Has anyone recommended The Gift of Fear yet in this thread? I know it gets recommended a lot on the Dope, but it’s a quick read and pretty damned useful. The author talks quite a bit about assessing threats, and how a ‘hunch’ is often the way people describe observations they’ve made without realizing it (e.g. someone who’s attacked might recall later that they felt something was ‘off’ about a guy, but not know why, until they realize he said he was looking for his lost dog but didn’t describe it or have any posters or anything).
Also, funnily enough, his Pre-Incident Indicators read like the table of contents in a pick-up artist manual.
Those indicators are supposed to be indicative of impending violence. They’re the kind of things a man would say to you while he’s trying to corner you in a private place and victimize you. They don’t really apply to a guy at the gym who’s acting “weird.”
OK, I’ve read ‘Blink’, only a month or two ago. Sadly I don’t have it to hand but I remember a fair bit.
It is about how a ‘snap judgement’ is often as good or better than a considered evaluation of the situation. And this is indeed backed-up with some interesting studies.
However, it also says that your judgement has to be calibrated. It’s not a super-power, it’s just a quicker way of using what you already know about and avoiding the distraction of over thinking something. If you know nothing about art forgeries (say) then your snap judgement about a piece of art will meaningless.
Before you trust your gut you need to know that your gut is generally right, but the problem here is confirmation bias, you might think you’re normally right about someone being ‘creepy’ but perhaps you judge 50% of people as creepy but only remember the 10% you got right. You’re still out by 4:1.
Which is not to say people shouldn’t follow their intuition, a few times I’ve been wandering down a street after dark, felt odd and thought – nope I’ll find another way. I’ve no evidence if I avoided anything, maybe I’m simply paranoid and missed a short-cut home.
Gut feelings are important, but they’re not a super-power. But I’m not going to tell you how to live your life as long as you return the favour.
As to the original OP, dude sounded weird but without actually seeing the behaviour there’s no way I’d put it in creepy. I know some socially inept people (and I’m not great myself) and I know they creep people out just because they’re not quite fitting in with the social norms. Which is a shame, because they’re good people.
And no one, any where, in either thread, made the slightest suggestion that they were.
I, personally don’t understand peoples inclination to judge this guys actions from a description of them. It seems self evident to me that, unless you witnessed the behaviour, you cannot possibly know enough nuance to judge whether they were something as vague as ‘creepy’ or ‘off’. For me, personally, that she sensed something, had a hunch, intuition, whatever you want to call it, was enough to warrant something as innocuous as speaking to someone about feeling uncomfortable.
Should the management know him better and see it as social ineptitude, and think she’s a big ole busy body, so what?
Shit storm ensued because I was more inclined to go with her intuition, than to stand in cold hard judgment of actions I did not witness, and could not possibly hope to interpret effectively.
Anyone who uses the phrase “spidey-sense” is making a direct reference to a superpower. Deliberately, I assume, to imply that this guesswork is better than a considered analysis. Ahich it isn’t, and can never be.
Put simply, you do not have the right to go on your instincts in opposition to observable facts when it could affect someone else’s life. Whether or not you think your instincts are comparable to comic book superpowers.
I dont think its so much being argued to be superior, as that its sometimes OK to act on it when the situation is somewhat ambiguous, and its done with the awareness that it could be incorrect.
As in I dont see it as all that problematic to describe to management the facts as described, and to say ‘it just seemed a bit creepy, but I could be reading too much into it’.
If you do, thats fair enough I guess, I dont see this as something that really needs agreement, people will make different calls, depending on whose risk they’re focussing most on, ie the people potentially being harassed vs the person potentially being pointed out.
Where does this repeated idea come from that higher ups in this chain of reporting/decision making are going to be adequate evaluators of the reality of the situation? You seem to keep suggesting that its okay for the miscalibrated creep-intuiter to make the report because if it’s wrong it will get sorted out in the wash.
All the management of the gym will know is that someone made a report about someone else being creepy and following girls around (even when that is a misrepresentation of the original event). They’re in no position to re-evaluate the matter. Instead, they are in a position of deciding whether to respond to the squeaky wheel and prevent the perception from spreading that they facilitate skeevy guys stalking girls. From a cost benefit perspective, it’s not in their interest at all to either investigate further or to give the guy the benefit of the doubt at all.
Now, re-read the original thread, and imagine that Weedy sidles up to elbows on the elliptical machines and tells her story. elbows has the reaction evident here, and tells Diosabellisima and heatmiserfl, and suddenly from the same single potentially misperceived event, management is getting multiple complaints about a guy stalking women and setting of spidey senses everywhere. it’s even less in their interest to treat the matter in an impartial and fair manner, even though all the innocent reporters are doing is letting management know about their intuition.
This has all reminded me of a real-life experience I had about 10 years ago.
I was at that time the coordinator of a research project, having management responsibilities over the staff of that project. One day I received a call from a coordinator on a research project affiliated with mine (let’s call her Michelle). I was told that a guy (Jim) on my project was talking to a girl (Pam) on their project, and the girl’s supervisor (Phyllis), who shared an office with Pam, reported to Michelle that Jim’s calls were making Pam feel uncomfortable.
Knowing Jim as I did, I was a little surprised that he would misread a situation to the point of making someone uncomfortable. I talked with him about the matter. He had perceived Pam to be responding positively and engaging with him in a fashion that suggested she was fine with his contacts. He was shocked to hear otherwise and very embarrassed at the suggestion that he had engaged in even the slightest inappropriate behavior. He apologized to Pam and discontinued any further conversation with her.
Pam later revealed that she was not in fact feeling uncomfortable at all. Phyllis had intuited her “discomfort” and took it upon herself to report the situation to Michelle. I called Michelle back and chewed her out for handling it as a factual matter and reporting to me that Pam was uncomfortable without checking into whether or not it was true. I pointed out to Michelle that, had the matter evolved even slightly differently, Jim could have been looking at a report to HR and more of an actual black mark in regards to his employment than the social awkwardness and personal distress that he felt.
I have no idea why Phyllis intuited things as she did. Was she unhappy that Pam was receiving phone calls from Jim during work hours? Was she jealous that Pam was receiving attention when she was not? Did she just dislike Jim for other reasons? Who knows? Why did Michelle simply accept that Phyllis’ report was accurate, rather than checking with Pam to see if there was a spidey-sense-miscalibration at work? I don’t know.
What is clear is that Phyllis’ intuition and her reporting of it to her manager was not innocuous whatsoever. It caused distress for Jim, awkwardness for Pam and could have created more problems if Michelle or I had done things differently.
It’s used as popular slang to equate with intuition, but it is a poor choice when used seriously. “Spider sense” in canon, is a sort of near clairvoyant ability to sense danger, its degree, direction of the threat, and react before it can occur. Most importantly, it is NEVER WRONG.
Intuition, hunch, gut, or even just feeling would be more accurate. I doubt Elbows is being serious in asserting that intuition is this flawless, though she does appear to think that it is alright to operate as if it was such.
elbows,
I know I’ve had trouble reading (for comprehension, as you have mentioned) your posts before. It sometimes seems to me as if you say one thing in the beginning of the sentence and then another towards the end.
I have to ask, in the original thread you stated, that in this hypothetical situation you would take your concerns to management/a trusted staff. You also said you would:
[QUOTE=elbows]
**I’d give him the stink eye. Not in malice. But my eyes would never be off him, when he was in the gym. **
[/QUOTE]
Isn’t the stink eye only done in malice? It’s bugged me after starting in this thread, going to the original thread and then back again. Isn’t the definition of ‘giving someone the stink eye’ to stare at someone with malice with the purpose of making that person aware of your stare and uncomfortable?
P.S. I realize my post is both stupid and nit-picky, but it just keeps bothering me.
(Clarification) I think I’ve figured out why it bothers me.
It’s seems like you’re using inflammatory, descriptive language to set this image.
**I’d give him the stink eye. **and **my eyes would never be off him, when he was in the gym. ** This gives a strong image of you glaring at him during your entire workout, and being obvious about it with the purpose of making him uncomfortable.
But then you also throw in Not in malice.
This feels like you’re throwing in this image conflict, therefore, you can’t be called on the fact that you’re advocating glaring at this guy during an entire workout…because it’s not in malice?
Soon after, on this message board or another, a perplexed man asks for advice on whether to tell gym management about the creepy lady who keeps staring at him wherever he goes.