I’m unclear what the risk is in asking someone out for coffee, lunch, concert, or whatever. Just be polite and accept a no of given. What am I missing?
It's a chilling effect. Most of the time it's fine and no problem, I haven't had many issues. But it seems like everybody has a friend of a friend who had a problem and that is often enough to dissuade, even if some cases are untrue or exaggerated, that doesn't matter because thats how chilling effect works. Low likelihood but very high impact.
When no one has direct experience of a thing, but everyone has heard vague second-hand stories about a thing, that's a good indication the thing is a rumor, or a rare situation that somehow got blown out of proportion and misrepresented as a common case.
