4 ms·

What you say about 'if the female is attracted' is incredibly wrong, and I can speak from personal experience (as a guy). It's NOT about attraction, its about b

What you say about 'if the female is attracted' is incredibly wrong, and I can speak from personal experience (as a guy). It's NOT about attraction, its about being, well, creepy. I didn't find this out till I started hitting the gym more and gay men started hitting on me more often (I'm straight and happily married for the record, so it's not about me being attracted or not). Here's what I learned: If the guy is direct and has a positive attitude I say no but I take it as a compliment. It's like a feather in my cap (someone thinks I look good!). If the guy is being weird and indirect about it that gets creepy (and sometimes a little scary). The difference is that the positive guy usually takes the hint if I'm not interested. If they don't take the hint they BECOME creepy. The creepy guy is either so indirect that there's no clear way to give a hint, or just refuses to take the hint at all. As I said before, since I'm straight this isn't about whether I'm attracted to the person or not. It's about someone acting in a way that feels creepy or not. It's about whether boundaries are being crossed. Finally, I'll end by saying that you can be hit on by a good looking person in a creepy way, and flirted with by an ugly person in a very positive way. It's all about attitude.

humanrebar 11y ago
You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy. Then again, maybe not, but I'm not sure how to objectively measure this phenomenon. People are fickle and attractiveness is sort of a squishy concept. The confusion in this is the underpinning of certain subgenres of romantic comedy like Bridget Jones's Diary and Pride and Prejudice. Besides, a lot of people are creepy when approaching members of the opposite sex because nobody cares to coach them on how to do it properly. And nobody cares to help them figure out the 'who's, 'where's, 'when's, and 'how's of approaching prospective partners.
- andrewvc 11y ago
  You've got a point. I'm sure being physically attracted to someone enhances or diminishes the effect of their actual approach. Additionally, attractive people are more confident, and confident people tend to not behave in as many creepy behaviors. That being said, the underlying theme of cubano's comment was blaming women for (shockingly) responding positively to flirty men who they find attractive, and responding negatively to flirty men who don't stop even after it's clear that the women just aren't into them. The subtext of cubano's comment was that it wasn't the guy's fault for being creepy, after all that was only because the woman wasn't attracted to him! He acted just the same! These guys think that you can evaluate the behavior independent of the context, which is of course ludicrous.
  - humanrebar 11y ago
    I think you're jumping to some conclusions there. Most "creepy" men are socially awkward and can't do anything about it, or at least they haven't been able to do anything about it yet. To villainize them out of hand isn't helpful either. Some of them undoubtedly have social disorders, so coming down on them seems unfair as well. Maybe there are some people that are creepy on purpose, but I suspect that is a very small number of incidents. People have a responsibility to learn how to respectfully approach potential partners, but the rules on that are vague and there's no authoritative resource on what they are. But there's absolutely a bottom line, that we should aspire to make sure everyone feels safe and respected. But, on the flip side of the coin, people have some responsibility in learning how to learn how to reject someone clearly but respectfully. Walking to the other side of the room and talking to your friends about the creepy guy is literally the stuff of other peoples' nightmares.
    - andrewvc 11y ago
      I think we agree more than we disagree! I agree with you that a lot of them are simply awkward. I'm trying not to make them into villains, and I apologize for striking a somewhat harsh tone. I think that is deeply unfair as well! Conversations like this are important because, as you say there's no authoritative resource on the topic. If we don't talk about how to act people will continue to walk around clueless. That being said, if someone's boundaries are being crossed it incredibly unfair to say "he isn't doing it on purpose, he just doesn't know better". It still sucks to the person who's on the receiving end of that, they deserve fair treatment just as much. Unfortunately justice in that sort of situation is going to leave someone hurt, and it's better that the hurt person be the person breaking the social contract.
    - kaitai 11y ago
      I have to say, I've met a number of socially awkward guys who flirt in a cute way, and a number of socially smooth guys who are super creepy. And some people are creepy on purpose -- negging, pushing boundaries, looking for the weak one in the herd or the woman who can't say no because of her own internal algorithms. They are often not socially awkward, either. I think Captain Awkward and Dr. Nerdlove have done some excellent writing on how not to be creepy when approaching someone. Going back to the point of the article, the poster says she hasn't had many bad experiences in tech and so she continues with confidence. She wants to show these good experiences to encourage others. This is a good idea. When it comes to rejecting people, for instance, women hear so many stories or have so many experiences of men taking rejection very badly that they often feel they must reject indirectly to preserve their comfort or safety. http://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2014/12/bitches-be-crazy/ http://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2014/12/bitches...
- tangled_zans 11y ago
  "You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy." Maybe the women that cubano observed were not attracted to any of the guys that cubano saw approach them either? Maybe they weren't attracted to them because they were actually creepy? I have never seen a woman treat a friendly guy who approached her as creepy just because the guy wasn't "attractive" to her, unless that guy was only being "friendly" in his own mind and actually acting very sleazy.

humanrebar 11y ago

You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy. Then again, maybe not, but I'm not sure how to objectively measure this phenomenon. People are fickle and attractiveness is sort of a squishy concept. The confusion in this is the underpinning of certain subgenres of romantic comedy like Bridget Jones's Diary and Pride and Prejudice. Besides, a lot of people are creepy when approaching members of the opposite sex because nobody cares to coach them on how to do it properly. And nobody cares to help them figure out the 'who's, 'where's, 'when's, and 'how's of approaching prospective partners.

andrewvc 11y ago
You've got a point. I'm sure being physically attracted to someone enhances or diminishes the effect of their actual approach. Additionally, attractive people are more confident, and confident people tend to not behave in as many creepy behaviors. That being said, the underlying theme of cubano's comment was blaming women for (shockingly) responding positively to flirty men who they find attractive, and responding negatively to flirty men who don't stop even after it's clear that the women just aren't into them. The subtext of cubano's comment was that it wasn't the guy's fault for being creepy, after all that was only because the woman wasn't attracted to him! He acted just the same! These guys think that you can evaluate the behavior independent of the context, which is of course ludicrous.
- humanrebar 11y ago
  I think you're jumping to some conclusions there. Most "creepy" men are socially awkward and can't do anything about it, or at least they haven't been able to do anything about it yet. To villainize them out of hand isn't helpful either. Some of them undoubtedly have social disorders, so coming down on them seems unfair as well. Maybe there are some people that are creepy on purpose, but I suspect that is a very small number of incidents. People have a responsibility to learn how to respectfully approach potential partners, but the rules on that are vague and there's no authoritative resource on what they are. But there's absolutely a bottom line, that we should aspire to make sure everyone feels safe and respected. But, on the flip side of the coin, people have some responsibility in learning how to learn how to reject someone clearly but respectfully. Walking to the other side of the room and talking to your friends about the creepy guy is literally the stuff of other peoples' nightmares.
  - andrewvc 11y ago
    I think we agree more than we disagree! I agree with you that a lot of them are simply awkward. I'm trying not to make them into villains, and I apologize for striking a somewhat harsh tone. I think that is deeply unfair as well! Conversations like this are important because, as you say there's no authoritative resource on the topic. If we don't talk about how to act people will continue to walk around clueless. That being said, if someone's boundaries are being crossed it incredibly unfair to say "he isn't doing it on purpose, he just doesn't know better". It still sucks to the person who's on the receiving end of that, they deserve fair treatment just as much. Unfortunately justice in that sort of situation is going to leave someone hurt, and it's better that the hurt person be the person breaking the social contract.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    I have to say, I've met a number of socially awkward guys who flirt in a cute way, and a number of socially smooth guys who are super creepy. And some people are creepy on purpose -- negging, pushing boundaries, looking for the weak one in the herd or the woman who can't say no because of her own internal algorithms. They are often not socially awkward, either. I think Captain Awkward and Dr. Nerdlove have done some excellent writing on how not to be creepy when approaching someone. Going back to the point of the article, the poster says she hasn't had many bad experiences in tech and so she continues with confidence. She wants to show these good experiences to encourage others. This is a good idea. When it comes to rejecting people, for instance, women hear so many stories or have so many experiences of men taking rejection very badly that they often feel they must reject indirectly to preserve their comfort or safety. http://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2014/12/bitches-be-crazy/ http://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2014/12/bitches...
tangled_zans 11y ago
"You didn't actually cubano's point. You're straight so you weren't attracted to any of the guys who approached you. cubano was saying it would be different if you were approached by a woman you were interested in. Perhaps the indirectness would seem coy instead of creepy." Maybe the women that cubano observed were not attracted to any of the guys that cubano saw approach them either? Maybe they weren't attracted to them because they were actually creepy? I have never seen a woman treat a friendly guy who approached her as creepy just because the guy wasn't "attractive" to her, unless that guy was only being "friendly" in his own mind and actually acting very sleazy.