Looks like there’s going to be a bonus article this week.
Whenever the topic of creepy behavior comes up, you can almost certainly take it for granted that somebody is inevitably going to bring up the Tom Brady Sexual Harassment sketch from Saturday Night Live as though it were some sort of “Drop-the-mic” debate-winning argument rather than a comedy sketch that relies on exaggeration and playing with expectations and stereotypes. One is forced to presume that people who see it as a great truth and insight into the human condition also like to gift-wrap their penises on major holidays as well.
Why does it always come up? Because people see it as validation of the idea that “only ugly people are creepy.” Which isn’t true and relies on conflating “being attractive” with “being attracted”.
The latest version of this argument came up in the comments section for This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. From the comments:
Harris I get and agree with a lot of what you say. Men do need to be more sensitive to the dangers women face. There are steps and precautions men can take to avoid behavior that might make women uncomfortable. However skits like this one from SNL, illustrate a reality that you nearly seem to be denying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKYSo obviously the scenarios in the above were exaggerated, but the point they are trying to illustrate is spot on. My male friends that are considered attractive can get away with all sorts of behavior that would be labeled creepy by a less attractive man. Of course even Brad Pitt or Tom Brady can go too far, but the guys you’re responding to in the opening of this post are making a real point that you’re not giving enough credit too. I also think, you deny the large number of women who label guys creepy for trivial or absurd reasons. I remember hearing a woman in one of my classes “whisper”(not very quietly) that she found a guy who sat by himself in the back creepy because he didn’t talk to anyone. This guy didn’t look the least bit threatening, and usually had his nose buried in a book, but her friends agreed with her. You seem to write women like this off as being rare, when I see this sort of thing happen all the time, heck its happened to me. I heard you briefly acknowledge in your podcast that women like this do exist, but you almost made it sound as though they were incredibly uncommon and not worth talking about beyond a brief mention.
Pay attention. Class is in session.
The first mistake with this idea is it comes from a place that assumes that attraction is binary; it’s either there or it’s not. It also comes from a place where a person’s boundaries are somehow universal, concrete things and should be exactly the same for any person regardless of circumstances.
Both are wrong. Attraction and comfort levels are elastic and mercurial. They can grow and they can shrink at almost any time.
Behavior is considered creepy when it makes people uncomfortable. Repeatedly pushing against somebody’s boundaries is creepy behavior; a person who ignores a woman’s discomfort or wishes and keeps pushing at her boundaries carries the implication that the he is either testing them (as per the crotch grabber in the story from ExplodedSoda) or ignoring them (in the case of UnWinona’s train harassment).
If a woman (or a man, for that matter) is attracted to someone, she is more likely to feel comfortable with them and more willing to accept certain behaviors… that is, her boundaries may be different for this person. This doesn’t mean that attraction is an all-encompasing passport to do whatever you want; just because somebody’s boundaries may be relaxed in certain areas doesn’t mean that they no longer exist. It’s very easy to shut down another person’s attraction to you in an instant, whether it’s by being an asshole, saying something rude or inconsiderate, or pushing at her boundaries.
Being conventionally attractive doesn’t magically inure you to being considered creepy. Don’t believe me? Ask Brett Farve how much being a good looking celebrity helped when he was sending his dick pics around. If Ryan Gosling happened to sit down next to UnWinona, draped his arms around her and started demanding to know what she was reading, she’s going to be equally annoyed as she was by the biker before he went nuts. If Adam Levine were to start talking about tits to Ky at the Minecraft party and showing off pictures he’ d secretly been taking of women’s breasts at the party, it’s <em>still</em> going to be creepy as all fuck, regardless of how good he might look naked.
Nobody has ever argued that being an Adonis wasn’t an advantage, but it’s also not a prerequisite. Being attractive is about more than just looks – especially since nobody can agree what’s a universal standard of physical beauty. Folks will cheerfully tell you that Kate Upton is fat. There are plenty of people who wouldn’t fuck Megan Fox with a borrowed dick while Kim Kardashian was doing the pushing. Folks may think Brad Pitt is the bee’s knees and the badger’s nadgers, but there’re just as many people who love Joseph Gordon-Levitt for his scrawny, nerdy looks. My friend Rubio – who was on the second Paging Dr. NerdLove podcast – is short and fat. And yet the man gets ass like somebody in a car chase who plows through an ass-cart and crashes through a plate-ass window… because he knows how to <em>be</em> attractive.
If you happen to be somebody’s physical type, great, you’ve got a leg up. Maybe this means she will be more comfortable with you than she would be otherwise. This doesn’t mean that anyone else approaching her is automatically going to be creepy, it just means that she may draw the line elsewhere, which is her prerogative. A woman isn’t required to maintain just one universal standard of what she considers acceptable behavior and trying to insist that she has to treat you exactly the same as she would treat Christian Bale is – once again – telling her that your right to approach her is greater than her right to decide who she wants to talk to and when.
If that seems unfair to you… well, you should stop and think of what sort of behavior you’d be willing to accept from Gabrielle Union or Jewel Saite that you wouldn’t be willing to accept from your eighth grade history teacher.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t become more attractive to her – and thus make her more comfortable with you… but if you want to have the chance to do that, you’d better not be acting like a creep.
Those girls whispering about the quiet guy in class that the commenter brings up? They’re assholes. Women who use “creep” as a way of saying “ew, how dare you think you had a chance of talking to me?” They’re assholes.
And you know what? I have no time for assholes. And neither should you.
So no I don’t consider them worth mentioning; they’re not that common to begin with and even if they were, it doesn’t change the metrics. The fact that assholes exist doesn’t mean that people aren’t allowed to be creeped out by people
I don’t take assholes like that into consideration when I talk about avoiding creepy behavior because assholes are going to act like assholes. They would talk shit about him even if he were the very model of etiquette and manners.
So quite frankly, fuck ‘em.
I recall these same sort of comments when noting that this commercial is still creepy as all get out because waking up to find that you've unknowingly had sex with George Clooney is no better than waking up to find you've been essentially raped by anyone else. Yes, some women will disagree. Yes, some very attractive people get away with murder. That doesn't make murder okay, now does it?
Ugh, that commercial really is creepy. Yikes. George Clooney just gave the the willies. Thanks for that, and the Brad Pitt picture in the other article. I need to go scrub my brain now.
It is wonderful that people are posting things like this. It took me years after I first started dating to realize I was allowed to have boundaries. I was convinced that because I had expressed any sort of interest in the person I was with, I would be teasing/leading him on if I put the brakes on at any point in the encounter. That kind of thinking took a long time to unlearn, and it would have been much easier if I were surrounded by supportive ideas like this.
"I was convinced that because I had expressed any sort of interest in the person I was with, I would be teasing/leading him on if I put the brakes on at any point in the encounter."
Wow – I can totally relate to this because I actually realize now that something very similar actually happened to me too.
It was way back – something like 3 years ago, when I was just starting to date for the first time in my life. I dated this awkward and shy girl, which at first I thought she was ok. But after the date she simply didn't respond to my attempt to call her and message her. So I thought that was the end and moved on.
But low and behold, an entire month later (!) I suddenly get this bizarre and long SMS message from an unknown number (because I erased her number by then), in which she begged me to give her another chance and she apologized for simply vanishing into thin air.
Because that back then I didn't know any better (and was acting like a desperate idiot – that just like you, I felt that just because she was finally showing interest in me, I was obligated to go along with it less I hurt her feelings). So here I was at another kind of "meh" date with her – but in the end I still kissed her. That was moment though I realized that I wasn't attracted to her at all – the kiss totally turned me off. Luckily, I grew a pair of balls and so the next morning I called her and told her that this isn't going to work.
My point is that your comment here made me realize that it was these two weird dates made me understand one of my very first important lessons when it comes to dating – that it's ok for me to have my own personal limits too. I know this is a little off topic from the subject at hand, just wanted to chip in and show how the "boundary" issues can affect men too, not just women, even if in a very different, non-threatning way. I fully understand and realise that women have to deal with WAY WORSE things – things that can sometimes be downright TERRIFYING, LIFE THREATNING situations.
Solidarity, Gman. Thanks for sharing!
"The first mistake with this idea is it comes from a place that assumes that attraction is binary; it’s either there or it’s not. It also comes from a place where a person’s boundaries are somehow universal, concrete things and should be exactly the same for any person regardless of circumstances."
This is kind of what I was getting at, and I think its where some of the backlash to your article came from. People felt like you were writing off their experiences or denying what certain people can get away with. I think the best we can do is say "Look here are some behaviors you should avoid to prevent making women uncomfortable". At the end of the day though, creepy is way too subjective of a thing to really pin down (since everyone's boundaries are different) and I don't know if this came through strongly enough in your previous article hence the backlash with people saying "But I get labeled creepy anyways!" or "But he doesn't get labeled creepy!"
On the SNL skit, Jesus I wish I wouldn't have mentioned that thing. I only thought it was a funny way of highlighting one of my points. I in no way meant it as some sort of great victory blow, and I'm just as likely to bring up Chris Rock or George Carlin for the way they use humor to make points. I think people point to it a lot because they feel like people completely write them off and then this skit comes along and its like "This is all I'm trying to say. They made a joke of it." Its not about saying ONLY ugly people get labeled creepy, but a counter to those who deny that sort of thing even happens at all (and yes, i see that all the time).
As to whether those women you mention at the bottom are common or not (and I agree fuck them) is really a confirmation bias thing. I think when it comes to these gender conversations each side often feels like the other side isn't hearing them or not acknowledging what they're going through and thats all I wanted to bring up.
Jay, you know who I find creepy? Guys who feel that they're owed a chance when they've been rejected. What the hell do you want someone to admit to you? That one time someone said you were creepy when someone better looking might have not been? Fine, I'm sure that's happened. But your insistence on this validation? Creeps the ever loving fuck out of me, and pretty much any woman in her right mind. You are the kind of guy no female should ever be around: the kind that won't move on, already. I think your luck with women will improve greatly when you stop demanding anything from them, and just accept that if a woman thinks you're creepy, nothing's happening there. There are others out there. Move on. Move. On.
BertieW your entire post was an ad hominem attack in which you presumed to know about me and proceeded to attack the character you've created. I said I was in agreement with most of what Harris said. What I saw was a disconnect between some of the response to this article and the way Harris responded to that. All I tried to point out was that people in general don't like feeling like they're not being heard or that they're experiences are being overlooked. If Harris had acknowledged this a little more in his post, I doubt there would have been as much of a backlash as there was. Now some of the guys hes talking about don't want to take responsibility for their actions and deny some of the things they do might be considered creepy by rational people. I'm not speaking for them.
For the record I was not looking for validation myself and I'm happy to say I'm doing fine with women as of late. Perhaps the tone of my original post was wrong and I didn't make myself clear, but I'm at college right now and I've showed this article to people who had the reaction I was talking about and I saw it in some of the comments.
The problem with these gender discussions is that both sides often feel like they're problems aren't really being heard by the other side. But please stop pretending you know anything about me. No I'm not holding a grudge against a girl who called me creepy and my luck with woman has been fine.
Ultimately what Jay is trying to get at is that being called creepy often doesn't explain why. In fact you aren't even 'called' creepy, you're just backed away from, or blocked, or hostile body language, or something went wrong and now they're calling the cops, or whatever.
Those who are trying to do things right back away, leave, do anything they can to reduce the threatening behavior they were somehow giving off without knowing it, and kick themselves for another failure to show the respect they were trying to show.
There's certain times where yes, what you did was actually threatening and wrong, or perhaps you just didn't have the confidence, and not everyone is attracted to every person. Sometimes rejection has nothing to do with you as well, like if they're reading a book on a train and just don't want to talk to anyone right now.
But to see someone walk up and do exactly what you did (or wanted to do but didn't, because you were too shy, or too respectful, or it's failed too many times in the past) and get away with it? It's incredibly frustrating to think that you're being rejected for something you can't change, especially if that rejection is repeated. It's disheartening, and it leads to bad things, such as depression in some and anger (and ACTUAL threatening behavior) in others.
There is one thing that sometimes happens which is when you witness a woman 'freeze' in response to threatening behavior and/or play it off or ignore it while in her mind she's screaming creepy alarms. To the socially awkward they actually might see this situation as a 'success' for the creepy person and try to emulate.
For instance, going with the ludicrous, say a guy walked up in underwear and was given a number, but it was a fake number that he calls later and gets the rejection hotline. Some lonely "why not me" guy watching might think this was a successful interaction, but it wasn't.
It's frustrating. When you get rejected, you rarely ever know why and you have to guess. There's a cross between wanting it to not be your fault and wanting it to be something you have a chance of fixing, if not for the person who just rejected you then at least for your next attempt. The incompatibility of those two desires leads to a lot of frustration as well. When you add not knowing what you 'did wrong' on top of that, it gets to being incredibly frustrating.
That frustration wasn't acknowledged in the "don't do it wrong" lecture. That's all Jay was trying to say. It's not about validation, it's about acknowledgement, and perhaps even a request for advice. It's not "You have every right to be frustrated, those people are wrong for making you frustrated", it's "I understand why you're frustrated, that really does suck, here's what you can do to fix it." The latter element was missing from the post in question.
Don't get me wrong, it was still a helpful, advice-giving post (in the "here's what not to do" category), but I see where Jay was coming from, insofar as it was missing the "I understand your frustration" element.
I don't know how viable an option this is, but is there any way for you guys who are frustrated because you don't know why you are getting rejected to ask for a girl's honest opinion on the matter? Not the girl who is doing the rejection, coz that would be rather traumatising I think, but do you have any female friends who you could trust to tell you the truth? Upon request, I provide this valuable service for some of my male friends, and they tell me that it does help them out every now and then. Coz I guarantee, unless you are hitting on the world's most shallow, superficial girls, it is NOT a case of attractive guy gets a 'yes' and unattractive guy gets a 'no'.
For example, for me personally if I ever get approached by a guy I don't know or haven't been introduced to by someone I do know (and know quite well), it is an automatic, guaranteed 'no' every time, no matter how conventionally attractive they are. To be honest, I usually can't even tell if guys ARE the general consensus of physically attractive, because I have very random tastes and are far more drawn to someone's personality than what they look like.
But my point is, going around on my day to day business, or even out socialising at a party or a club or whatever, I am not on the lookout for a potential hookup/boyfriend/date/whatever, and so anyone who approaches me is automatically going to be rejected (as nicely as possible so long as they are respectful) simply because I am just not looking for ANYTHING, especially not with someone I don't even know who doesn't know me either.
What I'm trying to say is that maybe you shouldn't feel like there's something wrong with you when you are rejected, there are so many girls out there who just have no interest in being approached by random strangers, or sometimes anyone at all.
I have had perfectly lovely, funny, friendly guys approach me on numerous occasions when I'm out, and I might have a nice chat with them and a couple of drinks, but that's always going to be the end of it because at the end of the day I'm perfectly happy with how things are and I'm not interested in anything they have to offer besides maybe an interesting conversation. They haven't done anything wrong, I just don't want anything more.
Anyway, just to summarise, there's a lot going on in a girl's decision making besides 'attractive' or 'not attractive'. Unless she's really, really drunk. Then she's probably just trying to not throw up.
I have turned to friends before and followed their advice to the point that the common answer is "I'm sorry I don't know why that happened" or "I wasn't there so no idea."
There's only so much a third party can say unless they have training and/or lots of practice in giving third-party advice.
It's also in the perception of the tale. If I don't know what I did wrong and don't mention it simply because I didn't realize it was important and the friend doesn't know what question to ask to get the information out of me, the friend's advice isn't going to help much.
And people vary. Ultimately when a woman rejects me the only one that can tell me why is the woman herself. If she refuses to (see my 'wall of silence' comment in the other thread on this blog), which she totally has the right to do so, then I'm just out of luck.
I don't mean ask them for their advice on where you went wrong in particular with certain girl, I mean just ask them their thoughts on what happens when someone approaches them. The whole idea is that if you ask a few different people you'll start to see that everyone is very different and a lot of their reasons won't be because they thought the guy was particularly horrible. I just suggested this as an idea to combat the feeling that people are rejecting you personally, and also to shed light on the ridiculous notion that it all comes down to attractive people succeed and unattractive people don't.
Basically the whole point of my suggestion is to show that people vary, as you said.
Let me try to be clear in my language.
It's not that I think they're rejecting me personally. It is that I think I am doing something wrong and so get generally rejected for one reason or another.
To say it another way, I don't think I'm being rejected for what I am, I think I'm being rejected for what I do (or fail to do).
Like in the body language blog, I mention I can walk into a party and not find a single person there that's giving off any kind of positive signals to me. Is it the way I'm dressed, the way I stand, am I not smiling the right way, or what? But the women that are interested in me are pretty rare. Yes, they exist (for some reason I find them online and never in person although I've met them in person after meeting online), but I have yet to find a woman that stays interested in me for more than a day or two (and the longest I tend to run is 3 weeks) and that's when I really feel like I'm doing something wrong.
Oh ok so it's more like you're having trouble keeping them engaged once you've started something. Yeah that's kind of different to what I was talking about, I was just talking about straight up cold approaches where you don't know each other at all.
Yeah, I get 'rejected' (I keep saying rejected but what I really mean is not being interested in the first place) all the time at straight up cold approaches in person. So far the only cold approaches that have worked, even slightly, have been online, and even those work better when the woman approaches me first and even those haven't lasted past three weeks.
So I could improve my cold approaches too. Sorry I'm kind of talking about several different things at once.
Your suggestion is helpful to an extent, but I still think the best feedback is from someone who has at least witnessed the approach itself and isn't hearing about it second-hand. If that means I need to find a friend I can 'practice approach' or something, I don't know. =P
Even talking about theoretical approaches, or how this person has felt about previous approaches, is only so helpful, y'know? Getting tons and tons of "do not do this" advice is great but what would best is "That. That's what you're doing. That's what you need to stop." Maybe it's something that I know I shouldn't do but I don't realize I actually am doing it? I don't know. Frustrating.
Anyway, I'll be quiet now. I'm not really adding anything, I'm just venting. My apologies.
I know exactly how you feel, Thortok. I felt like I could have written this post, since we share the same problem.
I have no problem with getting a first or second date with someone, but these relationships rarely last past "one night stand" territory even though I make it clear that I want a lasting emotional relationship. To be honest I don't even LIKE sex. I'd rather cuddle :/
Like you, I feel like I am missing something, some "ingredient X" to complete a recipe for a long term relationship. I have no clue what that is. I have a good steady full-time job, live by myself in an apartment that I keep clean, exercise, have good hygiene including using nice cologne, have cool hobbies (DJing & music), am well-read (so I can hold a conversation,) and I have two awesome kitties at home. I'm nice, but not a "nice guy." I don't do friend zones. I'm not clingy. I am easy to get along with…
The only huge negatives I can think of are that I a) am not Christian (in the Bible Belt, no less) and b) am overweight (but seriously working on it.) There's gotta be something else to this, because I know a few larger guys (and larger than me, at that) who have found long-lasting love.
Its OK to vent.
Hey you know, location could be a big factor. I am not suggesting moving, but do you travel out of town?
In my hometown, I seriously thought I was ugliest creature on this side of the galaxy. No one asked me out ever, let alone me feeling brave enough to be friends with a guy, let alone ask them anything.
But then I moved, and it was like night and day. Suddenly people would just include me in stuff, people would ask me out. I felt brave enough to go after guys.
You seem like a pretty nice guy.
Do'h I was replying to Thortok2000. That creepy breakdown you did is spot on.
"It also comes from a place where a person’s boundaries are somehow universal, concrete things and should be exactly the same for any person regardless of circumstances."
This is a big one that I wish more people would realize. I've had some very uncomfortable moments with guys before because they saw me give a big hug to a male friend and immediately assumed "awesome, I can get in her personal space, too!" Then if I backed away or said no, would say or imply "well you're ok hugging HIM so you're just a bitch if you won't hug me, too." No, that's not how it works. That guy I just hugged may have been my friend for years, but more importantly it's *my* choice who I'm comfortable with and who I'm not. It's rather manipulative and jerkish to act like that's somehow unfair. And no, it's not about being conventionally attractive for me, I promise. It's about my comfort level which I'd like to think makes perfect sense.
There's a difference between 'unfair' and 'frustrating.'
Guys who think it's unfair need to learn better for all the reasons you, the Doc, and others say.
Guys who find it frustrating…find it frustrating and wish they knew what they could do to improve the situation. Some of those guys shift the blame to women which is again wrong.
But there's a small portion of us guys who understand that it's totally fair, don't blame women at all, but still find the "why are they okay but not me" feeling extremely frustrating. This frustration seeks explanation, typically for the purpose of fixing the issue, thereby reducing the frustration.
One suggested explanation for this frustrating phenomena is that the reason other guys are 'okay' are because they're attractive. This is such a common belief it even has a SNL skit about it. That's what THIS blog is about, and the answer is "no, that's wrong too." (Or more clearly, sometimes that's right, sometimes that's wrong, but again that's just up to the woman and there isn't anything you can do about it but just accept and respect it. As the blog emphasizes, the key distinction is between attractive and attracted. And there's more to it than that but I don't need to retype the whole blog, the Doc said it perfectly.)
But that answer, while true and helpful, doesn't get rid of or explain how to fix the frustration. (In fact, the basis of the answer being "that's up to them and there isn't anything you can do about it" will probably increase frustration.) Hence, the frustration is vented in the comments.
I recommend linking back to previous blogs where the Doc repeatedly talks about how not to be creepy. This is "what to do" advice instead of "what not to do" advice which will help ease the frustration a bit, I think.
I'm not sure what happened but my other reply didn't post for some reason. I was wondering whether maybe for men who feel like they're getting frustrated because they don't understand why women choose the way they do, maybe they could ask them? Not necessarily the ones they are interested in if that's too scary, but maybe some lady friends or something? I've had plenty of male friends ask me, and I'm pretty open about my reasons for rejecting people. The thing is, every woman is actually different, and each time it's for so many different reasons, that it is really over simplifying it to say that it comes down to the successful man being attractive and the rejected man being unattractive. The SNL sketch is a satire, it's not to be taken seriously – it's making fun of a false belief, and then exaggerating it, and it doesn't do anyone any favours to take that as the truth because that attitude is never going to get you anywhere.
Women are all different, with different tastes and different reasons for making choices the way that they do, and to make generalised conclusions based on biased observations isn't doing the frustrated guys of the world any favours. Try talking to a variety of women about what it is they like or don't like, and you might start to realise that it's not always a personal rejection of you as a person.
Oh now I feel silly coz the first post has shown up and now I've written the same thing twice. Apologies to all! I would remove one if I could.
I do not think that its really possible to get anything more than generalized relationship advice like that what the Doc gives. There are really too many variables involves. Often, the party being rejected did nothing wrong so to speak and the rejector simply doesn't see them that way. A person giving third party advice can't know everything thats going on.
Just to clarify what I was saying, I don't mean ask girls for relationship/dating advice, I'm simply talking about people who feel frustated coz they don't understand why they feel that they are being rejected but others aren't, maybe asking some friends about their personal feelings/experiences would shed light on the fact that everybody feels totally different and makes completely different choices, and then they might realise they shouldn't take rejection so personally.
I'm not saying get third party dating advice unless you genuinely think that person gives good helpful advice the way the Doctor gives it. Simply that talking to other people may help you realise it's most likely not you personally that is being rejected.
Hope that clears things up!
You bring up a good point here, I haven't ever minded when someone asked me nicely why I wasn't ok with them. As long as it isn't phrased as if I need to defend my choice I'm fine explaining; and sometimes it's as simple as I'm dating someone at the moment or I've had a long day and don't feel like being physically close to anyone I don't know well. I have also had guy friends ask me "well what do you think happened here" and I'm always willing to guess. But yes, everyone is different, and even as a female I usually preface what I say with "this is how I see it, but I'm not her."
Sorry, but I often get a sudden and unexplained phenomena I call the 'wall of silence.' This is particularly common in online interactions where it's so much easier to just block someone and/or ignore their texts and messages. But it's not impossible to have happen in real life too, and have someone go out of their way to avoid seeing you or being near you without ever saying why they are suddenly choosing to do so.
Things can be going quite great, the flirting, the smiling, the laughing, sometimes even intimacy, and then suddenly 'poof' and I never hear from them again.
Other than "What did I do wrong?" and "Why won't you talk to me anymore?" I have no other idea how to ask for a critique in any way that would not resemble an attack or need to defend against my question. Sometimes I even try "Are you okay? I'm worried that you're in the hospital or something." Because that's just one of the infinite scenarios that's running through my mind when the 'wall of silence' happens.
If you have any suggestions for what to do when someone gives you the "wall of silence" other than say 'oh well', assume it has nothing to do with you (since if it does there's no way you'll ever know) and move on, then do tell. I've tried every way I can think of to ask what went wrong or any kind of feedback at all, and I never get it. Not once. Not when it's reached 'wall of silence' level (which again, often comes completely out of the blue and leaves me over-analyzing every little thing I've ever said or done in her presence trying to figure it out.)
I've capped myself to three attempts to contact and get this critique per wall of silence. The only reason it's more than one is because with the wall of silence sometimes you get so little a reaction that you have no idea if they're even getting your messages or if their internet service is cut out or something! But if I try three times and still don't get a response, that's a pattern and it's obvious "she's just not that into me." If I'm mistaken and it is something like an internet outage, she'll get back to me if/when she can and wants to. It's still time to move on.
What I lack and always tend to lack is the reason why, the critique as you said. If I don't know what's broken, I can't fix it. If I guess I could wind up changing something I do right into something I do wrong. Or it could have nothing to do with me and I don't need to fix anything. It's the simply not knowing that's the most frustrating.
I should emphasize that I don't demand or expect an explanation of why I was rejected, nor do I think I am inherently 'owed' one for any reason, no matter how well things were going beforehand (although it's much more frustrating to be rejected after things seem to go well than it is to be rejected up front). I only seek to emphasize the frustration this causes, and bemoan my lack of ideas of how to handle this frustration.
And yes, the frustration levels in these situations are indeed, pretty high. So, suggestions welcome.
I hate the wall of silence, for the record. I've gotten that from men before and I know plenty of my guy friends have gotten that from girls before. Before I say anything else let me make it clear I think honesty is best, not avoidance in most cases.
I think it's a (flawed) idea that it's somehow easier than just telling the other person you've lost interest. Telling someone that can cause all kinds of awkard conversation that some people seem to prefer to avoid. I'm not saying that's ok, just I think that's where it comes from. To be honest, most guys who ask me "why didn't this work"…well, if I answer it turns into arguing or bargaining or a guilt trip. That could just be my experience, and it doesn't stop me from trying to be honest. But there is that. I still don't think it's a good excuse, I'm just offering ideas why people do that.
Oh, I know, which is why I emphasize I do not demand or expect an explanation or think I am inherently owed one.
I am very much a 'fixer.' I think most things can be fixed with communication. But how exactly are you supposed to 'fix' attraction?
Honestly the way I'd like things to work (and this is assuming the mistake is not a 'red flag' or 'threatening' behavior) is guy commits mistake, girl points out guy's mistake (hopefully before she immediately loses interest in the guy), guy gets better, girl and guy are happy. If guy can't get better or won't, then guy and girl break up amicably and go their separate ways, since not everyone is right for everyone.
What seems to happen is guy commits mistake, girl stops talking to guy, guy gets frustrated, doesn't know what he did wrong, and has no options or way to fix anything, either for this relationship or the next one.
What can happen and often does (and is bad) is guy commits mistake, girl stops talking to guy, guy whines and begs for an answer, girl gives in and gives an answer, guy keeps whining begging pleading for chances, and then it goes downhill from there. Even if the guy winds up doing what was asked and gets 'better', all the begging and pleading required for the guy to get the 2nd chance is just a sour note that never goes away. And if he doesn't wind up doing what was asked it's even worse, (like in this next example.)
Another style I haven't experienced personally but hear about is, guy makes mistake, girl points out mistake, guy promises to do better, guy doesn't do better and makes mistake again and again and girl stays with him because of the promises. I think we all know why that one's bad.
The way it unfortunately can't seem to go is guy makes mistake, girl breaks up with guy, gives reason, guy accepts it for better luck next time. But no guy is gonna just 'take' that so easily, if they think the reason is something they're not responsible for or can't fix they blow it off or get depressed about it, and if the reason is something they think they can fix then they are almost always gonna whine and beg to be given a chance to fix it (similar to previous examples).
So in all of these scenarios it really goes back to the first one that is the best of a bad set of options. Yet ultimately it just never seems to happen unless a relationship is well into its "we work things out instead of suddenly disappear for no reason" stage, which seems to be a stage I personally can't seem to get to. Sigh.
If I may, I also kinda salute you for your patience when this keeps happening. It IS frustrating, but it sounds like you're working on finding a balance by setting limits for how hard you'll keep trying. And I also honestly respect you for not turning it around into hating women (not just bc you're a guy, I know women who get all "I hate men" which I find equally distasteful). I've never had any luck with a wall of silence other than walking away, if I keep trying eventually I end up feeling like a lost puppy; and believe me at times I have tried longer than i should have!
Thanks. ^_^
Continuing to pester someone who clearly doesn't want to talk to you is threatening behavior (again for both genders). The only reason I try more than once is, like I said, when it first happens I have no idea if this is some 'fluke' and her cell phone service has been lost or she's in the hospital or some other perfectly reasonable explanation for being suddenly and unexpectedly out of touch.
If I know for absolute sure my message is getting through I say "If you ignore this message I will stop bothering you" and try one more time for some kind of explanation. After that I keep my promise and move on. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when it happens, though.
I appreciate you putting it so clearly – seems like you've been working out how to make this clear for a while.
Yeah, changing yourself is a hard, maddening, upsetting, exhausting road. And I know you know it's worth it. So kudos for sticking with it. And maybe, as Becelec says, you can get some good perspective from others as a shortcut.
Actually this was a spur of the moment post. Reading her comment I thought to myself "I don't think it's unfair, I don't think the other guy thought it was unfair either, I think the only point we're trying to make is that it's frustrating" and went from there. I'm glad you liked and understood my post though. ^_^
I think (hope!) I understand better what you were getting at – sometimes even long comments on a message board do not an entire conversation make! I wasn't trying to say that all or even most guys claim unfairness, only mentioning that I have had a decent number of guys actually vocalize "that's not fair" if not about myself then about other female friends of mine. I've been in enough social situations like that, to make me appreciate the point the Doctor was making that each person has a right to choose who they are comfortable with and who they aren't. It's something I wish I'd allowed myself to keep in mind earlier in life. Everyone has their own history, and in my case I've allowed myself to be guilt tripped into dating people when I shouldn't, and allowed myself to stay in relationships that were very very bad for me. I don't think everyone is a jerk, but my experiences with being too *open* about who I'll be close with bc I don't want to be seen as "that shallow jerk" affect how I react to the topic.
Yup, there's jerks out there on both sides. That's for sure.
I did originally read your comment as being against the expressed opinions of a few guys on the board, reading your words as if you were claiming that they were claiming that things were 'unfair' which, while being a wrong approach of course, is not what I felt they were trying to say.
In retrospect and with your addendum just now I see you were simply referring to your own past unfortunate experiences. Sorry for the confusion. Also sorry that those things happened to you.
I still think the clarification between 'unfair' and 'frustrating' is a useful clarification though. There are plenty of people who, for instance, get so frustrated they shift the blame or start calling it unfair because of the frustration, and if the core frustration could be gotten rid of, perhaps it would reduce the wrong behavior.
Or perhaps not. After all, frustration is not an excuse for bad behavior. But it's a thought.
Yes, there is a difference between unfair and frusterating; I responded to some of the previous articles with more focus on understanding why it's hard when you try something and get shot down. It's happened to me enough, believe me, it's not only guys left thinking "well what did I do wrong?" sometimes. This article was a bit more on the topic of those who have the "unfair" thinking so I responded more to that topic.
I also think part of dating is that sometimes it *will* be frusterating. The best way I know of to "fix" that is to remind myself that everyone has their own ideas of what is attractive, everyone makes their own decisions, and if someone I'm very attracted to isn't interested in me I need to accept that rather than blaming them or getting upset. It's life that not everyone will like everyone else, much less be attracted to them. I think it's healthy to be able to step back and accept that yes sometimes the only answer IS "that's up to them and there isn't anything you can do about it"…..other than keep striving to be the best person you can be and see what happens next time.
When I don't get a feedback or critique, this is eventually the attitude I come to.
But when none of my relationships (other than friendships) last for longer than three weeks, I begin to wonder if I'm the common denominator. And, if so, it's back to the frustration of not knowing what I'm doing wrong or even if I'm doing anything wrong. Am I always going to strike out for the rest of my life until I randomly guess what I'm doing wrong and fix it (and if I never do, oh well, die alone), or have I just not met the right person yet?
If I had the occasional relationship and we just didn't work out, that'd be fine. But I compare myself to other people my age (30) and I really have not had a short-distance relationship that lasted more than 3 weeks. I had one long distance relationship that lasted about 3 years and we visited each other for about 10 days of being with each other in real life. I've also had a couple online-only relationships when I was younger that never wound up meeting in real life that lasted 2-3 months.
But other than that, that's my entire lifetime of relationship experience, and people younger than me are married. I'm having to look for wedding rings now when approaching women, and I've never had 'a serious girlfriend' in my life, other than that long distance one which, ugh, long distance.
There's got to be something I'm doing wrong, (at least that's the way it feels) and I'm trying everything I can, and it's just so incredibly frustrating that my only cure is to really just give up and not think about it. I go to parties, I talk to women as comfortably as I talk to guys, I try to flirt and stop if/when they don't flirt back, and I post online profiles and log on daily to keep the 'last online' thing current. I don't know what else I can do except just 'be' and hope that eventually that'll be enough for someone. And in the meantime, focus on other things, like school.
Getting back on subject, the feeling that I must be doing something wrong, and then watching other guys walk up and do (what appears to be) the same exact thing I did, except they were successful, is the kind of feeling/frustration that prompted the response that prompted this particular blog from the Doc.
I feel this way to. I've only been in one real relationship and I'd describe it as basically all the bad parts of being in a relationship and with very little of the good parts. Whats worse is that very few of the dates I've been on where unpleasant, most were actually rather nice back and forth conversations that lasted for at least an hour or more. The dates usually ended on a pleasant enough note. The women I've dated seemed to be having fun and finding me good company. Yet when I ask for a second date, the usually reply is some variety of not feeling chemistry. I feel like the romantic runner-up from TV tropes.
If women found me a distasteful my romantic frustration would possibly be easier to deal with. The problem is they don't find me distasteful, they like me. Women talk to me, they just don't seem to see me as a romantic or sexual partner. All I could do is deal and keep at it. I'm tired of it, I'm tired of constantly sending out messages and meeting for coffee to see if another type of date is okay. All well he's okay but maybe I could do better, find somebody taller.
Based on previous things I've read in the Doc's blogs, I'd advise that you are probably not being physical enough and you're getting friend zoned. Exactly like you said, they're just not 'feeling it' as far as chemistry and attraction. The Doc has written a lot of articles on friend zoning, specifically look for the one(s) that talk about how to not get in it in the first place. If I wasn't supposed to be doing homework right now I'd find you a link. =P
Friends sit and talk for hours. Romantic partners do more. Unless you can bring in the 'more' then you're gonna get friend zoned.
The Doc could probably help you better but that's my best guess on help. Luck.
I'm reluctant to get more physical on first encounters, especially with women I've met online. The few times I've attempted to touch meeting a woman I've met online for the first time led to a quick do not touch me response. Many women, especially the ones I've been on dates with, do not want to be touched on the first date and are only interested in meeting up for coffee or a drink and nothing more on the first date or pre-date as the Doc calls them.
I have to work within these limits and try to express physical interest as much as possible within them. I smiles, I engage in witty banter, make eye contact, and do practically anything besides touching that I can. Its not working.
Here's the blog I was talking about.
Also be sure to read the other blogs the Doc links within that blog if you haven't already.
If that advice doesn't help, I don't have any extra advice past that, sorry. Maybe write a letter to the Doc yourself?
The age thing does make a difference, I can't deny that. I'm 28 and believe me a large number of my friends are happily married and have been for some time. My younger brother has been married twice now; realistically everyone is different but the temptation to compare is hard to avoid!
I'm not sure if there is a cure for the frustration other than choosing the perspective you have. I've done "everything right" with plenty of men and they just…had no interest. Or interest only up to a point. I think the Doctor has written before about the sort of videogame mentality people of both genders sometimes have. If I do this this this and this other thing, I will unlock a bf/gf. I can look back on my past and sometimes I know when I goofed, and sometimes I have no idea what I did, and sometimes I really think it was just the other person not choosing me. I guess it's just that I've come to accept that since I don't always fall for guys who are actually great guys I'd better accept guys do the same, sometimes it's just a no.
Sorry, long comment is making it derpy =P I do know that letting myself stay frusterated or feel like my only goal in life is a relationship has never helped me meet truly compatible folks or made anyone want to hang out with me. So I suppose that's the other reason I try not to focus on the frustrated part if I can help it; it tends to kill the chances I might have had if the other person feels those vibes coming from me?
Indeed, the "don't think about the pink elephant" effect applies to desperation in a major way. The more desperate you are, the more you think about how your desperation reduces your chances of finding someone, which makes you more desperate, and it spirals. =P
There really isn't anything that makes it less frustrating, seems like. You just pick yourself up by the bootstraps and carry on. For the most part I do alright, venting my frustration here and there, like on advice blogs or close friends, and not in places where it doesn't belong, like online profiles or to people I'm trying to flirt with. =P
But as far as desperation, my personal solution has been "stop thinking about it." Get all the habits in place, like how to not be threatening, getting to places where women are actually at, being comfortable holding conversations, reading body language, and the next one I'm working on is flirting (so the conversations are actually more than just idle chitchat) and it's all mostly low key and not frustrating, even when I get rejected. I'm also focusing on other things in my life, the main thing being school and getting my own place and maybe even my own car. Going out and dancing is next on the list.
So that's how I deal. Hasn't gotten me a girlfriend yet, but at least I feel better, most of the time. =D
I think you have to realize that all people go through that sort of frustration at various times in all sorts of situations. When we're interacting with people we don't know well, it's pretty rare that they're going to give us a detailed explanation for their behavior (if any explanation at all). I've felt frustrated when a guy I thought I had a great conversation with ignored me the next time we were in a group together, when a potential female friend I met excitedly talked about getting together for coffee and then never contacted me, when I sent in applications for jobs I thought I was more than qualified for and never even got called for an interview. I seriously doubt that the frustrated guys venting here are totally equal in how much attention they give to every woman they encounter and/or explain to whichever women they're not attracted to (for whatever reason) why they're not flirting with them. And that's fine, because those guys don't owe people their attention or an explanation either! But they should at least acknowledge that this is normal, and not take their frustration out on people who aren't doing anything more wrong than themselves.
In short, it's not that men just have to accept that women can be arbitrary and there's nothing you can do about it; it's that all people have to accept that other people can be arbitrary and there's nothing you can do about it. Any guy who gets more frustrated at women about not getting explanations in dating contexts than in any other situation, or who thinks they're making a valid point when complaining that women can reject them for no clear reason, probably still has some entitlement issues they need to work out.
In my case, my frustrations to things that seem to prevent me from finding a relationship are much stronger than my frustrations to other arbitrary human behavior because my desire to have a relationship is much stronger than most other desires in my life right now.
I recognize and acknowledge that human behavior is often arbitrary without necessarily finding it quite so frustrating as when it is arbitrary in this context. But yes, there's plenty of arbitrary I find frustrating, this is just one of them and the one most pertinent to this blog.
For the record, guys who never speak to anyone and are quiet all the time are creepy. They aren’t usually creepy in a I’m going to sexually assault you way. They are usually creepy in a I’m one black trench coat away from shooting everyone in this place, kind of way.
Since most of a woman’s life in public revolves around making and keeping social bonds, a person who completely avoids social bonds is weird at least, and creepy at worst. It depends on how much anger and loathing is coming off them.
Creepy doesn’t always mean sexually creepy, but does usually mean “threat” if we take the a-hole factor out of the picture.
"For the record, guys who never speak to anyone and are quiet all the time are creepy."
I'm not sure I agree with this. I am a very introverted female. As a result, my default state in public is to be very quiet and usually only to speak when I am spoken to. Therefore, I fully understand when someone else, be they male or female, exhibits similar behavior. And I don't think most introverts are creepy by default.
Maybe the anger and loathing vibe is a different story. But if it's just quietness… I don't find it weird at all.
Different people are different.
It's the 'hovering without talking' effect that the Doc mentions in previous blogs with his 'three second rule.' Someone who hovers but doesn't talk is creepier than someone who keeps to themselves and doesn't talk. Someone who not only keeps to themselves but rejects conversation of any kind (especially at a party or other social place where conversation is expected, such as an event you have to be invited to or RSVP for) is even farther up the 'creepy' scale.
It very much depends on the setting and whether approaches are expected or not. I don't find it 'creepy' for a woman to read a book on a train and not talk to anyone and to ask to be left alone when asked what she's reading, for instance.
Like you, I also personally lean towards "probably an introvert" in most situations, and again it's all subjective. But the "might shoot everyone here" or 'danger' vibe is a real thing that many people feel when there's someone who's not interacting in a social setting in the expected way.
I think that such a case of someone not speaking to anyone ever (depending on the overall context) will trigger certain women's creepy meters – but while a guy like that might trigger such a creepy response it is important to not be overly mean/cruel. If it's literally a case where a guy is just very quiet/withdrawn in a class, and that's your only interaction with him – then fair enough, that may trigger one woman's creepy response – but that doesn't justify a comment such as "ew he's creepy". However, if the guy is say your lab partner who you are supposed to work with a few hours a week and never speaks to you or makes eye contact – then that's a different situation.
However, a lot of these creepy indicators aren't just good for "not being creepy" – but also things to keep in mind for general social interaction. There is a guy I've known for a few years who I initially found very creepy. He could not tell when people were done talking to him and would heavily linger. He's smart and interesting to talk to – just not for hours. It really bothered me and some other girls, it didn't bother others. Now I accept that some people like him and occasionally are happy to hang out with him but that I don't. So if it's a night where he's decided to join us, it's either on me to just accept him for the night or speak up when I want him to leave. I have to say this very directly and in a way that makes me feel horribly rude.
Ultimately, the point is that I no longer find him creepy (as there is no perceived sexual/violent threat) – but I also don't like him. He says that he is socially awkward and that it's the responsibility of others to tell him just to leave directly. However, this is very difficult for my group of female friends as we all have a different internal clock on when we're done talking to him. So we just sit around miserably or leave early. This is a case where I no longer find him creepy, I get that he has social issues – but I feel like he just makes them other people's problems. Which is equally unappealing.
Yeah, I know there are quiet guys, and personally, they are often my type. In high school some people are nasty. If you’re just quiet and they’re being jerks, that’s one thing. If, say you’re past adolescence and perhaps work in an office, and you never talk to anyone or leave your cubicle ever, you may trip “creepy” radars that have nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a fear someone’s about to go postal, and everyone thinks it is you.
All I wanted to point out is that creepy has two sides, and it isn’t always sexual. Having a group of friends, even if they are nerd friends helps with this a lot. Having a sparse group of one or two guys who also seem like they want to burn something or start collecting heads in a freezer, might not help.
If the blame is going to fall anywhere for this one, blame the media who keeps looking up mass murderer neighbors where they all say the same thing. “He was really quiet and stayed to himself.”
Oh, and I realize I should have said that SOME super quiet/anti-social guys are creepy. I didn't mean to imply that all of them are. I've known guys who never spoke always were reading something in the back of class. They were fine. No one had a problem with them.
But then only recently my cousin who is in college was supposed to go out to coffee with a guy whom she was giving the benefit of the doubt. Her friends pegged him as creepy because he was always looming in the back of lecture halls and never talked to anyone. She assumed he was "just shy". He asked her out to coffee suddenly and out of the blue even though they hadn't spoken before. The next day he was arrested for having bomb-making supplies in his apartment and laying out plans for a mass shooting on campus.
I only wanted to point out if you keep getting the "creepy" marker but you aren't even talking to girls, the creepy factor may not have anything to do with sexual behavior and everything to do with anti-social behavior.
On this I totally agree that the "creepy" marker doesn't necessarily mean that the creepiness is perceived as a sexual threat. What I feel more so is that a guy I feel is creepy is a guy who I don't feel like I can politely/subtly enforce my boundaries with. Usually it's a case of a guy where I can't find a way to get him to leave me alone.
However, if it's a guy who either never makes any eye contact or just stares but never speaks to me – those also can trigger the creepy response. But for me it's not as strong a response, because I think for me, "creepy" has more to do with violating my personal space than thinking the guy might engage in a more generic act of violence.
And that would be wrong.
Seriously, that is usually a sign of shyness. . THe question is pretty much what if YOU approach THEM. What will they say?
You know I respect and appreciate your writing, Doc, but this one time I just had to stop and say: Hell. Yes. This.
Thanks.
Sorry Doc, but you're just in reality denial over this one. The skit is funny precisely because most people realize it confirms and magnifies an inherent contradiction that is part of their observable, daily reality: that an attractive guy (and "attractive" doesn't necessarily mean physically attractive, especially when is comes to guys) can get away with sexually forward behavior toward women that would be considered boorish or even criminal when attempted by a lesser man. Some women will literally let them get away with murder.
Please understand that I don't mean to say there's anything inherently wrong with this dynamic, with either women or men. Is it fair? No. But "fair" is a term that belongs in schoolyard games, not adult conversation about sexual dynamics. Denying that the situations seen (through a hyperbolic lens) in the skit are based on real-world encounters we've all observed isn't helping anyone get the girl. It just frustrates and muddies the waters. Instead, work toward emulating the attitudes, demeanor and body language of the guys you see swatting the cute girl on the ass as she blushes and giggles.
I would fault the skit for relying on looks too much as the determining factor an how the women react. Guys: Stop blaming your looks or being jealous of the "handsome" guys. Women aren't like you. Your level of physical attractiveness is just a small part of a complex melange of what they find attractive. Beyond being well-groomed and dressed, there's nothing you can do about your looks. It is much more important to be assertive, aggressive and interesting. Those things you can change. I know it worked wanders for me.
If you're more attractive, any approach of any degree of boldness/assertiveness/whatever you want to call it is going to succeed more often. That's the definition of attractive. But knowing that you're attractive gives you the confidence to attempt and then succeed at bolder approaches. It also helps you move on from failed attempts more easily, because you know you're going to succeed eventually, probably later that night, and you're more apt to chalk up failures to the woman's personal idiosyncrasies and not let it affect your global sense of self-worth. You're more likely to move on when it becomes clear your advances are unwanted if you believe that you'd have a decent shot with the next woman you approach.
I'd also hesitate to rely too much on witnessing encounters as a third party. You don't necessarily know how well an encounter went off just by looking. As has been pointed out many, many times here, women are socialized to let men save face. The whole point of saving face is letting third party observers think the interaction was more successful than it actually was.
"You don't necessarily know how well an encounter went off just by looking. "
Certainly not always, but generally, yes you can. Most people really aren't that hard to read if you bother to look and understand. DNL spends a lot of time educating guys on exactly how to do this.
Sure you can tell the difference between "is going home with her tonight" and "was politely rejected", but can you tell the difference between "was given a phone number, and will likely get a date when he calls it" and "was given a phone number, but will get a lot of voice mail recordings"? Can you tell the difference between the latter and "was given a fake number"? Can you tell the difference between a polite, but flattered no that was well-received and a curt no? Can you tell when the curt no was the result of unattractiveness or creepiness?
I would like to point out "handome" guys can be creepy. While one may think it's easy for them to move on to the next target, some are conceited and arrogant and get butthurt over getting rejected by their target, since they usually get what they want. These types tend to rage, like a spoiled child not getting a toy. Good looking guys aren't immune to being creepy.
The only way that the rule "don't bother women who are unconsenting" is unfair is if you think fairness is only about men.
It's actually super-fair. No one should bother anyone who isn't consenting. It's fair to women and to men.
If you stop assuming women are people, then it makes more sense to say that "fair" is about everyone getting an equitable share of pussy. But if you assume women are people, the surest form of fair there is involves treating their consent like it matters, not just because sex is an "adult" topic beyond the rules of fairness. It's because being fair means being fair to women, too. And that requires not bothering them and respecting their right to associate with people they like.
After all, 100% of the men who believe women are required to give them a chance or give out at least some sexual favors "fairly" don't think they're obliged to be around people they find unpleasant, or to share their body with women they find unattractive. To be fair, they need to extend that same right to women.
"The only way that the rule "don't bother women who are unconsenting" is unfair is if you think fairness is only about men. "
Well, um, ok, but a complete non sequitur that has absolutely nothing to do with that I was saying could be considered unfair.
You said it could be considered unfair that women let attractive men get away with more then unattractive men can. What Amanda's saying is, it *isn't* right to consider that unfair, because it's perfectly fair for a woman to choose to give her attention to one person over another person based on any criteria she wishes. It's *her* attention, so the only one who has a fair right to make decisions about it is *her*.
The definition of fairness is that each of us as individuals gets to decide who we want to give our personal attention to. It would be unfair if people had to give everyone equal attention regardless of our own preferences.
No, she didn't. What she said was:
"The only way that the rule "don't bother women who are unconsenting" is unfair is if you think fairness is only about men. "
I never said anything about "bothering women who are unconsenting." What does that even mean? "Unconsenting" isn't even a real word.
It's all beside the point, of course. What I actually noted could be considered unfair, I explicitly said wasn't wrong, vis-a-vis women or men. It just is. Childish notions of "fairness" have no place in discussions like these. At least if what we are interested in is productive insight, rather than self-actualization fantasies.
Unconsenting is a real word. Just because your browser underlines it as being misspelled does not mean it is not an English word. English is a wonderful langauge for nuanced communication given the ability to add prefixes, suffixes and even infixes (edumacation, for example) to words specifically to add new meaning or new levels of meaning. It is formed from three separate morphemes to create a word with a specific meaning, that, and you may be surprised to hear this, does not have redundant meaning. The root of the word is 'consent' which has it's etymology from the Old French 'consentir' or maybe directly from the Latin consentire. Consentir means agree or comply. Consentire is more complex, coming from 'com-' which means with and 'sentire' meaning 'to feel'. The denotation 'feeling together' leads to the connotation 'agreeing' or 'giving permission'.
Next, we have the conjugation of the word. The 'ing' ending shows the word consent to have been conjugated into the present tense. Finally, we address the prefix 'un'. Normally, people would use 'nonconsenting' or to meet a need for the look of the word in English 'non-consenting'. Either is appropriate for casual mediums of communication (such as the comments section of a blog) and seems to meet the meaning needed. Except, it doesn't. Non-consent implies an absence of consent, which is the case, but isn't a very strong way of saying it. Non-communicative is the absence of communication from but doesn't have the purpose of 'uncommunicative' which says the person is directly avoiding communicating.
So, to imply a greater level of not consenting, unconsenting is perfectly acceptable as a word outside of formal communication (and if set-up well perfectly acceptable in formal settings as well).
If you haven't followed along, the phrase 'bothering women who are unconsenting' would mean 'bothering women who are intentionally making it obvious they do not consent to being bothered.' Here's the difference: a non-consenting woman might be freezing up. An unconsenting woman is turning away, holding her book up to her face, telling you to get lost, ect.
TL;DR: English accepts the addition of prefixes, suffixes and infixes to any word to add new meaning, change meaning, or add levels of meaning. Unconsenting means directly not conesnting, doing the opposite of consenting (as opposed to non-consenting where there is an absence of consent, but no implied presence of not consent (see how awkward language gets around that with existing words? A prefix fixes that. Unconsent).
Sorry for the long rant off-topic.
And I'll add, obviously the right to give your attention to whomever appeals to you doesn't mean it's only fair for them to feel the same way. If I flirt with a guy, I'm perfectly aware that he may choose not to reciprocate (whether I approached him and he's not interested, or he approached me and he realizes after a bit of talk that he's not interested), and that's perfectly fair. It's also perfectly fair for him to then go flirt with some other woman who's doing the same thing I was. His choice! My choice is who I decide to give my attention to next.
We have the right to choose what we're willing to give, but not what the other person will give back.
Amanda I know this is 5 days late but I think your assumptions about men and 'fairness' are a bt off the mark.
If you check any dating blog for women , you will find women complain about how unfair it is that desirable men will reject them for women who are younger/thinner/more conventionally attractive or unfair it is that men are superficial when choosing partners and not appreciate their intelligence/success.
Does this mean that they think that desirable men are obligated to date/marry women who they are not attracted to?
Fair is one of those nebulous words that can take on many meanings. One could say on some kind of cosmic/karmic sense that good people deserve good partners and happy relationships.
I don't use the word 'fair' for personal matters like this but I don't think it implies any reduction of the consent of women.
Vic, just wanted to say I agree with your post – the skit is funny and has endured the test of time exactly because people see the same kind of thing in their observable, day to day reality.
I would never agree that attractive guys (as you say – it's often not physical that makes them attractive) are somehow "never" creepy, or get away with "anything at all".
I have a friend who started reading "game" and it's a lot like you wrote – before he changed how he acted, slapping a girl teasingly on the ass would *always* get him negative results. Afterward he figured a lot more stuff out, including changing how he acts, looks, and the vibe he gives off, now he does it and girls giggle and it's "fun". Don't get me wrong – he doesn't slap the ass of random girls he doesn't know, it's only with people in his immediate social group – but clearly it wasn't "just the behavior" that has changed something that used to be offensive into something that girls think is fun.
Like you expressed, complaining that things "aren't fair" is kinda weird – the idea that someone they find more attractive be more sexually attractive is – reality. It's kind of stupid to claim it would be otherwise, guys wouldn't like it either if they were somehow forced to date everyone, rather than just people they found attractive.
lol
Whenever dudes whip out the claim that because a woman let dude X touch her shoulders or lean into her, she should let dude Y or Z do so, I wonder, how far are they willing to take this theory that a woman consenting to one man means consenting to all?
For instance, if I let my boyfriend pull his pants down around me—if this is behavior that I want, even—does that mean every man who wants to show me his dick should be allowed to do so without me complaining?
Does it mean that if a woman has sex with one man, she has to take all comers?
Once the marker stops being "a woman's consent" and women are told that if they engage in flirting with one man, that means they have to do it with all, how far does that go?
This is exactly why I don't understand why some people seem to get so defensive in insisting that creepy behavior somehow has absolutely nothing to do with who's doing it – OBVIOUSLY something your boyfriend does could be welcome, while the same thing done by a total stranger would be completely and totally creepy.
We aren't saying who is doing it has nothing to do with, but what we are saying being hot or not hot is not the determining factor of creepy behaviour.
If I was hugging my male friends and suddenly some hot stranger came in and started hugging I would be like get the f*** away from me. Especially if they used the excuse I saw you hugging them. I guess I will give an example. There is a huge festival called Caribana where I live. 1 million people attend. (Go look up videos.) Tons of hot guys who work out. They come off creepy all the time. Perfect example: some hot guy video taping some costumed women dancing a bit seductively without their knowledge. He had put the camera under one dancers cape without her realizing it, so he got some really up close shots of her bottom. This is creepy. It was done by a hot guy. When she did realize what happened she was very disturbed and moved away from the area. Hot guy doing creepy stuff. He basically set every woman in that area on alert. Women don't like that sort of crap NO MATTER WHO is doing it.
Crap has happened to me personally and I will say, I become extremely interested in guys, who I feel respect my boundaries.I have to have an interest first, and if they are respectful interest in them significantly increases.
Well, first – *some* people are indeed saying that who is doing it has nothing to do with a behavior being creepy. But let's move past that for a moment.
Your example is that the girl moved away from the guy, out of the area, and other women started being apprehensive towards him. But – he put a camera up a girls skirt.
That's pretty huge. The next question to ask is – what would have happened if the exact same thing had happened and he hadn't been an attractive guy? Would she have just moved out of the area – or would she have insisted he be removed? If he hadn't been attractive, would she have screamed instead and a bunch of guys would have broken his camera and beat him up? Would the cops have been called and he ended up in jail?
Actually it's a public area, and moving away was the best anyone could do. It's a crowd of a million people and even ambulances can't get through.
Guys would not come and beat him up and even if they did… that would have just make the situation worse, in that case. Triggering a panic or a riot could actually kill people.
I should say cops are on duty for crowd control and video taping is the last of their concerns.
(Caribana is sort of like Mari Gras or carnival in South America.)
I have seen plenty of creepy guys (hot and not hot), video tape topless ladies and all you can do is just give them a disapproving look and move on.Same thing with catcalling. No matter who does that it's creepy. I have had plenty hot guys who cat call and it is just as disturbing as non-hot guys, or old guys. It's all just as scary.
A few year ago I visited some relatives in another country and the cat calling was so pervasive, I was actually afraid to leave the house for a while, and there were plenty a hot guy doing it. They scared me just as much as the creepy old guys. I still remember being trapped on a bus with a very hot guy beside me trying very hard to convince to leave with him. I was terrified. (The buses in this case are like mini-vans, so there was no standing room.)
He was hot, well dressed and well groomed. He was an asshole.
Shit dude what a stupid thing to say. He put a camera up a girl's skirt and you're implying that she thought "well he's hot, so I'll just move away instead of calling the cops"?
What kind of messed up attitude is that? FFS.
Just because a guy is attractive doesn't mean he can get away with creepy behavior. It's largely about confidence and ease with yourself and others. I've accidentally friend-zoned or had to later turn down a ton of guys I didn't find at all attractive because I have fairly low boundaries when it comes to making conversation IF you come across as sufficiently relaxed and level-headed. I'm that girl you just wasted half an hour on because even though I mentioned not interested in dating you at the beginning, I kept chatting with you. Then you wanted my number/to take me elsewhere, and I went, "oh, wait, just as friends, right? Cause you're cool and all, but um, see previous."
On the flip side, the number of attractive guys who seem to think they can get away with creepy shit because they're hot is astounding. Usually, when you see a woman take his number and then turn back to friends/other things, she's promptly "losing" it, because she just did whatever it took to make Mr Creepy and Invasive go away. Worse is when their initial approach is fine, then you go on a date with them and they turn out to be Super-Creepy.
Example: I went on a date with a guy I met while out. Great fun to chat with at the bar. He took me to a really nice restaurant I wouldn't have been able to afford, and regaled me with stories about his job and life…turns out he's from New York. I'm in Boston. He's been coming up every weekend for over a month to establish himself as a semi-regular at the place I frequent in order to ask me out. Well that's…kinda stalkerish, but otherwise conversation is good, so I'm not super on edge yet.
Then we meet up with his friends to go see a live show. Where, on the first date, he introduces me as his girlfriend. Um, what???? That was fast! I kissed you like twice!
Now, I don't know if it's because of the girlfriend comment or because they're just not good at talking with strangers, but none of them will make more than token conversation with me, and he's literally never more than six inches from me. And I'm feeling more and more like arm candy and a possession. There's talk of bringing me to New York, but he keeps shifting when and for how long. At one point I think it's meant to be that night! So I step outside when he goes to the bar and chat with the door guy for a while. Who is really down to earth and helps me work up the courage to just get on the T and go home.
Just as I'm about to leave, guess who comes out the door! And gives me all kinds of shit about how he couldn't find me and he was worried about me and how dare I do that to him. So I claimed the crowd was overwhelming my social anxiety, turned down his offer of a ride home (oh hell no, you don't get to know where I live!) and got out of there. On my way home, I changed his name in my phone to "Super Creepy, Do Not Answer!"
I would not introduce a woman whom I just started dating as my girlfriend but I don't necessarily see doing so as creepy. It was very assholic behavior and incredible act of bravado but not IMO creepy. The proper thing to do is introduce the other as a date since it carries the suggestion of romance without the implication of boyfriend, girlfriend, or lover.
I'm with Ainuvande on this one. Honestly, this one is creepy regardless of gender.
Becoming boyfriend/girlfriend requires the consent of both parties. A person – man or woman – asserting in public that you are their boyfriend or girlfriend in the middle of the first date, without any input from you is a major, major, MAJOR red flag that this person has a serious problem with boundaries.
I think thats its really important to point out that love/sex and justice have nothing to do with each other. There are lots of decent to really great people in this world, who for a variety of reasons some in their control and some not, have really bad experiences when it comes to love and sex. Than you have lots of really nasty people with no shortage of partners or potential partners. They are the bad boys and femme fatales of fiction in real life.
While we're on the topic of sexual harassment in comedy, I have to bring up one of the best, most eye-opening stories about workplace sexual harassment I ever saw: the episode titled "The Great Repression" on cancelled-too-soon sitcom "Better Off Ted." Wherein it is Linda, the sweet, wholesome, lets-get-in-touch-with-our-feelings girl, who gets accused of harassment after she hugs a (female) co-worker and is forced to take sensitivity training.
The whole episode is on Netflix and worth watching, but I'll cut to the chase: Linda realizes that the co-worker is right – by insisting on giving out hugs and back rubs over her co-worker's growing objections, Linda is indeed saying 'my feelings are more important than your boundaries.' Which makes her just as much of a creep as the other people in the workshop, regardless of how good her intentions are.
Why is anyone talking about "getting away with" anything? No one can "get away with" being creepy. If what you're not creeping anyone out, you haven't done anything you need to get away with. Conversely, if you're genuinely being creepy, you're not getting away with it.
It seems like the frustration is in the idea that there's a pussy cheat code that only hot guys are allowed to use, and less hot (or more insecure guys) want to be able use the cheat code too.
Maybe the cheat code idea is a guy thing.
I have been approached by much older men I am not into, but I didn't consider them creepy at all. They were kind and polite. Guys I label creepy actually have to do do something creepy for me to consider them that way. (EX: touching without consent.) It's not about looks for me.
"Pussy cheat code"? THIS kind of thinking is the problem. Women aren't games to be won. They are people. Anyone who treats them differently is a creep. A woman who treated a man like a game would be a creep, too. And every time a creep goes around creeping, and no one calls them on it, they are "getting away with it", whether they end up going home with someone or not.
A LOT of people I've talked to consider it a kind of conquering game. The more you can conquer, the more you "win." The less you conquer, you "lose." Don't conquer at all, you're not even much of a human being. Both male and female.
Can be pretty discouraging.
That's their loss. You can do better.
Preach it, sister. Relationships are living, evolving things, not leaderboards.
Of course, for some of us, there is just conquering the conversational ground, seizing the place of meeting and not the person who will be met.
I think that sometimes 'I wish I understood the secret formula to being able to talk to people about sex or relationships and make propositions and negotiate in a non-absurd, understandable way' gets read as 'I wish I understood the secret formula to inducing people to sleep with me or love me'
I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the "getting away with it" language. It's just…. gross. If you can label any of your actions as something you have to "get away with" for one reason or another WHY WOULD YOU DO IT.
My view on it is that, whether or not it is actually true, it LOOKS like people are wildly inconsistent in what they find creepy or that they use 'creepy' to describe both actual threateningness and people who are unpleasant or merely unattractive but not worrysome.
I don't think it's true all that commonly, but some people with good social skills also are very good at judging nonverbal stuff. Between that and being attractive (whcih makes consent more likely) it looks to people with poor social skills like women's fear is based on attractiveness or social skills and not on harrassment. It is of course not actually that way, just looks like it.
I really like your observation, about how it looks.
Physically unattractive guys just by themselves are not creepy, a person does have to do something to be creepy hot or not.
I have had creepy behaviour from hot guys, which is why this idea of hot guys doing the same thing as an ugly guy and not be considered creepy just stuns and mystifies me.
"pussy cheat code"
seriously? jfc
Thank you.
It's such a BS idea too. It seems to stem from a sense of entitlement also (very creepy in itself) like trying to guilt trip the woman into finding him attractive, as if he actually worked like this.
I've had respectful ugly guys that took no for an answer and I've had creepy ugly guys who didn't. The problem is later case. The problem is about when the guy is physically unattractive. It's when he can't understand your disinterest immediately.and decide to ignore your own lack of desire to interact with him (which sends a lot of red flags).
Should have read "The problem is not about" obviously.
You know I was just watching a movie where one of the characters is a nice guy and is being unknowingly creepy (to the cook on holiday). It was very interesting seeing reactions by his fans. Some women who are ATTRACTED to him saw the CREEPY scenes and INTERPRETED them as sexual tension instead, because in their case, since they were ATTRACTED to him, they would have relaxed their boundaries, and not have felt uncomfortable.
Perfect examples of :
Attractive guy being creepy. (Attractive to some women at least.)
Nice guy being creepy.
Nice guy not knowing he is creepy (he was friendly and then he took too far).
Women attracted to guy and relaxing their boundaries/been comfortable with his behaviour (fan reaction), although to the cook character he was clearly creepy.
I have to say, when I read/heard some fans reactions I was like WTH!! He was clearly creepy to me.
The creepy vibe is quite subtle (it's a subtle film), so it's hard for some people to pick up on. I will say the most obvious clue is their last scene where the male character is staring at the cook, while she cooks, and then offers to help her with something. Notice how she holds the knife in her hand, that is not nervousness, she is scared. (She also can't say anything since she works for him.) If a person still does not get it the cook character actually leaves her job early since he was creeping her out so much.
I consider that part of the movie hilariously disturbing since for a nice sensitive guy, he is totally oblivious to how horrific his behaviour is to the cook.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc1LdEQlrE
The 2 blonde characters at time: 1:26:43
Also listen to what she says, just about everything she says is dropping the hint to leave the room and he does not get it.
You sure it's not just the fantasy they get excited about? It's a movie, there's no real threat in front of them, everyone knows it's just an actor. The Twilight Vampire guy is a complete creeper but the girls swoon over him too.
Maybe it's the fantasy, I dunno. I am a woman I don't get women being attracted to creepy guys in movies.
Watching that scene I was laughing out loud at just how creepy it was. Point by point:
He goes way past the '3 second hover' rule. This is more like the '3 minute hover'.
He has closed off body language (crossed arms).
The entire time, she doesn't even face him, much less make eye contact.
When she drops the pin, you can almost see her think "How am I going to bend over without putting my behind in his arm's reach" and it isn't a pleasant thought.
The moment he has an excuse to get close to her, (specifically close to her chest you notice), he takes it, without permission. She even starts to say "What are you doing!?" but stops.
As he's pinning that to her chest or whatever that is, she says "Don't…" but hesitates and turns it into "stick me with that" instead of all the other things she clearly wants to say that begin with "Don't."
She actually reaches for the knife. Simply to feel safe. If this is acting that's very good acting and there's nothing subtle about it. She has no need for the knife for cooking purposes. She is literally reaching to it for safety.
In addition, watch her head as he's messing with the pin. First she stares at his hands, watching to see what he's doing. Clearly the very thing furthest from trust. Then she looks away, both to try to escape from what's happening and for the safety of the knife. When he moves away she looks at the pin as if to make sure nothing worse has happened.
Afterwards she takes a deep breath and sighs, releasing the stress of what just happened, slightly. The level of threat has gone down a notch. It's still a very high level.
After the pin, something about his posture just seems 'self satisfied' and from the tilt of his head it looks like he's staring at her behind. The moment she speaks he gives a slight head nod as if in his mind she was saying something completely different and confirming his thoughts about her. That little head nod is one of the creepiest bits actually and it's one of the most subtle.
She asks where everyone else is, which is subtle, basically saying "I don't want to be alone with you any more."
When he says he'll leave, he doesn't. It's ridiculous how long the tension goes on and he just stands there. And yet again, he's looking at her but she's looking anywhere but at him. In fact it isn't until she actually says "Are you going or what?" and actually volunteers that she will leave herself that he moves. He is basically extending the interaction between the two of them to the very last second it can possibly go. And yet again, he leaves and she lets out a sigh as the threat level goes down another notch.
That totally wasn't subtle. One of the creepiest things I've ever seen. That anyone can confuse that for 'sexual tension' is too busy looking at him than at her and misses the subtle bits.
Completely off topic note, if you want to link to a particular timestamp on Youtube, click the 'share' button, then 'options' and then 'start at' and you'll be given a URL that starts at the timestamp you want, like this.
Wow, thanks for the point by point, and yes, they were acting but the director (Joanna Hogg) has a very naturalistic style, and there was a lot of improvisation and little rehearsal. (All the actors lived at the house the movie was filmed in, and the film was shot in story order.)
Thank you for telling me how to do timestamps. (I wish I could edit it in). Oh wells, I have a feeling I will be referencing that scene in the future.
I am quite fascinated by that scene, since a bit of it echoed an incident in RL for me. (And in that case the guy went a lot farther then messing with a pin). I have read many critics reviews and several male critics did pick up that dude is creepy. One male critic went as far as to say, "horrifically abusive" considering the power dynamic. Others though look at his creepiness as a crush, and he is just too shy to make a move. WTH!! (The male character actually has a girlfriend in the story. Which makes stalking the cook look even more disturbing).
I would love to hear more opinions on that scene for both genders, since after seeing the movie and reading reactions I was quite stunned and confused. I couldn't be the only one thinking he was creepy.
Also, I like that it shows the cook, "going along to get along since", she really has no choice. All the characters on the holiday are staying in the same house. If she made a scene, while living in the same house with this guy?
I swear, all their scenes are a lesson on creepy guys who don't realize it.
wow. Thanks for this breakdown. Which I skipped over like the scene because it was unbelievably painful to watch.
I've often said that I think creepy is when there's sexual tension or suggestion where there "shouldn't" be.
An extreme example is imagine to hot models spooning in a bed – not creepy. Now imagine an older guy and a preteen girl doing the same thing – TOTALLY creepy.
In fact, you can take the same picture and change whether it is or isn't creepy by changing you description of it. Two 21 year old's sitting by the lake sharing kiss – not creepy. Tell the viewer that they're brother and sister – completely and totally creepy.
Think about it, you can come up with about a bazillion more examples…
But the point is, that lts say it's the same peer group, lets say 3 21 year olds, the "hot guy" won't necessarily be considered incapable of being creepy. I have met guys who aren't physically hot and they get all the ladies. All they need is ten minutes to show how their personality is well.. so magnetic.
Even in my life, I won't say I am pretty but it's much easier to attract people to you, whether for friends or romance being a whole and complete person, regardless of looks. It really happens. I used to be horribly depressed and miserable, i hardly had any friends and no hope for romance. Then got better and now I have far more friends then I ever thought. and I have hope for romance. It's because my attitude got better, not because my looks did. (And girls have problems getting guys too.)
Sometimes people are their own worst enemy and deciding that since you are not hot women will only consider you creepy… is extremely self defeating. (I do it too.) I have plenty of guys I am not interested approach me. I was not interested in them, or I was dating someone else, but they were not creepy. Maybe guys are confusing lack of interest from a girl as her privately thinking a guy is creepy. That's not it.
I feel like your post doesn't really respond to my post. I said that –
"…I think creepy is when there's sexual tension or suggestion where there "shouldn't" be. "
It would make sense, if this definition is true (though it's not the only thing that causes creepy feelings), that more attractive people would cause less feelings of creepiness than less attractive people. It's just more difficult for them (not impossible – more difficult) to create sexual tension where the girl would consider it unwanted and undesired.
Hmmm.. mulling over that definition.
I wouldn't say "sexual tension" per se. I feel sexual tension has to be mutual. Creepy is more of one person is attracted and one person is not. Even when it's clear the other person not attracted, the attracted person persists,making the not attracted person feel uncomfortable since their boundaries are ignored. It's all one sided. When there is sexual tension boundaries are not being ignored and violated, the attraction is on both sides. Heck it can even start out as mutual attraction but all one person has to do is cross a line and it gets into creepy mode.
Maybe there is an assumption that because a guy is hot the boundaries are different? If the boundaries change, well it's a persons right to adjust those boundaries. That could be because there is mutual attraction.I will say the criteria that a woman uses to adjust her boundaries is not always based on looks of the guy approaching her. A hot guy can very easily ignore or miss those adjusted boundaries and create a creepy feeling.
I will say it's very easy for a hot guy to make women around them feel uncomfortable. Just from my life experience. Even from the get go, since there are times where frankly a woman just does not want to hounded. By anyone. Even Brad Pitt, Micheal Fassbender or Christian Bale.
I was thinking of posting on the other article about the “Hey, it’s only creepy if an ugly guy does it!" argument, but at the time it didn't seem like anyone was backing it up.
Seriously, even if it was true for most women what would be wrong with allowing people to "get away with so-called creepy behaviour"? People are allowed to define their boundaries however they want and if it's because they're not attracted to you then so be it. It's their choice not yours.
In the case of random-guy approaching random-girl (as was the case in the experiences shared in the previous article), what are the guys acting on? Attraction? Probably. They certainly wouldn't have know anything about the people they were approaching in the first place. So why wouldn't the women be allowed to reject based on attraction (you know, if it was just because they wanted to be left alone)?
And let's not forget the (deplorably stupid) hotness/craziness ratio… http://www.have-you-met-ted.com/wp-content/upload…
I read the title of this post and thought, "Thank god someone besides me is finally trying to spell this out." When I started dating my significant other, and he found out I'd never really dated before, he (like most of my male friends who knew) was like, "How can you never have dated anyone? You're pretty!"
And I had to explain that looks dictate how attracted other people are likely to be to you, not whether you're attracted to them, and that sometimes, *even if you could presumably get a man fairly easily,* you're happy being single, which seemed to be foreign to most guys. If you're a pretty girl, you're either with someone, or you're "free for the taking" (an actual phrase that got applied to me which creeped me the hell out).
So in addition to the good doctor's assertion that yes, it's ok for people to have different boundaries for different people, I'd like to point out that weird strain of ownership that seems to run through how a lot of guys discuss women — not only is every guy owed a hot girl, but girls (at least hot ones — girls perceived as unattractive don't seem to register) must belong to someone. Being single can be a stable (and happy!) state, not one in need of remedying.
Yes. This. Why is it so foreign to (some) guys that a pretty girl might be single because they are looking for someone to that they like and are compatible with, but in the meantime are fine by themselves? That just because they *could* get a boyfriend doesn't mean that its the one that they want.
It ties in with the "women can get laid anytime" meme. Sure, if by "get laid" you mean "penis in vagina action with some dude you're not even attracted to," but who needs that?
This. Story of my life. It's not just guys though, women are just as bad at being all WHY ARE YOU HAPPY BEING SINGLE?!!!!!
My nanna was the worst. First thing she'd ask me whenever she spoke to me was whether I had a 'beau' yet. And when I'd say no, she was convinced that I was just lying to her.
And I'd always have friends telling me I should lower my standards coz every guy I was with would start to irritate me within a few days to a month. And I was thinking, why? Why should I waste my time with someone who is already getting on my nerves? Why can't I just enjoy being alone?
Half of them are in shitty, terrible relationships anyway coz they're too scared to try independence out for more than a couple of weeks.
I used to get that all the time when I was younger. Funny thing is, I wasn't even conventionally pretty, I just had a look that some guys seemed to like. Of course the odds of me being attracted to anyone in that small group were pretty low, so I was single most of the time. Sucks, but what can you do.
I have heard of this "free for the taking" phrase, from my Dad of all people. When he was discussing a chat he had with one of his friends about a woman. I asked him, guys actually talk like that? He said yes. He's in his 70's!!!
So I don't think it's a generational thing. I was stunned to learn that this sort of talk is pervasive in some male circles.
OMG. So this. It doesn't seem to register with many guys that just because they find you hot doesn't mean the feeling is reciprocal. In fact, about this, it's amazing how guy seem to lack self-awareness.
Happy being single?
I've never understood the whole 'happy being single' thing for guys. It's miserable and lonely. Althogh I imagine relationships could be too much of a good thing. I'll save that for when I have ANY of the good thing.
Is there any (short of the completely ridiculous) set of boundaries that would be unreasonable?
Why must being single mean being "miserable and lonely"? I wasn't lonely when I was single. I had a rich life full of friends and family and a career I was passionate about. I had companionship whenever I wanted it and social activities every night of the week. When I met my boyfriend, it was a free choice to give some of that up to be with him because I preferred spending time with him to spending it with others, not a relief that "OH MY GOD I AM NOT ALONE ANYMORE." I wasn't alone. We did break up once for a short period, and it hurt like hell, but I wasn't alone, nor did I feel the need to get into another relationship. As it turned out, we got back together, but by that time I was mostly fine again. I am in a relationship with him because I choose to be, because I love him, and because he is my best friend and the person who I always want to spend time with, if I have the option. But I am not with him because I *need* to be. Romantic love is not the only way to have people in your life.
The only way I can see the idea that being single *must* equal being miserable and lonely is if you're not complete in yourself. And that means you're not ready to be a good partner. Learn to be a whole person first, and the relationships will come.
Being happy being single occurs when you're living an awesome life, secure and content with who you are. A girlfriend or boyfriend isn't going to magically make you happy or solve all of your problems. Only you can do that.
YEah, that is somethign which i have encountered. I don't know.
I forgot about the whole hookup and casual sex thing. I somehow managed to get through my first year of college without ever even encountering something like the hookup culture.
I hear about plenty of men desperate about being single, and am one. I was mostly talking about men who are going in and out of relationships cliche'd as preferring to be single by default or something. THough I guess the casual sex/dating is an aspect.
… really. I really hate it when people tell me that I should want things differently than I do.
gaaaaaahhhhh,…. that came out wrong.
I meant that the singleness specifically was miserable and lonely. My life in general is fairly awesome except for that one black hole. Believe me, I've analyzed it.
What I meant more was why this weird gendered thing where men want to be single and women often don't despite the assumption that men will always want sex. It's always seemed self-contradictory.
Because you can have sex outside of a romantic relationship (ie, you can have sex while single). Not that this means either assumption is correct, just that they don't contradict each other like that.
If it's a black hole in your life otherwise awesome life, you need to shift your perspective, because you're giving it too much importance. And viewing your life as having a relationship black hole in it will put upon you the scent of desperation, which smells awful.
And I've never encountered a "gendered thing" where men want to be single and women don't. In fact, I know far more guys desperate not to be single than I do women. (Although granted, I live in an area with a lot more men than women, and work in an industry where that's even more true, so it may be because I just know more guys.)
I know there's a stereotype where guys don't want to get *married* and women do, but I've never heard that men want to be single more than women. (And there's evidence to suggest that they suffer more from it than women do: http://healthland.time.com/2010/06/10/do-men-suff….
But in any case, being single is only as terrible as you choose to make it.
I have this friend. She's quite pretty, but every guy I know avoids her like the plague because she SCREAMS 'desperate'. All she cares about is having a relationship, she doesn't care who she has one with. She wants a boyfriend the same way she wants a car, as an accessory in her life. Face and name is totally interchangeable. Nobody wants to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't really want to be with them for who they are, but it just feels to me like that's how most people see relationships. Not "I really really like Harry and want to spend more time with him," but "I really, really want a boyfriend and Harry seems like he'll do".
A relationship is something that comes about naturally from you both realising that you really really like each other and want to spend as much time together as possible. I'll never understand the idea of wanting a thing instead of an actual person. I went out with a guy for a month who was like this, and I ended it as soon as I realised he really didn't know or understand a thing about me and was more just excited to actually have a girlfriend. It's just not a healthy attitude.
Doc, how about an experiment to prove the "attractive guys get away with more creepy things" hypothesis wrong? Here's what I'm thinking:
- Get two or three willing bachelors. You may want a "control" for this experiment as well, but I can't think of a way to add a control to this style of experiment.
- Post their pictures on Hot-or-Not or Facebook, wherever really. Get feedback on who is physically most attractive, second-most attractive, and least attractive. I like Hot-or-Not, since it gives a numberic score to each guy, but you can easily get results from a Facebook poll or a poll on this blog.
- Prepare some opening lines for each guy to use. Each guy will use the SAME opening lines. The opening lines should provide a range from completely innocent ("Hi, my name is _. How are you?") to DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME ™ Creepy ("Wow, you have a nice ass!")
- Have the guys dress up in the same style of clothing. The basic trendy T-shirt & Jeans combo seems easiest, but if you want more data points you could also run this experiment with the guys wearing Suits, Hawaiian shirts, etc.
- Now have the guys go out in a couple of different settings and try out the predetermined openers on a few women. Spread out the approaches so that the experiment itself doesn't taint the results (i.e. "WTF are guys approaching me every 30 seconds?!?") I'd spread approaches out by several minutes at least. Have the different guys approach the SAME girl using the SAME line/opener, and record the results. I would try this at a coffee shop and in a bar setting.
- You could devise a scoring system for determining the effectiveness of each individual approach. You could give, say, 0 points to the approach that is completely blown off, 50 points to an approach that is politely declined, 75 for approaches that turn into short conversations, and 100 points for a conversation that yields a phone number/Facebook/desire to meet. Then you can add up all of the approaches for each guy and see how they compare.
Ex: Setting 1: Coffee shop
Line used: "Who lies more often, men or women?"
Girl Body language Guy A Guy B Guy C
red dress open 75 75 50
green hair bow closed (reading) 0 50 0
etc. If you are right, Doc, then the scores will be similar. They should come close. If the scores differ based on the "attractiveness" of the subjects, then the hypothesis stands. What do you think? This sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon at least
There is nothing that has to be "proved". Just listen to what people are saying.
People are biased, and personal experiences of a few individuals are not enough to have a solid conclusion on an issue. Imagine if this blog post was about climate change instead, and of the 10 unique commentators, 5 said "nothing feels different to me, so I guess there's no climate change," 4 said "its been warmer for me this summer, go climate change is real!," and one was undecided. You wouldn't deny that climate change exists just because the majority of the people on the blog said so, would you?
I was trying to say politely this is silly.
This whole thing presumes women's preferences are all the same, they are not. Women aren't some magical "other" they are people.
I was trying to be polite, I think doing an "experiment" is silly.
I think breaking it down to some science experiment is what the problem is here.
Women are not magical "other" who all think the same. Women are just people and just like people all have different feelings and preferences.
It's incredibly insulting to all the people who have commented here and just about everywhere else I have seen this discussion. I don't see whats wrong with actually listening to women and you know treating them like people. Women as a whole do not have the same mind. It's not some mystery.
Approach a person, be polite and treat them like a person. Creepiness avoided. I don't know why that is so hard.
I don't understand why some men are so desperate to to have their lack of success explained by something they feel they can't "fix". As if it's not their fault they are alone and it's unfair women (as a gender) who are at fault. Women get blamed for enough crap. Not everything in life is a science experiment. Least of all attraction (even in the non-romantic sense).
Heck sometimes a guy who takes rejection well in the first attempt, will increase their chance with the same girl on their second try at asking her out simply because he respected her boundaries. Because you know women can also change their minds and like to be respected Who knew?
Some women like guys who look shady, some women like really tall guys, some women like older men. Some women only date black guys. Also if this whole women always find "ugly" guys guys creepy, how do you explain all the ugly guys who have girlfriends and wives? It's more then just looks.
This whole idea of an experiment appears based on the assumption that women as a gender are just unfair and are lying about how unfair they are.
Even as an experiment there are too many simple variables that would somehow have to be magically controlled for. I would like to see a sociologist come in here.
Age, ethnicity, cultural issues, hair colour of the guy, the fact that women do not have all the same standards as to what is hot (because you know women do not all think exactly the same). These are variables I just thought of off the top of my head. (I put in hair colour since I find for myself, I am usually not attracted to blonds.)
Geography alone can be a huge factor. I didn't have many offers until after I moved out of my backward hometown, I didn't change anything about me. I just was in a different location.
I am sorry if I come off as angry and I am sure your intent was not to imply all women think the same and are liars, but that is how it looks. That is why I said the very idea of putting it into an experiment is what the problem is. You won't get anywhere in dating life if you assume women are all the same.
Not to mention the whole goldfish thing a previous commenter mentioned. Maybe science experiments are nice and easy to understand but a person can't narrow down attraction to one handy formula. Humanity is too diverse and different.
(Majored in science in school.)
(Sorry if it appears as a repost, I tried posting earlier and it seems my comments were lost, I don't want to seem like I am yelling.)
Also just because it's "science" does not mean it's "objective" and non-biased
Ever heard of the controversy of Psychology today for their article titled,
"Why Black Women Are Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women", by Satoshi Kanazawa?
According to his "science" black women aren't hot. Every other ethnic group is hotter then black women. "Objectively"
So many people call him out on his racism and how his methodology was a load of crap. So just because it's "science" does not make it true and objective (and therefore make certain people feel better). You can't narrow down human feeling and thinking down to same objective precision as an unthinking, unfeeling electron.
I am not saying studies on human behaviour as a whole are crap,but it's much more complex and variable, then many "studies" tend to claim.
I think there is a great deal of confusion as to what "objective" means. In a psychological context . Objective means what others think of you. Subjective means what you think of yourself. Kanazawa's science was right. He examined surveys and studies where participants were asked to rate women's appearance and attractiveness and he found black women got consistently lower ratings. There was nothing wrong with that. Similarly studies have found that men are objective less attractive than women (men get consistently lower attractiveness scores than women on similar tests). Some of the conclusions he had about the evolutionary history of blacks were at best speculative and at worst wrong , but there was not anything really wrong with his study about objective and subjective attractiveness.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman…
That is a link to another group who looked at the same data set that Kanzawa looked at. And they came to a different conclusion.
OK, this was a good response. Thanks.
Of course all women don't think the same. I did not mean to insinuate that notion at all. I don't assume all women are the same. I do think that there are patterns and general guidelines that we can follow to increase our chances of attracting others, and that's where the dating advice comes in.
The way this experiment is laid out, you would not be able to control the ethnicity, age, etc. of women that are approached since this would be done in public areas without foreknowledge of the experiment. There may be a difference in response based on those demographic factors, and IDK how one would account for this without gathering enough data to see any patterns.
I don't think that women view all ugly guys as creepy. There may be some that use "creepy" as an easy out to blow off guys they aren't attracted to. There are others who reserve the word "creepy" for the true creeps, like those guys from the train story a few days ago. IDK, but if we can find out if a majority of women have this ugly ~ creepy correlation in their heads, regardless of how you or I feel, then we should act on that information. Maybe the doc should write a post about exercise, how to use a gym, diets that work, etc. so that unattractive nerdy guys can become more attractive and have a lower chance of being called creepy (if attractiveness is a factor at all.) Maybe a post about work clothes that us working stiffs can use to look better during the 9-5, and an update if necessary to the clothing post from the beginning of this blog. Advise on what cologne to buy, hair styles, etc. Social skills are great and important, but we can't completely ignore the physical as well.
Location does seem like a big deal. Not being a Christian in the south is a huge fucking deal, thanks to the fact that a) every block has a church, b) every event down here is church-based, sponsored, etc. I am probably losing a lot of prospects because I don't lie about my religious views.
Maybe I should pretend to be a Christian? Now THAT sounds creepy!
I have some other post detailing just how using hot or not as a means to index hotness, is full of, issues. But I think it's in moderation? I posted that several hours ago. I won't say anything until that goes up.
Yeah pretending to be Christian, that would be creepy. Location just sucks sometimes. I have no idea how intense the bible belt is, but travelling out of town dosen't sound like it will help.
Weird. It didn't end up in the moderation queue until this morning. Sorted now.
Thank you
.
Seems to me, if a man can improve his appearance with a reasonable amount of effort, he should do that anyway, regardless of whether or not women as a rule equate ugliness with creepiness. It automatically gives him and advantage over guys who don't want to bother.
Um, if I had 3 guys come up to me in the space of a week each using the same line, let alone in a few minutes, I would be thinking something was up. Girls don't have the memory of goldfishes.
Also, pretty sure the line "Who lies more often, men or women?" would work on NO one unless they have an IQ of 5.
Also, most unscientific and therefor flawed experiment ever. I'm sure you could entertain yourself for an afternoon with it, but it's not going to give you any set pattern unless every girl answers "What kind of stupid question is that?"
Of course they would think something was up. Its possible that by the time Guy #3 walks up his score would be negatively biased, regardless of other factors just based on how annoyed they are. That bias can be observed and accounted for by changing the order that the guys take on approaches.
The line was just an example. Believe it or not, that line is one of the PUA openers that I read about (maybe here?) In the experiment you should have a range of openers from completely innocent & friendly to actually creepy stuff (and "Who lies more often?" leans toward the creepy end of this range.)
Why is this unscientific? Is there something specific about the method that concerns you? This seems WAY more scientific than just going off of random strangers' comments on a blog. Anyone can come on here, adopt a pseudonym, and claim to be whoever they want. There's only five or so unique data points being expressed in this blog post & comments. An experiment would still involve random persons, but it would also produce more data points. More data -> more sound conclusions
I think breaking it down to some science experiment is what the problem is here. This approach just stuns me. I don't see whats wrong with actually listening to people. Not everything in life is a science experiment. Least of all attraction.
(Majored in science in school.)
Um, you can't control ANY of the variables dude. And so it cannot be scientific.
Also, a couple of women can't represent an entire gender.
What you're suggesting is just really insulting.
What women find hot is subjective.
To put it more scientifically, the use of the website hot or not, will be skewed to the people who actually use the site. To be frank I never heard of it. You can't use the scores of hot or not as a representation of all women in the world and what they view as hotness, because one you are only getting scores from women who use the internet, and from those only getting scores from women or girls who use that site. Keep in mind internet usage is skewed to certain regions of the world. On top of that how do you know it's all girls or women doing the scoring? It's an incredibly small sample size. Also there is no way to control for age of the scorers. What some people find hot changes as they mature. Because you know, women don't all think exactly the same, for 100% of their lifetimes. So just there, your suggestions for "accurate" and "objective" scoring of who is "hot" is can't objective. Forget hundreds of years of cultural conditioning. Just because hot or not has numbers does not magically make things objective. (I will sometimes that is a problems with geeks. I do it myself.) That is just the tip of the iceberg.
I will say I am trying to explain things since I find most guys who comment and use this site are guys who are actually willing to listen and understand. (Several of the guys in the comment section have been awesome.) I am sorry if I come off as mean, I am just trying to explain since I have a feeling you aren't seeing how your suggestion is incredibly insulting.
So many scientists have tried to find some universal theory for hotness or attraction, and guess what, no one can find it because hotness is subjective. As one commenter called it the "pussy cheat code" does not exist. And no matter how many experiments you do, based on humiliating and insulting assumptions, you won't find it. No one can simply (or "scientifically") input X,Y and Z and get all the girls or guys they want. Because people are not exactly the same.
What the media says is hot is just a load of culturally conditioned crap. (Like People magazine and their sexiest Man alive thing. It's just bunch of magazine execs who trying to figure out which white guy they like has a new movie to promote. It's load of crap. I am a women and I don't read most women's magazines since they are a load of crap and do not reflect what women actually think.)
Even just saying it's a fun way to spend an afternoon is ..well … not nice. It won't be fun for those guys and certainly won't be fun for the women being experimented on, because they will figure it out and they will be annoyed and angry (at least). Being annoyed and angry at being treated like a lab rat (without permission no less), certainly skews the hotness factor.
Everything is subjective.
Some things are less subjective than others. We can say that girl A prefers tall, blonde, blue-eyed guys, but are we really going to pretend like she would be equally attracted to a tall, blonde, blue-eyed who has an athletic 165lb build and one who is obese? Remember that personality does NOT play a role in the initial approach. Women don't know ANYTHING about a guy besides a) how he looks, b) what signals he's sending out (body language), c) what he is saying. That's it. When you have to make a snap judgment like that, barring any creepy body language, it seems that the attractive guy is going to have more successful approaches, period. That means the attractive guy gets more shots to show off his personality, more chances to find people that appreciate that personality, etc.
Yeah, its culturally conditioned crap. I hate it that women don't give a lot of guys a chance because they see someone with a bit of belly and are repulsed.
Stop getting hung up on what website to use. The point was to get a range of opinions on the mens' appearance. It doesn't matter what the specifics are. Just get a rough idea of who is attractive, and who isn't. This doesn't need to be perfect data, just a general idea.
But it doesn't matter what I say, does it? You think I'm creepy because I posted something that I thought would be helpful. I thought that experiment would have made for one or two good future DNL posts, but NO, nothing I say is ever right! Its "incredibly insulting."
I'm not saying ANYTHING about trying to "find some universal theory for hotness!" I want more info on exactly what words should never come out of my mouth when approaching women, because I am not successful with getting anyone to go out with me.
How do you think the Doc learned what to say and what not to say, at least enough to write a blog about it? He went out and tried all of these things. He got the data.
I am doing something wrong. Nobody likes me. Do you have any fucking idea how hard it feels to have nobody to be with? And then of course even when I try to get help I get attacked. Great.
I love how I am being attacked for expressing a simple idea. God forbid I ask for some data to back up the claim that I agree with. I am not a misogynistic jerk. I AGREE WITH YOU AND THE DOCTOR!!!!!!
I need facts and figures and charts and data, polls and research before I come to a conclusion on anything. Its who I am. I am not a Republican for exactly this reason. I can't leave anything up to faith. I learned a long time ago not to trust anybody. Not when an ex-girlfriend left me on Saturday, then started dating (and making babies with) my then best friend on Sunday. Not when every political ad ran by one party contains lies, falsehoods, straw men, and other BS fallacies. Not when every single day I am bombarded with people who KNOW that some fictional character is living in the sky, and because some fictional character lives in the sky that I am a terrible person. Fuck. That.
Anything I am not certain about, I am uneasy about. I'd rather be the villain and know the truth than the happy idiot. Everyone else seems to know this stuff, since most people at my age is married or in a long term relationship. I'm losing friends to their girlfriends and wives. Its just me who is failing at dating.
"I can't leave anything up to faith. I learned a long time ago not to trust anybody."
So, technically, you do not know that 1 + 1 = 2, you do not know that you are a human being and you do not know that we live on planet Earth, and therefore you cannot believe that 1 + 1 = 2, or that you are a human being, or that we live on planet Earth.
Thing is, charts and data and polls and research are also not 100% guaranteed to be right. Even if the experiment you proposed went ahead and you managed to iron out all the kinks people pointed out earlier, the results of that experiment would not be guaranteed to give you the "correct" conclusion. If you can't have faith in stuff, then you can't have faith in the results of your experiment, and by your logic, would have to therefore completely disregard them.
What I'm getting at here is: some degree of faith and trust is required to be able to live in this world.
You're saying that you're trying to figure out what to say to women, and it's not about a universal theory of hotness, but then you keep going on about how attractive men do better and say things like "I hate it that women don't give a lot of guys a chance because they see someone with a bit of belly and are repulsed." Massive contradiction there.
Also, how hypocritical is that statement? You could say the same thing about men who don't give women a chance because of a bit of belly, it's not just one gender being superficial – plenty of people of BOTH genders are superficial.
Of course women are going to be more interested in a man that they find attractive, why on earth would you expect them to be interested in someone they don't find attractive? Would you have that same expectation of men? What we are trying to tell you is that different women find different things attractive. There is no overall general consensus that every single woman would find attractive – not all woman are interested in the athletic 165lb build. All of my friends and I have completely differing tastes in what we find attractive. And every single one of us would be completely turned off and horrified by a guy who said "Wow you have a nice ass" REGARDLESS of how good looking he was.
How this experiment is supposed to give you any kind of 'data' I have no idea. Unless you go up to each woman afterwards and actually ask her for her opinion on each guy, you would just be making your own assumptions after each interaction, which is what it sounds like you're already doing anyway. Making assumptions about women and completely ignoring the opinions of any woman willing to give you one. Maybe that's a reason right there as to why you're having trouble with women. Also, you sound incredibly bitter.
But hey, that's just an opinion.
I wasn't hung up on a website. You asked Becelec, why it's unscientific, I was just explaining why. You can't get "sound conclusions", "certainty" and "truth" with bad experimental design (let alone grant money to carry out the experiment).
A person can't have all the song and dance of an experiment and not care about how well the experiment was actually designed and carried out. That is not science. That is why the only thing that study by Satoshi Kanazawa demonstrated was that he was at the time, a racist bastard, since scientists could drive a truck through his design and methodology. He wasn't being scientific at all. He just manipulated actual data to support his racist assumption. He was trying to make his personal feelings appear "true" and "absolute", just to make himself feel better. Also a person can't "prove" a hypothesis only disprove it. Once a hypothesis get more supported through evidence they get called things like theories.
I never said you were personally creepy or that you were a misogynistic jerk. I was trying to explain some things you may not be seeing. I did say "This whole idea of an experiment appears based on the assumption that women as a gender are just unfair and are lying about how unfair they are. " but then I said:"I am sorry if I come off as mean, I am just trying to explain since I have a feeling you aren't seeing how your suggestion is incredibly insulting. "
"Aren't seeing" is not me saying you are creepy or misogynistic. I was explaining how it appears to some people and how you were not seeing that aspect of the suggestion.I have huge blind spots on certain subjects and issues myself.
I did say pretending to be christian was creepy, but you never said that you would actually pretend to be christian.
I am going to say here being cheated on does affect things for people. (I am not forgiving of cheaters myself.)
D'oh stupid computer. I only meant to post it once. Gah. Sorry everyone.
I think you have the wrong idea about Kanazawa's study and what he meant by "objective". See above.
I replied in another post. I will say I have not really looked into psychology, but even if "objective" is what others think of you in a psychological sense, other people looked at the same data and found different conclusions.
The original article by him is findable but I don't want to link it here. I did not see anywhere that Kanazawa mentioned anything about cultural perceptions. His conclusions or in some cases suggestions as to why people rated black women ugly did not mention that at all, and again another group looked at the data and did not find that people rated black women more or less ugly then average .
Here are 3 of his controversies and criticisms against him, in his wikipedia article.
People in Subsaharan Arica are unhealthy not because of poverty, but because they are stupid. Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kanazawa#Hea…
Notice a bit of a pattern of negative conclusions about black people? His opinions are totally affecting his work. I have seen these types before and deep down I just find they are racist jerks.
Sorry for derailing the topic.
I'm sorry you feel that way. We disagree on what constitutes "insulting," because all I am suggesting is talking to women in public places and keeping track of the results. I hope all women don't really think that just TALKING to them is so terrible.
No, a couple of women can't represent everyone, but getting reactions from 50 women in town is a more substantial form of feedback than listening to a few women who are posting on here. That's not an insult against you, but a fact that more data -> better conclusions.
Its insulting to think that attraction is some magical field that can't be studied, researched, or quantified. People come here because they want facts and strategies for getting dates. They want to know what to say and what not to say so that their chances for sparking a romantic connection are as high as possible for their situation. I merely suggested a way to get more data that would help guys do just that (i.e. "we found that 90% of the time when you say x, you get y reaction. Don't say x")
" "Who lies more often, men or women?" would work on NO one unless they have an IQ of 5."
It works very well actually. It's supposed to be a conversation starter that can get people sharing their opinions and experiences so you can have an interesting conversation. Basically they pick something that everyone has an opinion on that isn't divisive (like politics,race or religion) or relies on taste (like philosophy or music).
Er you don't think asking "Who lies more often, men or women?" is divisive? Right…
The point of a canned opener like “Who lies more?” or “the Jealous Girlfriend” isn't about an us vs. them confrontation, it's about getting a conversation started. An open-ended question like that, especially in an environment like a nightclub (where it's used the most often) is more likely to get a woman and her friends debating the matter, which then allows the approacher a conversational “in”. The point isn't the question, it's the opportunity to use it as a pivot to other topics (and frequently, more canned material).
Look I understand starters like "the Jealous Girlfriend", but openers like "Who lies more" is just a bit of a dick thing to say, and it makes you sound like a dick. And it does create a divisive "Us vs. them" mentality, even if it is subtle. It's starting a debate over which gender is inherently worse, which is just so stupid because gender has nothing to do with being a liar. I don't normally disagree with you Doc and I know that the point isn't the question, but in this case I think that this particular question is a pretty stupid one that continues to perpetuate the idea that women are the 'other' and somehow inherently different. And that just really pisses me off.
I like a lot of what was said in this post. Attractiveness and boundaries are fluid and complicated terms that change for the individual based on the situation they are in, their previous experiences, and how they perceive the present moment. There's no simple answer to why someone would be considered a creep and if a person is way off base for branding them that. I will say that an intentional creep is the worst kind (yes, they do exist) and that any normal person is going to be way less invested in trying not to hurt their feelings as they run the fuck away.
The only thing that wasn't touched upon in this post, well at least not entirely, is that sometimes the guy (or girl) is setting himself up for failure. Maybe subconsciously, but still. The same guys that like to bitch about girls having high standards and willing to deal with a little creepiness from a guy if he looks good enough are often the same guys that have ridiculous standards for women. They want a Megan Fox, Laura Croft, or Catwoman to hang on their every word and their arm. But yet, they blame their socially awkward nerd status and girl's superficial tastes on their failure. And yeah, I know looks are important to attraction, you can't help who you like, blah blah. Trust me, I know. I'm admittedly shallow, too. But it's a total bitch move, and one of the most annoying whines I hear from my friends, both guys and girls, that it's all society's fault for being so shallow and unwilling to consider the beauty within. Take for instance my friend, we'll call him Slaveboy for anonymity. He's super nice and sweet, willing to do anything for a girl even if he's basically her slave and she doesn't even throw him a simple thank you once in a while. And I feel bad for him because I myself have fallen pray to abusing the nice guy and falling for the douche. Sorry nice guys, it takes a few broken hearts and some growing up for us girls to get it sometimes. But then when we friends take pity on Slaveboy and try to set him up, he gets super picky. A totally sweet and cute girl is too flat chested, too fat, too short, too tall, too anything because she's not some perfect ideal. No offense, but Slaveboy and a lot of you fellow whiners have standards set up in nerd heaven where Wonder Woman is real, girls have topless pillow fights, and the guy with the best video game score/most comics/best Vader costume gets the most pussy. Welcome to real life, Slaveboy. Yes, you should be attracted to someone. But take it from a reforming shallow girl, looks really aren't everything. A hot guy can get suddenly ugly when he reveals a creepy fantasy at the worst moment while an okay-looking guy can suddenly become sexy when he takes in an interest in something you're passionate about. So maybe it's not just that the girl/guy you're hitting on is shallow and calling you a creep for no reason. Maybe you're shallow and missing the cutie who'd dig your socially awkward vibe. Why do I know? Because I've been there. I've often passed up the great guy who wasn't so cute at first but became a heart throb as I got to know him for the much better looking guy who soon became WAY uglier. But at least I own up to it and try to learn from it.
You can't just ignore the assholes. It's high-status women who do that, and women talk to each other. It is very very easy to get blackballed in a social circle over nothing. This takes nothing away from your main point — don't be creepy, learn about how to present yourself and to respect people's space. But you can't just write off bad female behavior like it doesn't matter. The idea that social awkwardness (in either gender) is not the same as creepiness needs to spread.
I love that this is all being said, finally–it's nice to see someone publicly recognizing that this is a real issue that needs to be dealt with. I will point out, however, that the guy who sits in the back of the class and never talks to ANYONE is a potential threat–interacting with other people is a normal part of life, it's what the majority of people do (and maybe this guy does interact with other people, but if we don't see it we can't know for sure). This leads to an instinctual recognition (most women don't even realize it) that this person is not "normal" and is therefore a potential threat. Is this fair to the awkward guy in the back of the room? No, it isn't. But it's also unfair that women even have to think about these things in the first place.
I’ve never done any of the "creepy behaviors" on here and I’ve been called creepy just for being ugly and minding my own business.
While it has been mentioned there are a few assholes who will say creepy for absolutely zero valid reasons (sometimes a guy has asperger for example and I could see why it'd get confused with creep (maybe it's your cases?), as it also been mentioned the vast majority of cases there's a very concrete and very legitimate reason why some guy gets (rightfully and appropriately) get called creepy. It has nothing to do with your ugliness or your lack of physical beauty.
Most likely you didn't respect her personal boundaries (again, it depends of the girl) that she sets for you. Ponder on why that happened (and maybe continue to happen) and learn to better respect the boundaries that women sets up for _YOU_.
OMG! Thank you sooo much for posting this! Yes, our boundaries changes depending on the people we're interacting with. It could be as little as a few centimeters (or less!
) when I'm interacted with the cute guy who I'm talking to on campus and it could be as much as "OMG this is my vital space: stay as far as possible away from it creep!" when I see this old geezer or creepy guy at the bookstore. Ultimately, it's important to realize it's the prerogative of the woman and no one can tell her how she should feel.
Creepy has nothing with attractiveness (or lack thereof) of the man/creep and everything to do with unwanted advances.