post