Believe me, you are a LOT more likely to run into "weirdo car guys" when you are a youngish chick driving a hot rod... a LOT
Fortunately, I really only seem to run into those problems outside of Austin. In town, everyone is real cool and I tend to get the normal thumbs-up or "nice car" comments. But boy, anywhere else I've gone... **** gets so weird sometimes. I do think that people have gotten worse about it since the start of the pandemic, probably because everyone collectively lost some social skills, so I try to keep that in mind. I consider the "oh I have/had a Mustang just like that!!" comments to be totally innocuous - people just get excited about that stuff. But even before 2020, I have had some very bizarre interactions. Mostly related to people reacting to my gender in combination with the car I'm driving. I guess marriage proposals and dudes twice my age propositioning me still bothers me less than dudes who feel the need to tell me (mostly incorrect) facts about my own car, though.
Honorable mention goes to the time that I was at a local hot rod hangout sitting at a picnic table eating dinner, and some random guy sat down to start a conversation with me (which was fine, happens all the time). The weird part was when some OTHER guy sat down at the same table, and ALSO started a conversation with me... while completely ignoring the first guy. Then they both attempted to hold a conversation with me, AT THE SAME TIME, while ignoring each other. Eventually I decided that was too weird for me and I got up and walked away.
Some days I have no idea why I picked this hobby 😂 Fortunately most people I meet are lovely!
