These are comments by Kaleb Blake and Julie Gillis on the post “Creepy Behavior and the Difference Between ‘Attractive’ and ‘Attracted'”.
Kaleb Blake said:
“I think we should leave out the ‘attractive v. attracted’ dichotomy. What does your appearance have to do with your being a creep? Quit creeping on people. Read body language. Get over yourself. Have a sincere conversation. Quit being so predatory. That’s it.”
Julie Gillis added:
“Absolutely. I’ve met men who would score pretty high on the traditional attractiveness meter who were quite scary on a number of levels. I’ve met some men who were not who … were not.
“I’ve been approached by strangers in many ways, male and female, and experienced creepy socially weird behavior from both genders, and also not, I found no connection to whether or not I found them sexually appealing. In fact, I can remember occurrences where the good looking person was creepy and I felt sad about it because well, he was attractive.
“It’s much more about attitude and what that attitude brings to the interaction.”
Photo credit: Flickr / State Farm
What does appearance have to do with being a creep? This: If I may be so presumptuous as to boil down all the examples here into a tasty syrup of truth, the common definition of “creep” is somebody who treats you like an object with which to fulfil their desires, who doesn’t modify their behavior to take into account your feelings, desires and boundaries when interacting with you. If a man approaches a woman with romantic intentions and she finds him unattractive, she will try to impose a boundary almost immediately by saying no, showing disinterest or just showing a… Read more »
“If I may be so presumptuous as to boil down all the examples here into a tasty syrup of truth, the common definition of “creep” is somebody who treats you like an object with which to fulfil their desires, who doesn’t modify their behavior to take into account your feelings, desires and boundaries when interacting with you.” I think you are correct to be so presumptuous. In order to have a discussion you must start somewhere even if those assumptions are wrong. I think that the first part of the definition of creep “somebody who treats you like an object… Read more »
“I think we should leave out the ‘attractive v. attracted’ dichotomy. What does your appearance have to do with your being a creep? Quit creeping on people. Read body language. Get over yourself. Have a sincere conversation. Quit being so predatory. That’s it.”
We need to get rid of this mindset that if you don’t like something, than it must not to be true.
I’ve seen attractive men do things that gained them favor with woman, that on this very site would make them out to be “creepy”.
Attractive men can do things that gain them favor with women–how would that make them creepy? I don’t see your point here, William…
Kaleb: “Quit creeping on people. Read body language. Get over yourself. Have a sincere conversation. Quit being so predatory.” Who are you talking to? Julie: “It’s much more about attitude and what that attitude brings to the interaction.” It’s about both persons attitudes. If you fear men, then in general any man will seem scarier. If you hate men, then you wil be more willing to see them in a negative light. If you don’t respect the other, you will likely behave badly towards them. Passing judgement on others is an easy way, to deflect any guilt one might have… Read more »
I have no issues with that. I have a number of comments in the other thread pointing out as much. All any of us can do in our daily lives is observe, assess, act, and then reassess based on new info. I choose to interact with the maximum amount of kindness I can while still looking out for myself. And if I react and am proven wrong, I should own up and apologize. So too should the person who has encroached, even if accidentally, realizing that perhaps it’s not about them, but still it’s a kind thing to acknowledge your… Read more »
Nothing pithy for me to say about this. Just yes, yes, and yes. Nothing like the sweet sound of the voice of reason at long last. (Hey, I agree with you, so that must mean that you’re reasonable…)
@wellokaythen amen. And thanks Julie.
I don’t understand how one can argue with my “quit being a creep” stance, but long behold…
“So too should the person who has encroached, even if accidentally, realizing that perhaps it’s not about them, but still it’s a kind thing to acknowledge your impact.” Yes, but everybody well intentioned with a conscience, will do that (at least to themselves) and feel bad for causing distress to someone else. But you can overdo this. A woman you approach might be triggered by innocent little things like your scent, your accent or the exact words you use, because they remind her of someone who raped her. So let us say a man has made this experience, he obviously… Read more »
Yes, but everybody well intentioned with a conscience, will do that (at least to themselves) and feel bad for causing distress to someone else. But you can overdo this. A woman you approach might be triggered by innocent little things like your scent, your accent or the exact words you use, because they remind her of someone who raped her. So let us say a man has made this experience, he obviously feels bad, because he doesn’t want to further traumatise the nice lady. I think him feeling guilty for something he couldn’t reasonably foresee, does nobody any good. I’m… Read more »
Julie, thank you for the detailed response. “When I have a moment that goes south with someone, and I’m not sure if it was me or them, I usually have a feeling of …”Ick, that didn’t feel good. I hope I didn’t harm that person.” If I can ask, I do. If I don’t, I go over the interaction once, think about it etc and then move on.” (emphasis added by me) That’s the point, you move on. But some people aren’t able to move on, when they think they have harmed omebody. I think that some people need the… Read more »
You are welcome. I answered in plain text and kept your answers in bold (my originals in italics). “I’m not sure if I’m being idealistic here, but I think yes, the vast majority of people read body language, cues and tones reasonably well.” That is a great divide between us, there is little use in discussing this further without digging deep into psychology. But you just said below that you do expect people to read cues and body language as Germans would speak German. Can you elaborate? “… I’ve also been clear that in many of the “creep” cases I’ve… Read more »
Julie, “But you just said below that you do expect people to read cues and body language as Germans would speak German. Can you elaborate?” Obviously I should be more careful with my words. I expect almost everybody to understand some body language, but I don’t think that you can rely on people getting the right message from body language. Body language is often not that overt, often ambiguous and the recipient’s biases can influence what he is able to see. For example a guy with very low self esteem will be confident in the signs of contempt and disinterest… Read more »
It also does not require a woman to dislike or fear all men for her to find a particular man creepy. “Failing at an interaction” — That’s an interesting phrase. If a person does not wish to have an interaction with you, there isn’t a failure there, or at least not the one you’re referencing. There is one person, trying to avoid someone, and another person failing at initiating an interaction. Just because a man speaks to/provides attention to a woman does not mean the two of them are then in a conversation. (And the reverse.) Decent people try to… Read more »
You don’t understand, an interaction is not failing if it is very brief, because one person is not interested, but if the situation discomforts at least one of the involved beyond the usual acceptable discomfort of dealing with people.
@Alberich When I said “Quit creeping on people. Read body language. Get over yourself. Have a sincere conversation. Quit being so predatory,” I was referring to any and every person who won’t take no for an answer–dilligent creeps. I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to read body language and accept that some people simply aren’t that into you. I’m not taking a dig at any specific gender here, just the person at the bar or club or work or wherever who won’t accept “no” and suffer from such high narcissism that any “no” means “not yet”–predatory… Read more »
To me, Creep is: (1) The guy on the subway who “accidentally” touches your hand when you are holding on for dear life to the bar above your head…and then winks at you as you leave to get off the train…YUCK! (2) The guy on the commuter train who makes a big move to sit in the seat opposite you…and while you start to doze off, he slowly starts to bump your feet with his …or reaches over to adjust his shoe and “accidentally” touches your leg….and then when you suddenly move and start to get up like you are… Read more »
I’ve always thought the term creepy was used in contexts that have little to do with safety and more to do with an aesthetic and moral revulsion toward the idea of being sexual with a person. Maybe saying to a stranger, “Pardon me, I think your attractive and I would like to have a purely sexual relationship with you.” would be something some women would consider creepy even though that judgment has nothing to do with their safety. Maybe somebody would classify it as creepy because it was “socially weird” but I can’t feel that to do so is predatory… Read more »
“Also the claim that a person should read body language is a dubious claim for the simple fact that most people aren’t good at reading body language.” “And just because a person does have a talent for reading body language it doesn’t mean that the person conveying it can do so effectively. That can be especially so for women who have a belief that they must convey their disinterest in a subtle way so as not to offend the man.” Those are very good points. Some people require the people who want to engage them to read body language, but… Read more »
Uhm. No. The answer to “a woman finds me creepy” is not “she must just not like sex.” The problem is that is some guys (Some, not all, not the majority, just the creepy ones) can’t acknowledge the simple idea that a woman you talk to is not required to interact with you. Depending on the woman, she may have a head full of her own problems, work, family, relationship, the grocery list, whatever, and she really doesn’t have time — and shouldn’t be required to make time — for every person who wants to get her to focus on… Read more »
“Uhm. No. The answer to “a woman finds me creepy” is not “she must just not like sex.”” You have pulled that one out of your socks. If you want to criticise or oppose something I wrote please cite what you mean. You might have misunderstood me, right now I don’t even know if we disagree on the central topics. That said, “The problem is that is some guys (Some, not all, not the majority, just the creepy ones) can’t acknowledge the simple idea that a woman you talk to is not required to interact with you. “ It might… Read more »
Well this depends on the attitude towards sex. If one sees sex as dirty and dangerous, then sexual advances are inherently problematic, but in fact somebody proposing you sex is offering a huge gift. In general most people require some familiarity and trust, before they feel comfortable tackling such vulnerable and intimate subjects like sex, but unless they have negative attitude towards sexuality, there is a way to propose them sex, without they seeing it as intrusion or harassment. Someone offering sex is offering a huge gift, you said, and unless they think it’s dirty there should be a way… Read more »
garnetmantle: “Someone offering sex is offering a huge gift, you said, and unless they think it’s dirty there should be a way to offer it to them without them finding it offensive. Is that not “women who turn down sex no matter what my pitch just think sex is dirty”? “ No. I don’t understand how you come to those conclusions, it is as if you are reading some subtext which frankly bisn’t there. If I offer somebody any sort of intimacy, there are two responses I have no problem with: “yes” and “no”. It is not about if a… Read more »
I agree Alberich. Garnetmantle’a response toward you seems to have nothing to do with what you actually said.
Isn’t scary the closest synonym for creepy? In that case appearances are also linked to being creepy.
Like some people might consider an person wearing an black frost suit with an neoprene mask as creepy.
Of course people may get scared by the most strangest things. Like one time an person got scared because she saw the combination of an red plastic mug and an green toothbrush.