the creepy guy
Monday's xkcd comic really touched into a personal insecurity of mine; and judging from the xkcd forum discussion, I have quite a bit of company in this issue. I found it quite interesting that there were discussions on both camps on men that felt similarly paranoid about being outed as creepy, and girls assuring guys that short of unwelcome touching or hideously poor hygiene its really ok to approach women.
Riding around the metro myself I do try to be a friendly person. I genuinely don't try to hit on random strangers and infact I find it most difficult if I personally find the other person to be quite attractive. It's easier if I'm making friendly conversation with someone I feel relatively neutral about; but with someone really hot, I get paranoid and second guess my intentions. Something in my mind goes a bit like this.
"Wow she's really hot. I'd like to get to know her."
"You pig, all you want is to get in her pants."
"Well... that's not all I want, I think she's really interesting."
"Well get to know that part and ignore that part for now."
"That's not fair, that's part of the attraction too I can't just drop that under some pretension to be a gentlemen. That's lying and lying is a horrible way to start any relationship."
"Then you do just want to get in her pants after all...
Honestly, it goes on and on like that in my head with every attractive person I meet.
I wonder if nerds are the only ones paranoid about being creepy. I personally attribute it to not wanting to be either the creepy guy who obviously looks emotionally instable, or the jerk who is so aggressive they don't care about treating women like objects and even if they get rejected 19 times out of 20, there is still that one girl that goes for it anyway. This middle ground of acceptable behavior is difficult and even the borders of scale are problematic.
One, people are pretty forgiving of poor social skills. I always forget that. Most people don't have great charm themselves and are willing to accept a modicum of baggage and insecurities in others.
Two, I'm unjustly jealous of the jerk. I disapprove of the behavior, but deep down envy the attention it gets, even if it's purely out of frequency. This idea also treats women like objects in its own way, it takes the agency out of women and places them as merely victims of the ploys of jerks. People make their own choices, men or women, and more often than not they make poor ones and usually because of how they are inside and not through coercion.
But seriously, Rihanna, you are too beautiful, smart and talented to waste time on those losers. Why can't you give me the chance to show you what a true loving and supportive relationship is all about.