[dantillberg]

Yes, this. You wrote what I tried to write in another comment and you wrote it better. Thank you.

As for other replies suggesting that 50/50 is an outrageous estimate, I think it can easily be even worse than that -- the fraction of investors potentially interested in making a deal with your business is very small (5%? 1%?), so it doesn't take many folks pretending to be interested to swing the balance, and those folks will also have a tendency to gravitate toward you at fundraising events, since they can clearly identify their target by appearance alone (i.e. "oh there's a pretty young woman, I should go say hello").

And yes, each of those interactions is perfectly legal (we'd all be condemning in chorus if there were groping or assault involved), and perfectly fine in isolation, but en masse they create a lot of extra work for the entrepreneur. Put in other words, at the micro level, these interactions are fine -- one or two people inviting you for a date could be lovely, or at least tolerable; but at the macro level, the combination of a large number of these isolated interactions creates an onerous and hostile environment.