In the general case: How long after a casual meeting would an online ‘Hi!’ be weird?
Now, lets assume, for the sake of argument only of course, say that you met in a casual social situation, at a, for lack of a better term, convention for awesome people. You exchange some basic info, including your facebook handle. (Well, not facebook exactly, but a facebook-like service for the aforementioned awesome people)
Then assume that the other party was a lazy, lazy individual, and not only did not have an account at said facebook-like service at the time, didn’t get around to getting one for, oh lets say almost exactly seven weeks. Would a ping after that point be wierd?
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We can also assume, for the sake of argument, that said ping is sent by a non-creepy person who’s not quite as funny as they think they are, and is a genuine contact attempt, not an obvious attempt to get laid.
Okay, so your friend met someone he or she was interested in, and has only now gotten the IM connection? Any you – er, your friend – want to know if it’s okay to contact someone you met two months ago?
Yes, it’s okay. Just say “Hey, I finally got around to downloading the app – wanted to say hi.”
Don’t be surprised if the person has forgotten you, though.
This. Gird your loins young man. While I was single I met an attractive girl at a party. Talked for about an hour, had a good chat, thought there was potential. She gave me her email addy. Two days later I emailed her with a nice-to-meet-you and a subtle reference to our conversation. Got the reply “Who the hell is this?” I replied reminding her of meeting her at the party - the fact that I had to do this meant it was already going downhill - and she replied with a noncommittal “Oh yeah, hi.” That was the end of that.
I think it’s fine, just be sure to remind her why she might know you. I wouldn’t try to be subtle, just “Hello, this is Ura-Maru, we met at X. I know it’s been a while, but I was wondering how you’ve been.” Or whatever. Good luck.
Not a problem. My loins are regularly girded. When I was younger, I’d gird them two or three times a day. Or more, if there was nothing else to do.
Thanks everybody. I wasn’t really worried about the response itself being creepy. When not crippled by my occasional bouts of social anxiety, I’m actually fairly charming, and direct enough about my weirdness that it’s not threatening. (A certain amount of weirdness is to be expected from those met at an awesome people’s convention anyway) Nor would not being remembered be too big a disappointment. Two months is a good while.
I just thought I might be violating some Facebook (well . . . Facebook-like service) rule that everyone knew but me. Now I just have to worry about it being a rule that everyone but me and everyone who responded knew about. (I never claimed not to not be neurotic)
Said contact has been, for the record, delayed until I find a picture of myself, and even I know enough that no one likes a Facebook(like) profile without a picture. Amazingly enough, I do not own a picture of myself taken within the last 15 years.
Were I to (fully clothed) sexting-style picture of myself in a bathroom mirror, would anyone get the joke, or would it just be weird?
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I mean, my HYPOTHETICAL FRIEND would. Who is totally not me.
Once people knew he was a serial killer/rapist, his looks didn’t help him avoid being perceived as creepy; not one’s looks could prevail over that. The question is, was he perceived as creepy by people who didn’t know he was a serial killer/rapist?
Given that he had 30-35 victims, it seems that many women didn’t think he was creepy at all.
Someone as fucked up as he was avoided being perceived as creepy at least in part because of his looks.
My point is, a lot of men around here are under the mistaken impression that what divides the appealing men from the creepsters is simply their looks. Creepy has to do with behavior and demeanor, not facial features or body type.
Regular non-creepy people realize that every social transaction won’t go as planned so they just accept that. Creepy people don’t know how to act in various social situations. They hyper-analyze everything to try and be perfect and then beat themselves up when its not. That’s creepy.
Pinging someone you met briefly at a party over 2 months later? Not creepy. Sort of random though.
Oh there are plenty of good looking creepy guys. In fact, they can be the creepiest because it’s like “why is someone this good looking so weird?”
I went to high school with this one guy. He’s really good looking. Even did some male modeling. But everything about this guys has to do with those Multi Level Marketing schemes. It’s creepy because it comes across as if there is nothing genuine about him. Like everything is designed to make him look like some sort of super successful guy you’d want to buy vitamins or facial products from.
That’s really the essence of “creepiness”. It’s that incongruity that happens when what is going on inside a person doesn’t quite match what you see on the outside. Or when their actions are somehow out of sync with the rest of their environment or situation. It makes a person appear “off”.
“Nice guys” are especially succeptible to being perceived as “creepy”. Why? Because they are full of shit. They want to have sex with a particular woman. But whether it’s because they’ve been conditioned that it’s “immoral” or they are shy or whatever reason, they go through this elaborate pantomime of being "BFF"s or who knows what. It’s creepy because it’s not genuine. It’s just an elaborate contrivance to sleep with some girl and on some level they can tell.
