Sometime ago I came up with the formulation that "you're creepy" means "you're too focused on something that you want from me". It doesn't cover all the cases, but it gives a hint on how to avoid appearing creepy.
I think that's true. I think I'd formulate it more broadly as, "In our interaction, I'm vaguely aware that there's some sort of subtext that I don't understand, but is very important to you, or is even your main objective."
In the study, I'm glad that clowns are finally being called out!
There is a large class of "creepy" which covers men creeping on women. In that case your formulation is correct, but I would reword it as "you're too focused on something you want, my ass and cleavage for instance, that I am locked in competition with other young women to attract some cute guys--that's why we've left left them only scantily and barely clad--but that guy is not you and your leers make me feel self conscious."
Another big class of creepy which works in both gender directions but because men are more threatening (for size if no other reason like testosterone) perhaps seems more one way is, "you seem or are desperate for friendship so you over interpret every little thing I do as a genuine or encouraging bond between us and you overdo your reactions"
But I'm not sure what else people might want that would fall into the same category. Salespeople, for instance, can seem "oily" but not usually creepy.
First, I was responding not to either the study in question, nor to a question of harassment or stalking, I was trying to make sense of the formulation the PP made about somebody wanting something from somebody to see if I could square it with my experience in the world; I qualified what I said with "for instance", not "for all instances"
In terms of what I said, I'm actually not saying anything is anybody's "fault" nor that a transgression had transpired. I'm saying people interact as they have always done through history and some interactions are termed creepy by some of the parties. I was actually allowing for a sexually alluring woman to feel creeped by some attention but not all attention rather than saying it was her fault or that all interactions fit this mold. Of course individuals can be creepier than avg and individuals can be creeped more than avg, and if you get far enough from average it becomes excessive. I was simply testing the formulation that the PP suggested.
There are people with socialization issues (psychiatric) such that they frequently get termed creepy, and there are people who more frequently experience the feeling of being "creeped out". It's worthy of study.
In addition to being creeped out, other people such as yourself more frequently can experience feeling "shocked, shocked" and outraged.
My definition is related to yours, but is closer to the articles. FTA:
> It is our belief that creepiness is anxiety aroused by the ambiguity of whether there is something to fear or not
You mentioned:
> you're too focused on something you want, my ass and cleavage for instance
You can be focused on ass and cleavage, but not be creepy: eg, if you're honest and open that that's what you're looking for, and not trying to hide or be something you're not.
Creepiness occurs where that ambiguity exists: there's a discrepancy between someones evident intent and actions.
- If someone's trying to get you away from your friends, with a 'cool thing you need to see', but they clearly want to make out, it's creepy.
- If they say 'I think we should go somewhere and make out' it's less so.
A lot of creepiness comes from shy men who are afraid of rejection, other comes from shy men that understand, eg, that isolation makes people more likely to make out, but try and use subterfuge to make that happen.
yes, as I said in my other response to somebody else, I was not trying to explain the study, I was trying to test out the PP's suggestion about "somebody wanting something from somebody"
> You can be focused on ass and cleavage, but not be creepy: eg, if you're honest and open that that's what you're looking for, and not trying to hide or be something you're not.
I suppose that I believe the first part of your sentence, but I don't think that the second elaborates on it sufficiently. A guy who wore a sign saying "I am focussed on ass and cleavage!" and stared at those attributes of all women in the vicinity would, I think, still be creepy. (Maybe I am just using the word in a different sense.) I think that it is important to be open and honest about your intentions, but also to be willing to respect others' right to reject those intentions.
Oh yeah, totally. I think respecting other people is a given, but then again, maybe common sense isn't that common. I'm talking about someone who discusses making out after previous escalations have been welcomed.
I think it's interesting that you phrase things the way you do in your first paragraph. When I moved to California for college from a cold place, I was young and female. (Still female, less young now). Sometimes in southern California it gets very hot. A logical response to heat if you want to be outside is to wear a tank top. So sometimes I would wear a tank top. This would be interpreted as being "locked in competition with other young women to attract some cute guys" -- which was creepy to me, because it's putting a whole layer of sexual intent on wearing a tank top when it's 100 degrees that was not present in the clothing choice. This sexualized interpretation by random guys did increase the likelihood of encounters with high creepiness factors as described in the article.
It is really hard to find a tank top that doesn't show cleavage if you are a certain shape. Tank tops are not always about a struggle for cute young men: these boobs are stuck to the front of me no matter what I'm thinking or doing, and their presence is not a sign of interest.
This is exactly how I felt about my "sexualised interpretation" towards a lady in a similar situation -- I felt it was wrong on my part and I felt incredibly guilty about it and that I was a creep.
And then we found out that she was doing it deliberately: in chill winter she would wear an overcoat which came off in the lecture hall to reveal shorts and a tank top. Let us not even mention the labs. Also, She had begun a relationship with a friend of mine just so that he could do her assignments for her and generally be her flunky. When he realized this was her purpose, he managed to get out of it. So she moved on to a much, much smarter dude who had no problem with the nature of the relationship and openly took advantage of it. My friend went through mental trauma, which is totally understandable -- nerds do not EVER get to go out with women of this caliber, to us all it was some kind of miracle. As time passed, it emerged that she was also using the same approach on some profs. Of course she passed with flying grades and I am certain she is now vice-president of something or the other and having an increasingly comfortable life.
This is not meant it any way as an accusation against any particular sex or stereotype. In this sort of a situation is there a measurement of creepiness that applies? Who is the creep?
People can decide that someone 20 ft away from them is "creepy" without ever even interacting. I think it's much more broad, closer to "you make me uncomfortable in a way I choose not to analyze". It can sometimes be a really unfair reaction to a totally innocuous person's appearance, sadly.
edit: I'm legitimately asking. One of the things which stuck with me after reading "The Gift of Fear" is that people rarely get 'weird feelings' for no reason. If you're not interacting with somebody and they're still creeping you out, that's a sign that something is wrong. Pay attention to that feeling and get out of that situation, even if it means being rude.
Once you're out of that situation, you can certainly take time to think about "wait, why did that guy creep me out so much?". Maybe once you reflect on it, you'll say "He was way too fixated on that one woman struggling to put her groceries in the trunk of her car" or "He came up behind me on the stairs, but I never heard the door of the apartment building open after I came in, and that means he was probably waiting inside for me to pass him". Maybe you'll realize "oh, I was just being silly and there wasn't anything weird going on at all".
But think about it. What's the worst case scenario of paying attention to that feeling? You rudely brushed off somebody you don't know, didn't interact with, and will never see again. It's a bummer for them, and maybe they'll go home and tell their significant other a story about this one jerk they bumped into in the stairway today.
What's the worst case of ignoring that feeling because you don't want to be rude, or you think you're being unfair? The worst case is that you will get killed. The calculus on that is pretty easy for me.
Besides being paranoid/insecure, it is placing responsibility for your own negative emotions on, in this example, an innocuous stranger. Only you are responsible for your own happiness.
There's also attractiveness as an input factor, at least if the person branding someone 'creepy' is shallow or superficial.
That's an interesting formulation. It sounds like a sort of uncanny valley of being "valued."
I'm a little wary of the term -- I think it's over deployed as a form of social violence -- but there's no denying that what you're describing happens and is pretty uncomfortable.
I think the key word in your definition is "too" but I'd add more specificity to it: "you want something from me, which I'm not interested in giving you, and you're not reacting to my negative cues by backing off."
This may still be too general, as there are plenty of scenarios where this would connote "annoying" rather than "creepy," like with a persistent salesperson.
Perhaps it could be more accurate yet by adding "and I'm worried you may try to take it against my will, and have a chance of succeeding." to the end. That would cover, for example, noticing some masked figure sneaking toward your house with a crowbar.
That's just persistence though. Creepiness takes it to another level: it implies discomfort and fear/anxiety for one's safety/wellbeing. Stalkers are creepy. Overeager salespeople aren't.
That would certainly be part of it. Rejecting being the signalling mechanism that the second party uses to communicate their lack of interest to the first party.
A flirter who flirts with me and makes it clear it's all in good fun, there's no pressure for more, if I need to go catch a bus I'm not an unfeeling b*^%$, if I don't feel like smiling/flirting it's ok; a flirter who makes me feel confident he's not going to call me names in public or follow me around for a week due to a pleasant interaction -- not creepy.
A flirter who keeps pressing on despite signs of discomfort, who doesn't leave me alone, who tries to imply I owe him something, who starts making grand plans for the future based on a few sentences interaction, who calls me names if I have to catch the bus -- creepy. These are all a little unpredictable (smiling conversation at a bar with a stranger, "Gotta go -- nice to chat!", sudden eruption of debasing language, for instance) as well as having high scores for other creepy factors identified in the paper.
A little test for yourself: flirt for enjoyment and then walk away with no expectation of ever talking to the person again. Can you do it? Practiced non-creepy flirters can do this well.
I think creepyness has to relate to some perceived threat.
Example: in horror films, children can be super creepy, because there is a hint of supernatural threat. But in real life? Never, because they pose no threat.
Too focussed on something is only a symptom, the real feeling comes from fear that the individual is unstable or will go to extreme lengths to get what they seem to want. To avoid appearing creepy you need to understand what sort of fears people might have. The exact same interaction may be 10x creepier in an empty car park than a busy office floor. Sometimes the fears may be unwarranted or unfair, of course.
Idk, my dogs seem to like java and lisp on their bigger projects. Then again they are known to be the worst at creating memory leaks whenever they hack C.
Garbage collection doesn't seem especially alarming to most of us because it's institutionalized, but "rag men" and "garbage pickers" are still seen as quite creepy because they're individuals taking possessions we identify with. The decision to throw something away doesn't sever it from our identity, especially with old clothes and personal effects.
Of course, the dog effect may be more about theft than identity, because they have no real way to differentiate "taking unwanted objects" from "taking valued objects" - after all, that garbage smelled delicious to them!
Well yes, since the paper implies that creepiness boils down to unpredictable potential threat, garbage collection is very creepy. Reference counting is not creepy, though.
Reference counting pauses can actually be worse. Reference counting and tracing are duals, and only collectors that exploit properties of both avoid the worst case complexity of each. Alone they each have just as bad worst cases, just in dual scenarios.
Interestingly the paper does not consider physical attractiveness as a factor, other than (indirectly) "has very pale skin" (.566), despite considering a separate "Appearance/
NV" variable.
It's not necessarily the lack of physical attractiveness that's a problem -- more so the lack of social awareness in exhibiting such "high status" behaviors as a "low-status" person, as mentioned in the paper ("People who follow social rules of behavior are not perceived as creepy").
It's more socially acceptable for unattractive yet wealthy/high-status people to perform such behaviors, as this can be explained by considering them "eccentric" or "confident" rather than "weird" or "creepy".
Perhaps. If for the sake of the argument there is such a sliding scale, maybe attractiveness should also be a factor. Attractiveness is more than just "physical attractiveness", and by definition pretty much excludes creepiness.
Not to imply that people who are considered attractive can't be creepy -- but they do get more leeway.
I could be misunderstanding the data due to my pre-work skimming of the article, but looking at a variety of the variables they expose, it seems like many of the highly weighted creepiness factors _do_ align with appearance in absence of action. Greasy hair? Overly thin/pale?
I can understand that some people may consider your parent's comment as looking for excuses/being overly snide/something or other, but it's certainly worth consideration, especially for me in that my anecdotal bayesian prior certainly echoes the sentiment of "appearance buys you breathing room". (As I got older and started caring about my appearance more, I observed my equally nerdy (behaviorally) friends get treated diametrically differently than I was when I KNEW we acted nearly identically after decades together)
Something categorised as one thing, but with traits of another, in this case "high-status"/"low-status" vs "human"/"non-human".
Problem is, while Human-like is a bit more universal, status is very subjective and cultural. Maybe it's better to focus on the feeling of creepiness, as a possible reflection of your/ones own cognitive dissonance, than the objective "creepiness" of an object.
I think there's an element of this that the study doesn't consider. I once asked a girlfriend of mine what would be her reaction to a man she was dancing with in a club who seemed to be getting an erection. She said, if she were attracted to him, she'd be aroused and excited; if she were not attracted to him, she'd be creeped out.
Yeah, that's a popular view. I don't think it's the whole story though.
Have you seen the film "Nightcrawler"? It has an incredible scene where the protagonist manages to come off as creepy toward another man who's bigger and more confident than him, while asking him for a job. That scene made me realize that creepiness isn't always about attractiveness.
I'd argue that the issue isn't in the broad "behaviours" you're talking about - it's in your body language. Attractive people, overall, are unlikely to worry about whether any single interaction is going to go well - and when they are focused on it going well, they can and do come across as creepy.
People who are less attractive are possibly more likely to attempt to emulate those broad behaviours, but with much more invested in whether any interaction goes well. This comes out really obviously in body language and people don't like that - I owe you nothing, and you're acting like I do.
Attractive, in both sentences above, does not solely mean "physically attractive". Additionally, I don't participate in the hookup scene, and it's possibly very likely that physical attractiveness is much more necessary there than in dating.
There are behaviors that are definitely creepy and should be avoided. People are willing to overlook them if they find the person attractive. That doesn't change the fact that it's best to avoid those behaviors, and that you can simultaneously be unattractive, non-creepy, and successful in social situations.
It's unfair in the way that unattractiveness is always unfair--no matter what you do, you're judged by a much harsher standard than anyone else, and people desperately want to diminish that reality so they can continue to believe in just world fallacies and retain a sense of control about what happens to them. But in the end there's only two ways to respond: understandably bitter anger at the unfairness of the world, or getting over it. Neither will fix the world, but one will make you happy.
> There are behaviors that are definitely creepy and should be avoided. People are willing to overlook them if they find the person attractive. That doesn't change the fact that it's best to avoid those behaviors
That isn't what people are talking about. Girls welcome being hit on by guys they find attractive. They hate it from guys they don't find attractive. It's not that the attractive person is doing something they'd be better off not doing but their attractiveness overcomes it, it's that the same behavior is good when an attractive person does it and bad when an unattractive person does it.
How does one get over it? I just can't do it. I still have a vengeful hatred of the world and I'm pushing 40. I'm fairly certain that it's this that creeps people out in my case as I'm a solid 8 out of 10 in attractiveness.
just as a counterargument to the "unfairness of unattractiveness"... that attractiveness is desirable isn't "unfair", it's just the definition of attractiveness. If physical attractiveness didn't matter, "overall losers" (by whatever definition) would complain that wealth, intelligence, charm, IQ, education, social class, or whatever else shouldn't matter either.
It just seem like people are demanding a world where we'd all just screw whoever we bumped into, or nobody or... what, decide it by the roll of a 20 sided die?
That we have attractiveness might be seen as an interesting thing, like we have delicious foods and beautiful art. Of course, nobody wants to lose on any score, but people do like winning, and winning by its nature creates losers.
That's really not a great counterpoint. If you're 5'2" and you try to play basketball the same way Dwight Howard or Shaq does, you're going to have a bad time.
"The same way" like having good technique and being athletic? They may suck at blocking and passing, but they may rock at shooting, stealing and dribbling technique. The argument simplifies too much and draws conclusions that make no sense given other factors. Apples vs oranges.
Ugly people are just ugly. They aren't inherently creepy. Lots of ugly people are very pleasant and nice to be around, you just wouldn't want to fuck them. And lots of attractive people are creepy as hell.
Scenario I: While inspecting products, an engineering contractor out of blue tells a female customer rep that his parents installed a new bubble bath in their summer house. He is free to use it with his friends anytime. It's the first time he meets this rep.
Scenario II: A male student with a stone face tells a female TA he wished she wasn't married. Then does his best to get assigned for her supervision to any lab work or assignment.
(I'm male and was witness to both)
Q1: do you find those behaviours creepy?
Q2: if so, would you think attractiveness makes any of that feel normal?
A2: No, attractiveness would not make either interaction feel normal. In the first scenario a complete stranger in a business interaction is hitting on someone. Not just light flirting but implicitly inviting the person over to their house. Creepy even if the creep is attractive. In the second scenario the student is exhibiting deviant behavior by making a sexual advance on a married person. After that he tries to maximize forced contact with the TA, again, creepy no matter what you look like.
Since you mentioned witnessing creepiness: When you watched these scenarios play out, did you get creeped out yourself? I ask because I'm a man and the most I've ever felt creeped out would be when I was witness to an interaction a classmate of mine, a woman, had. Vicarious discomfort, if you will.
Yes, women realistically do experience a lot more sexual violence than men, so it is not an unfounded worry; but as ordinary and normal and safe reproductive courtship entails a lot more approaches to women, the physically smaller nurturing gender, by men, the larger more aggressive hunting gender, such examples of deviant and opportunistic sexual violence can be seen to "come with the territory" of our evolutionary history. It's nice to imagine that we as a social species could have evolved past this, but in studying our history on the scale of hundreds of years rather than evolutionary scales of thousands of years, and in studying works of scholarship such as the Selfish Gene by Dawkins, one may not be at all surprised that we are where we are, but perhaps by continuing to educate one another we can takes steps to make all people feel, and more importantly be, safer.
The reason I felt it necessary to add the "context" to your statement is that our world consists of many many interacting postitive and negative stochastic processes, and when we look at a simple "violence" statistic it might seem "oh, this is terrible, we must stop this" when in fact things are much more complex than that.
nobody is excusing it at all. But you are dreaming if you think you are going to stop it cold turkey along with you stopping shoplifting, child abuse, elder abuse, car accidents, bank fraud, armed robbery, etc. Those things are also biologically determined, they simply don't involve the reproductive function directly which seems to make you ... more optimistic? more outraged?
Actually, BTW, I have read (but not looked up myself) that if we count prison rape, men actually experience more sexual violence than women, so that part of the above formulation should perhaps be changed. And in terms of child abuse including to the point of murder, women perpetrate more of it than men do, so there is some value in looking at these issues from the point of view of "strong vs. weak + opportunity" biology rather than "gender".
But you are correct, violence between humans is for the most part a very bad thing, and I too would like to see it reduced as quickly as possible regardless of the cause.
Of course, and they should be wary and protect themselves at all times. I know, because as a man, I'm likely to experience a lot more (non-sexual) violence than women!
However, the problem is that it's not behaviour that's branded "creepy", it's the person; the same behaviour done by another, more attractive male wouldn't be branded as "creepy", so clearly their worries are unfairly biased.
"Everything that we found in this study is consistent with the
notion that the perception of creepiness is a response to the am-
biguity of threat. ... We are placed on our guard by people who touch us or exhibit non-normative nonverbal behavior, or those who are drawn to occupations that reflect a fascination with death or unusual sexual behavior. People who have hobbies that involve collecting things that we are predisposed as a species to fear such as spiders or snakes,
or things that can only be acquired after something has died (e.g.,
skulls or bodies to be stuffed) seem creepy to us as well. We are also wary of individuals who have a preoccupation with monitoring the
activity of others.
"While they may not be overtly threatening, individuals who
display unusual patterns of nonverbal behavior, odd emotional responses, or highly
distinctive physical characteristics are outside of the norm, and by
definition unpredictable."
Though not quite the same topic, I do think the NSA could be considered creepy, and the definition of creepy should reflect that. A creep's interest doesn't necessarily have to be sexual.
I believe there is an age when confidence is created. Teenage years. You carry that status the rest of your life. Even if you are successful later in life, you still feel a bit like an impostor. (see impostor syndrome) And it shows in your personality.
This is really interesting in light of the studies suggesting that tall people are more successful.
Those results almost always claim that it's an externally mediated result (i.e. that we respect tall people more because they're tall). This would suggest that it might be an internally mediated result (i.e. that tall people are more confident). That would make a lot of sense to me, since we tend to be more acutely aware of our own height than other's heigh.
Or just inject your kid with growth hormone - it's one of the primary determiners of human height.
Of course, physicians will only prescribe it if it's deemed medically necessary, i.e. your kid is way at the bottom of the height percentiles. "Not tall enough to be a CEO" isn't considered a medical condition.
It could also be a feedback loop. Tall people are more successful because they are more respected/confident because they are more successful... So if the ongoing function is self-sustaining, that would make the question, what's the original impetus?
> But height at age 16 makes all the difference in the world.
I was done growing at age 16. So if you accept that current height can affect wages, then this statement seems trivial (at least to me, with my growth pattern...)
Interesting paper and... well, expected conclusions. One thing that makes me skeptic about the entire work is that they use different p-value levels for each hypothesis, which is bad practice. The entire meaning of the p-value is to compare it with a previously decided threshold to be sure to limit the type 1 error rate
Not true at all. It's entirely possible for an attractive person to be creepy, and certainly for an unattractive person to not be creepy. Though I suppose the creepiness itself doesn't exactly make you attractive either, so in that way it could be a self-fulfilling prophesy or even a tautology.
But it's definitely not about looks. It's about behaviour.
Every good rule has an exception.
Also it can definitely be about looks or the person, as opposed to behaviour. Really comes down to how shallow the alleged-victim is.
I'm going to drop this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0 and yes it's kind of a novelty song but maybe it'll help some of the people in this thread realize "hey maybe I shouldn't do that."
Careful. Anything that calls creepiness anything but arbitrary -and especially those that say it originates in the one being called creepy- is bound to draw the ire of the bitter untouchables (even though this only provides more evidence for the claims the research makes). I applaud the people brave enough to publish such research anyway.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 239 ms ] threadIn the study, I'm glad that clowns are finally being called out!
Another big class of creepy which works in both gender directions but because men are more threatening (for size if no other reason like testosterone) perhaps seems more one way is, "you seem or are desperate for friendship so you over interpret every little thing I do as a genuine or encouraging bond between us and you overdo your reactions"
But I'm not sure what else people might want that would fall into the same category. Salespeople, for instance, can seem "oily" but not usually creepy.
You think it's women's fault when they get 'Hey MILF,wanna meet after work?' comments?
In terms of what I said, I'm actually not saying anything is anybody's "fault" nor that a transgression had transpired. I'm saying people interact as they have always done through history and some interactions are termed creepy by some of the parties. I was actually allowing for a sexually alluring woman to feel creeped by some attention but not all attention rather than saying it was her fault or that all interactions fit this mold. Of course individuals can be creepier than avg and individuals can be creeped more than avg, and if you get far enough from average it becomes excessive. I was simply testing the formulation that the PP suggested.
There are people with socialization issues (psychiatric) such that they frequently get termed creepy, and there are people who more frequently experience the feeling of being "creeped out". It's worthy of study.
In addition to being creeped out, other people such as yourself more frequently can experience feeling "shocked, shocked" and outraged.
> It is our belief that creepiness is anxiety aroused by the ambiguity of whether there is something to fear or not
You mentioned:
> you're too focused on something you want, my ass and cleavage for instance
You can be focused on ass and cleavage, but not be creepy: eg, if you're honest and open that that's what you're looking for, and not trying to hide or be something you're not.
Creepiness occurs where that ambiguity exists: there's a discrepancy between someones evident intent and actions.
- If someone's trying to get you away from your friends, with a 'cool thing you need to see', but they clearly want to make out, it's creepy.
- If they say 'I think we should go somewhere and make out' it's less so.
A lot of creepiness comes from shy men who are afraid of rejection, other comes from shy men that understand, eg, that isolation makes people more likely to make out, but try and use subterfuge to make that happen.
I suppose that I believe the first part of your sentence, but I don't think that the second elaborates on it sufficiently. A guy who wore a sign saying "I am focussed on ass and cleavage!" and stared at those attributes of all women in the vicinity would, I think, still be creepy. (Maybe I am just using the word in a different sense.) I think that it is important to be open and honest about your intentions, but also to be willing to respect others' right to reject those intentions.
It is really hard to find a tank top that doesn't show cleavage if you are a certain shape. Tank tops are not always about a struggle for cute young men: these boobs are stuck to the front of me no matter what I'm thinking or doing, and their presence is not a sign of interest.
To assume otherwise causes creepiness.
This is exactly how I felt about my "sexualised interpretation" towards a lady in a similar situation -- I felt it was wrong on my part and I felt incredibly guilty about it and that I was a creep.
And then we found out that she was doing it deliberately: in chill winter she would wear an overcoat which came off in the lecture hall to reveal shorts and a tank top. Let us not even mention the labs. Also, She had begun a relationship with a friend of mine just so that he could do her assignments for her and generally be her flunky. When he realized this was her purpose, he managed to get out of it. So she moved on to a much, much smarter dude who had no problem with the nature of the relationship and openly took advantage of it. My friend went through mental trauma, which is totally understandable -- nerds do not EVER get to go out with women of this caliber, to us all it was some kind of miracle. As time passed, it emerged that she was also using the same approach on some profs. Of course she passed with flying grades and I am certain she is now vice-president of something or the other and having an increasingly comfortable life.
This is not meant it any way as an accusation against any particular sex or stereotype. In this sort of a situation is there a measurement of creepiness that applies? Who is the creep?
edit: I'm legitimately asking. One of the things which stuck with me after reading "The Gift of Fear" is that people rarely get 'weird feelings' for no reason. If you're not interacting with somebody and they're still creeping you out, that's a sign that something is wrong. Pay attention to that feeling and get out of that situation, even if it means being rude.
Once you're out of that situation, you can certainly take time to think about "wait, why did that guy creep me out so much?". Maybe once you reflect on it, you'll say "He was way too fixated on that one woman struggling to put her groceries in the trunk of her car" or "He came up behind me on the stairs, but I never heard the door of the apartment building open after I came in, and that means he was probably waiting inside for me to pass him". Maybe you'll realize "oh, I was just being silly and there wasn't anything weird going on at all".
But think about it. What's the worst case scenario of paying attention to that feeling? You rudely brushed off somebody you don't know, didn't interact with, and will never see again. It's a bummer for them, and maybe they'll go home and tell their significant other a story about this one jerk they bumped into in the stairway today.
What's the worst case of ignoring that feeling because you don't want to be rude, or you think you're being unfair? The worst case is that you will get killed. The calculus on that is pretty easy for me.
There's also attractiveness as an input factor, at least if the person branding someone 'creepy' is shallow or superficial.
I'm a little wary of the term -- I think it's over deployed as a form of social violence -- but there's no denying that what you're describing happens and is pretty uncomfortable.
This may still be too general, as there are plenty of scenarios where this would connote "annoying" rather than "creepy," like with a persistent salesperson.
Perhaps it could be more accurate yet by adding "and I'm worried you may try to take it against my will, and have a chance of succeeding." to the end. That would cover, for example, noticing some masked figure sneaking toward your house with a crowbar.
EDIT: Although, I just realized I forgot to take out an unfinished sentence that was seemingly contradictory.
One of the takeways is that the line between "cute flirting" and "creepy stalking" is if the other person is interested in you.
A flirter who flirts with me and makes it clear it's all in good fun, there's no pressure for more, if I need to go catch a bus I'm not an unfeeling b*^%$, if I don't feel like smiling/flirting it's ok; a flirter who makes me feel confident he's not going to call me names in public or follow me around for a week due to a pleasant interaction -- not creepy.
A flirter who keeps pressing on despite signs of discomfort, who doesn't leave me alone, who tries to imply I owe him something, who starts making grand plans for the future based on a few sentences interaction, who calls me names if I have to catch the bus -- creepy. These are all a little unpredictable (smiling conversation at a bar with a stranger, "Gotta go -- nice to chat!", sudden eruption of debasing language, for instance) as well as having high scores for other creepy factors identified in the paper.
A little test for yourself: flirt for enjoyment and then walk away with no expectation of ever talking to the person again. Can you do it? Practiced non-creepy flirters can do this well.
Example: in horror films, children can be super creepy, because there is a hint of supernatural threat. But in real life? Never, because they pose no threat.
Too focussed on something is only a symptom, the real feeling comes from fear that the individual is unstable or will go to extreme lengths to get what they seem to want. To avoid appearing creepy you need to understand what sort of fears people might have. The exact same interaction may be 10x creepier in an empty car park than a busy office floor. Sometimes the fears may be unwarranted or unfair, of course.
Also garbage collectors. Very creepy not to manage memory manually.
Garbage collection doesn't seem especially alarming to most of us because it's institutionalized, but "rag men" and "garbage pickers" are still seen as quite creepy because they're individuals taking possessions we identify with. The decision to throw something away doesn't sever it from our identity, especially with old clothes and personal effects.
Of course, the dog effect may be more about theft than identity, because they have no real way to differentiate "taking unwanted objects" from "taking valued objects" - after all, that garbage smelled delicious to them!
1.) Be unattractive.
2.) Perform the same behaviors that attractive people do.
3.) Goto 1
It's more socially acceptable for unattractive yet wealthy/high-status people to perform such behaviors, as this can be explained by considering them "eccentric" or "confident" rather than "weird" or "creepy".
Not to imply that people who are considered attractive can't be creepy -- but they do get more leeway.
I can understand that some people may consider your parent's comment as looking for excuses/being overly snide/something or other, but it's certainly worth consideration, especially for me in that my anecdotal bayesian prior certainly echoes the sentiment of "appearance buys you breathing room". (As I got older and started caring about my appearance more, I observed my equally nerdy (behaviorally) friends get treated diametrically differently than I was when I KNEW we acted nearly identically after decades together)
Something categorised as one thing, but with traits of another, in this case "high-status"/"low-status" vs "human"/"non-human".
Problem is, while Human-like is a bit more universal, status is very subjective and cultural. Maybe it's better to focus on the feeling of creepiness, as a possible reflection of your/ones own cognitive dissonance, than the objective "creepiness" of an object.
Have you seen the film "Nightcrawler"? It has an incredible scene where the protagonist manages to come off as creepy toward another man who's bigger and more confident than him, while asking him for a job. That scene made me realize that creepiness isn't always about attractiveness.
People who are less attractive are possibly more likely to attempt to emulate those broad behaviours, but with much more invested in whether any interaction goes well. This comes out really obviously in body language and people don't like that - I owe you nothing, and you're acting like I do.
Attractive, in both sentences above, does not solely mean "physically attractive". Additionally, I don't participate in the hookup scene, and it's possibly very likely that physical attractiveness is much more necessary there than in dating.
It's unfair in the way that unattractiveness is always unfair--no matter what you do, you're judged by a much harsher standard than anyone else, and people desperately want to diminish that reality so they can continue to believe in just world fallacies and retain a sense of control about what happens to them. But in the end there's only two ways to respond: understandably bitter anger at the unfairness of the world, or getting over it. Neither will fix the world, but one will make you happy.
That isn't what people are talking about. Girls welcome being hit on by guys they find attractive. They hate it from guys they don't find attractive. It's not that the attractive person is doing something they'd be better off not doing but their attractiveness overcomes it, it's that the same behavior is good when an attractive person does it and bad when an unattractive person does it.
Just look at your sibling comment -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11706332
That attractive folks get mostly a free pass to circumvent that doesn't change the protocol.
It just seem like people are demanding a world where we'd all just screw whoever we bumped into, or nobody or... what, decide it by the roll of a 20 sided die?
That we have attractiveness might be seen as an interesting thing, like we have delicious foods and beautiful art. Of course, nobody wants to lose on any score, but people do like winning, and winning by its nature creates losers.
1) Be short.
2) Perform the same behaviors as tall people.
3) Goto 1
....Do you see how this logic doesn't hold up to scrutiny?
Ugly people are just ugly. They aren't inherently creepy. Lots of ugly people are very pleasant and nice to be around, you just wouldn't want to fuck them. And lots of attractive people are creepy as hell.
In contrast, being perceived as creepy and unattractive is a great way to be socially isolated and depressed your whole life.
Scenario II: A male student with a stone face tells a female TA he wished she wasn't married. Then does his best to get assigned for her supervision to any lab work or assignment.
(I'm male and was witness to both)
Q1: do you find those behaviours creepy?
Q2: if so, would you think attractiveness makes any of that feel normal?
A2: No, attractiveness would not make either interaction feel normal. In the first scenario a complete stranger in a business interaction is hitting on someone. Not just light flirting but implicitly inviting the person over to their house. Creepy even if the creep is attractive. In the second scenario the student is exhibiting deviant behavior by making a sexual advance on a married person. After that he tries to maximize forced contact with the TA, again, creepy no matter what you look like.
Since you mentioned witnessing creepiness: When you watched these scenarios play out, did you get creeped out yourself? I ask because I'm a man and the most I've ever felt creeped out would be when I was witness to an interaction a classmate of mine, a woman, had. Vicarious discomfort, if you will.
The difference I think is I wasn't on the receiving side of it. If some stranger invited me to a bubble bath I'd probably be creeped out too.
This appears to just be another one of those, largely undefined, vaguely sexist, insults - like "bitchiness".
The reason I felt it necessary to add the "context" to your statement is that our world consists of many many interacting postitive and negative stochastic processes, and when we look at a simple "violence" statistic it might seem "oh, this is terrible, we must stop this" when in fact things are much more complex than that.
It doesn't matter why is exists, and even if we believe the stuck-at-13-years simpleton you're quoting, an explanation is not an excuse.
Actually, BTW, I have read (but not looked up myself) that if we count prison rape, men actually experience more sexual violence than women, so that part of the above formulation should perhaps be changed. And in terms of child abuse including to the point of murder, women perpetrate more of it than men do, so there is some value in looking at these issues from the point of view of "strong vs. weak + opportunity" biology rather than "gender".
But you are correct, violence between humans is for the most part a very bad thing, and I too would like to see it reduced as quickly as possible regardless of the cause.
I do think evo-psych tells us a lot more about human nature than we sometimes want to admit.
However, the problem is that it's not behaviour that's branded "creepy", it's the person; the same behaviour done by another, more attractive male wouldn't be branded as "creepy", so clearly their worries are unfairly biased.
"While they may not be overtly threatening, individuals who display unusual patterns of nonverbal behavior, odd emotional responses, or highly distinctive physical characteristics are outside of the norm, and by definition unpredictable."
The fucking NSA for example.
This makes me wonder, are we all destined to become creeps?
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2002/0... "Height at age 7 or 11 turns out to have no impact at all on future wages. But height at age 16 makes all the difference in the world."
Those results almost always claim that it's an externally mediated result (i.e. that we respect tall people more because they're tall). This would suggest that it might be an internally mediated result (i.e. that tall people are more confident). That would make a lot of sense to me, since we tend to be more acutely aware of our own height than other's heigh.
If you are a rich parent and your kid is too small, just buy him classmates that are even smaller :)
Of course, physicians will only prescribe it if it's deemed medically necessary, i.e. your kid is way at the bottom of the height percentiles. "Not tall enough to be a CEO" isn't considered a medical condition.
I was done growing at age 16. So if you accept that current height can affect wages, then this statement seems trivial (at least to me, with my growth pattern...)
Good luck getting any acknowledgement of this from the current PC, minority-lgbt-feminism-excuses-everything culture.
But it's definitely not about looks. It's about behaviour.
I think knowing how to make people feel comfortable around you is success 101.