I should probably step up and admit that I LOVE to be the center of attention and that I am, at times, overly animated.
OH, THE SHAME!
I’ve turned off my share of people with my enthusiasm… And you know what, plnnr? I always imagined you as someone who wouldn’t care too much for me right off the bat, but that eventually, you might be able to tolerate me after you realize that I’m a decent person.
Funny, I opened this thread thinking specifically of the Creepy Guy in my office. Someone should do a study on this phenomenon. I have never been able to determine what exactly it is about this guy that I don’t like – it’s just as though everything he asks me seems too personal (even though other coworkers can ask honestly personal questions, and I don’t mind at all), or as Mauvaise said, “as though he’s invading my personal space, even if he’s 10 feet away.”
Other irritants:
People who are instantly huggy. I don’t mind a hug from friend, but not from somebody I just met. I’m not terribly physically affectionate with people (besides my fiance) no matter how much I like them.
People who up until the last couple of years, when I said I was in school, asked which high school. I’m now 26. I graduated from high school in 1994! I know I look young, but apparently now I look eighteenish, so people have quit asking that question.
Oh, yes, people who think I must have known all sorts of movie stars because I lived in Los Angeles for four years. Uh, no. There are millions of people there, you idiots.
Oh noooooooo! I’m huggy, too! Well, not with people I just met. But I’m huggy!
Oooh, whiterabbit, which movie stars have eaten dinner at your house?
I’m also star-struck.
Wow, I’m starting to find myself annoying!
Oh man. I’m one of those girls who doesn’t like other girls! But I swear, I’m not a jerk about it. I’m generally polite to everyone, but I just can’t find myself being ‘friendly’ with a girl when I first meet her. I mean, it takes me a while to get to be friends with girls, because I’ve had a terrible, awful history of picking the wrong women to be friends with. (One ex-best friend slept with the boyfriend because I had a boyfriend and she didn’t, and the other ex-best friend was, as Gazelle put it, an Opera Singer, then there’s a gaggle of Drama Queens, needy b*tches, and plain old jackasses.) Heck, it took me almost a year to get to the point where I could talk to the female singer of my brother’s band.
Oh, and one more example of someone who rubs me the wrong way: Someone who feels the need to dispense unwanted advice and/or criticism based on a few simple things that they know about me. For example, when people find out that I’m a pharmacy technician, and that I’ve been doing my job for 12 years now, it’s invariable that “why don’t you go to pharmacy school? You can make SO much money as a pharmacist,” is the next statement. I generally answer this with “I wouldn’t go to pharmacy school if it was the last place on earth”, and leave it at that.
Put a bunch of women in a room and the talk will eventually get around to menstruation and childbirth (sorry, guys).
I can’t stand the women who talk about cramps and labor like they’re the only ones who’ve ever had painful periods or painful labor.
“I have such bad cramps; you have no idea how much it hurts.”
“My labor hurt soooo much; you have no idea how bad it was.”
“My labor was soooo long; you wouldn’t believe how long I was in labor.”
I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation about either, BiblioCat. Hmmm.
I haven’t had menstrual cramps since I was a teenager and I’ve never had a child.
I really hate to say this, since I try hard to deal with everyone I meet on a completely individual basis, but sometimes it seems like there really are certain ‘personality types’ in this world, and we all run into them sooner or later.
I have known many, and loathed all those Women Who Hate Other Women. (Talk show episode?) I just don’t understand it. I can see how possibly bad past experiences could put you off, but isn’t that a pretty wide brush you’re painting with? In what may be hopeless naivete, I generally feel more comfortable asking another woman something if I’ve just met her. For instance, if I need to ask a stranger the time, or when a bus is coming, or a salesperson for help, I feel more comfortable asking another woman. I’m not really sure why.
CGR is another phenomena entirely. The description of “invading your space while 10 feet away” is the most apt I’ve ever heard for it. Good call. I get this more often in certain places than others- bars and clubs are usually crawling with CGs. I actually have this theory they smell differently than other people- my dogs have excellent CGR. They love everyone generally, and will happily go off with any stranger who has a cookie or a tennis ball, but some people they just immediately dislike. They’re well-behaved enough to be polite, in a doggy sort of way, but some people are just not allowed to get near me or pet them. Once I met a CG in a local dog park who tried to chat me up. Everytime he got within three feet of me, the dogs would put themselves between us and make direct eye contact with this guy. When he tried to pet them, they would turn their heads away from his hand. I knew to get out of there fast.
Other sorts of people I dislike are the ones plain_jane mentioned- people who are “on” all the time. I always feel like I can’t ever really get to know them, probably because they don’t know themselves.
The “too cool for this scene” people really piss me off. My friends and I have a word for this- “HMFIT”. (we say it “him-fit”) It stands for “Hippest Motherfucker in Town”. The people who act polite, but condescending, and no matter what you say to them, they act bored and disaffected. I also sort of worry about these people, actually- if they’re so unbelievably cool and superior in every situation they encounter, then where are they truly at home?
The Judgemental Bohemians I’m always running across bother me as well. You may know these people- they’re the ones always bitching about how a certain band or artist has ‘sold out’. They cluster in places like Starbucks, but are openly critical of other people who patronize Starbucks. I know this guy who’s a FOAF (friend of a friend) who is this to a T. He is always going on about how his interests are so ‘underground’ and ‘edgy’, and I suspect he only pretends to enjoy the things he claims to enjoy because he feels their rarity somehow gets him coolness points. Now, I like things that are unusual, but these people take it way too far. They’re also the crowd most likely to completely misuse the word ‘irony’. They are in absolute scene-ster hell when their current favorite band/movie/80’s cultural icon attains even a hint of popularity. Think the Simpsons Comic Book Guy with a ‘Flock of Seagulls’ haircut and a track jacket. You know who I mean.
I also dislike overly-familiar people. The physical aspect bothers me, since I’m very non-demonstrative when it comes to affection and actually feel really uncomfortable when people touch me and I don’t know them very, very well. But the conversational aspect bugs me, too. People who assume you and they are best friends, that you share history and in-jokes, and all of that when you only barely know them.
Creepy Guy Radar is true, but how about Creepy GIRL Radar? This exists and I shall attest to it.
Reader’s Digest Edition of a very long (two year) story:
Went with a (male) friend to a weekend art show (I’m female). We were close, but not like a further relationship was in the picture.
Ran into a woman at on of the shops. Immediately, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. (VERY, very bad sign - only happened twice before, and both times involved cases of physical assault.) And the little voice in my head was screaming “run, get him away from her. NOW!!!”
Of course my friend was infatuated with her. Turns out they bot liked the same shows, the same music, gaming, the whole nine yards. He invites her over to his place for his normal gaming night with the buddies and his mom (lives with his mom, but he has an excellent paying job as a supervisor, and his mom needs medical attention - a convenience thing for both of them).
I thank the deities I am leaving on a two week vacation, so I don’t have to ever see her again.
Get back from vacation - she’s MOVED IN to his place!!! Actually, he moved her in (her apartment building was in seriously bad shape and he has a soft heart - didn’t want to see the walls falling in on her (they actually did while they were moving stuff out).
Now granted, I am a little bit jealous at this point, but I hide it well (I think) - I am civil to her, engage her in conversation, go to the movies with them, etc. She is helping around the house in lieu of rent - taking care of his mom, making dinner, etc. Things seem okay, but the creep alarm is still blaring full blast.
Till she starts weirding out. Little things at first, like pinching him hard. And hanging on him: literally wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him hold her full weight: did I mention she was 5"8 and three hundred pounds of muscle? Now my friend is a big man (6 feet +, and 350), but to have someone hanging on you like that puts a heluva strain on the back. My friend now has pretty bad back problems.
And the jealousy? Whoeee - damned near broke up the gaming group when he would attention to the other players instead of focusing on her (Hel-LO!!! He’s the GM: he’s supposed to pay attention to other people, too).
Lemme shorten the story here. I’m leaving out a lot of small and petty incidents, but you get the idea.
Turns out she had been thrown out of several area homeless shelters (and had ‘no trespassing’ warnings with a few of them). her sister lived in town, but would not take her in (something about assaulting the family…).
My friend tried to evict her from his home, but it turns out the law was on her side: more than 30 days was considered ‘residency’, and he would have to get a court order. Which he did - a couple of times but she managed to weasel her way back: did I mention my friend had a soft heart?
Until, that is, she tried to give him a soft head. With a frying pan. (Remember, this woman was built like an archtypical dairymaid - she was carrying 100 lb bags of sand at a construction site without even breaking into a sweat). Assaulted his mom, too. They all got in one knock-down drag-out fight where the cops had to show up. No one went to jail on that one: couldn’t prove who struck the first blow, since he ad his mom were both unconscious and she-demon was babbling. [I am neither a cop nor lawyer, and was not there when this happened (woulda run like hell, like my warning voice told me to, anyway!) - all moot points since…]
…an eviction notice, tresspass warnings, a couple of cease-and-desist orders, and do-not-approach-within-500-feet (filed by a few of the gamers - she had tried a number on them, too)sees to have done the trick.
Last I knew, he had moved her back into the ramshackle apartment (where, it turns out a few weeks after her moved her back, she had been living illegally - she had broken into the apartment to live there). He was nice enough to cart her clothes and belongings back to her original place where he found her. She whined, but he now had a cement backbone.
He is now physically broken (remember the bad back?), his mom is starting to trust people again, he is several thousand dollars poorer (he was paying her bills and her share of the rent and utilities), almost lost his job (got her a job with his company - she wanted a weekend off that she couldn’t have and caused a major ruckus in front of his boss - sparks flew when he had to fire her). And a lot wiser now.
It is so tempting to say, “my little voice told you so.” I tried but he didn’t listen. He actually apologized to me for getting mad at be because I dared voice an opinion about her.
I trust a lot of people, but I really trust that little inner voice, as well as the hair on the back of my neck.
Dammit. My creepy guy radar went off when I met my sister’s husband. She’s still married, too.
Dammit.
I think this may be a subset of Women who hate other Women: the overly confrontational girls. These are the people who consider anyone who doesn’t flat-out say what they’re thinking on a constant basis “false.” Anyone who comes within a 100-ft radius of them gets ripped apart, analyzed, then approved or disapproved, and then everyone gets to hear the ‘verdict,’ whether they want to or not. I always lose with these types. I don’t care what they say, I’m NOT going to start telling people I don’t wish to pursue a friendship with, “Hey, I don’t like you all that much” right to their faces! I was taught to be polite and civil always, so I kept nicely declining to go out with them but continued participating in small talk. I was stuck in a room with girls like this–it wasn’t fun. By the time they had figured out that I really didn’t like them and would rather not be friends (I won’t bore you with my reasons right now), I was denounced as a lying, deceitful, false, horrible person.
Creepy people radar exists. I’m very good with it, and my office uses it as a test for future tenants. If I get bad vibes on a person, they think twice.
People who bring up religion two minutes after meeting me. A woman who came into my office had been living with her five children in a homeless shelter for the past seven months, “But that’s okay, cause God is looking out for us.” I guess it’s easier than doing something yourself.
People who have to one-up everything bad that happens to anyone. When a woman and I were discussing a mutual acquaitance who lost her three-year-old son to a murder/suicide by his father in one of those custody battles you hear about but never happens to anyone you known, until it does, she had the gall to say “Well, nobody has a worse live that I do. I had to bury both my parents when my husband was in jail.” Lady, people are suppose to bury their parents, not their children, and your husband was in jail when you met and married him.
People who make a big deal when I tell them I hate to be touched. I’ve actually been yelled at and criticized for this. Whose body is it, anyway.
ANYONE who sees people as “all good” or “all bad,” regardless of what they actually do. Yes, she took an attorney’s escrow check made out to our company, added her name to the front, and cashed it thinking she wouldn’t get caught, but she was desperate and is a single woman raising three children. On the other hand, you are awful despite the fact that you saved the company a huge lawsuit and a possible criminal charge by reporting this act when you found out about it. It’s all YOUR fault.
On the topic of Women Who Hate Other Women and the Women Who Hate Them:
A couple of summers ago, I took a class wherein I had to participate in a group project. One of the guys in the group was absent the day before the project was due (it was a Thursday, the thing was due Monday). I said I’d give him a call to let him know what was going on & what he needed to do.
When I got him on his cell, I made a joke about him playing hooky. He commented that actually, he’d been out because a good friend of his had gotten into a horrific accident - hence, he’d spent the day at the hospital. Embarrassed and a bit shocked, I just blurted out an “Oh… I’m sorry…” and let him go.
As soon as I hung up, I felt badly that I’d reacted so weirdly. I redialed, getting his voicemail. I left a message saying that I was sorry I’d been abrupt - that I knew we didn’t know each other well, but if he needed to talk to someone, he could call me if he wished. Otherwise, I’d see him in class.
So much for being a nice person. When I saw him on Monday, he asked if he could speak to me in private. I figured that he was going to comment about his friend or thank me for the message. Nope.
What he told me was that I “can’t leave messages like that” on his voicemail. Why not? His girlfriend had heard the message and gone nuts! He said that he’d had to argue with her for a half hour in order to convince her not to pay me a visit to kick my ass.
I was shocked. I mean, yeah, some women in their late teens/early twenties aren’t all that mature, but that can be said for either sex and any age group. I assured him that I wasn’t trying to hit on him or screw up his relationship (didn’t know he was involved); he said that it was okay, he knew that, he was just letting me know what not to do.
So yeah, this girl was ready to come to the college, I guess, and kick my ass because I told her boyfriend that he could talk to me, if he wished, about a horrible event that happened to a good friend. I hope he’s woken up and gotten rid of her.
Name-droppers and people who have to tell you what knowledgeable experts they are. Also, people who insist on telling me how I feel.
“You’re mad because I’m late, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not.” (Usually I would be, but I don’t really like you and it gave me the chance for a peaceful moment with a cup of tea and my book while I waited. I brought the book because you are always frickin’ late and I expected it and decided I wasn’t gonna let you jerk that particular chain.)
“Yes, you are. I can tell you are.”
“No, I’m not.” Teeth gritted, because at this point I am, only not because he’s late.
If it weren’t for work, I wouldn’t even be dealing with this guy because he is also A Creepy Guy. It’s definitely that “space-invasion at 10 feet” thing, a sort of invisible proprietary slime oozing from every pore that could be expressed as “I know you, I own you.” The Hawklette notices it, too. We were watching a movie and she said “That guy reminds me of [creep’s name].” I had just been thinking the same thing.
Lsura, may I beg some slack for people “who give you the feeling that they’re judging you”? You may be right, but you may also be giving yourself that feeling. I’ve been told I sometimes affect people that way and I am not “judging” them. Sometimes I am real reserved when meeting new people due to my own insecurities, but because I don’t express it by acting head-hanging, toe-polishing shy it apparently comes across as “judgmental.” I fall back on being polite to the point of formality as a default shield and it gets read as “I’m too good for you” instead “Hey, I’m scared shitless here, but I dassn’t show it.”
I think you must be my long-lost twin. The part I don’t understand is that nobody here, in the town where I’ve lived since graduating from college, has any problem believing I’m 26. I don’t even get carded in bars much any more. But when I visit my parents, every freaking person I meet insists on telling me I can’t possibly be over twenty, as if I could somehow be mistaken about how old I am. (And then they act as if it is somehow flattering to be mistaken for an eighteen-year-old. Well, I teach eighteen-year-olds, and I remember what I was like as an eighteen-year-old … oh, hell no, trust me, it’s not a compliment at all.)
Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is total strangers who come up to you in public places and make random conversational remarks – no hellos, no introduction, no “Excuse me for disturbing you, but I couldn’t help noticing …” Granted, most of the things they say are too mundane to warrant such an introduction (“Excuse me for disturbing you, but I couldn’t help noticing what a good idea it is to bring a candy bar on an eight-hour train ride”?), but dammit, that ought to be a clue that these things don’t need to be said in the first place.
Oh, good Lord, Creepy Guy Radar exists!
There was this guy in school (he graduated last year, thank God!) who fits the bill of Creepy Guy entirely. He had no sense of personal space, no communication skills whatsoever, and - this is the worst one - would touch you whenever he was within arm’s length of you. It wasn’t anywhere that would be considered molestation but he would go into the “boyfriend places.” You know, just above your hip or where your shoulder meets your neck - they’re just not places where anyone but your SO should touch. He was production manager of all of the school dramas and freaked the girls of the cast out considerably.
Now, it turns out that he had Social Anxiety Disorder and was taking medication that loosened his inhibitions, but the combination was just scary. We’re glad that he’s gone. The hairs on the back of my neck can finally relax.
There’s also a custondeon at school who freaks me out. He’s in his early to mid-thirties and is just kinda scary looking. I don’t know why but whenever he enters a room, I cross to the opposite side. The instict for self-preservation kicks in.
As for people who rub me the wrong way: definately The Innocent Girls. I see this all the time in class (chorus, mostly, come to think of it). The IGs will be caught talking or chewing gum or making plans for world domination and they’ll BLANTANLY be doing it. But if the teacher tells them to knock it off, they open their “Cotton-Candy Bubblegum Swirl”-glossed mouths and get this insulted attitude of “Me? You think I did that?” It’s all I can do to keep from shoving their gum up their noses. Geez, just apologize and straighten up!
People who are overly *exuberant * and I am not talking about the stereo-typical [tsk} gay exuberance, like Christopher Lowell.
That, I can easily handle. ( Gay guys love me.)
It’s the phoniness of " OH LOOOOK, THE BABY IS DROOLING! GET THE CAMERA SHE’S A GENIUS "
Look, I have kids. I love my children. But I got big fat furry news for you - OH FAKE HAPPY CHICK - giving YOUR FRICKIN PRECIOUS CHILD AN AUDIENCE and ATTENTION LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME WILL/IS TURNING HER INTO AN ATTENTION WHORE. (Just LIKE YOU.) AND I GOT BIGGER NEWS FOR YOU, YOU ARE CREATING YOUR OWN MONSTER AND I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT AT ALL DOWN THE ROAD.
I would like to state that I have to share every holiday, birthday and other what-use-to-be-nice days to share (with normal people)with some one just like the above.
The above person is also an apologist and hopelessely naive as well. And a fundie, who is also a name dropping uber yuppie.
Everyone just loves her and I just don’t get it.
Obviously, the problem is with me. I just can’t seem to get on the WE LOVE (insert Flake’s name here) Band Wagon. ( I would like to mention that this person is the exact personality replica of my former best friend in high school. I can’t escape this flakosaurus. I’m being punished, I know it.)
Can I also put in that people that constantly going from one big melodrama to the next or turning everything in their lives into a Vesuvius - drive me batshit? Yes, let us live our lives like we are constantly in the middle of some huge crisis. Y’know, some of us manage to get through life with about - ohhhh – 1/100 of the melodrama.
People, try to put things into perspective. Ask yourself " In ten years will this moment/event/hysteria make a difference in my life or will I have died by then from my third anuerism?"
**Creepy Guy Radar ** and a Limp Handshake are two big no no’s with me.
It’s funny in a “kill me now, this is my life” sort of way that if you take all of these lovely qualities and wrap them up in a deteriorating, yet impeccably coifed package, you have my mother-in-law.
My brother’s wife is one of those “in your face” people. When she speaks to you, she’s so close to your face you can count her eyelashes. And along with the complete and utter disregard for personal space, comes the accompanying inability to understand why someone might not want to give their entire gynecological history within three seconds of meeting her. Afterall, she probably can help because that’s her role in life, why God put her on this earth. It’s one of her (many) missions. And she has the experience to back it up. Oh yes, she does indeed. She certainly has more experience than you or anyone else including Eve (as in Adam and Eve, not the SDMB eve, although I’m sure my sister-in-law has had more experience than that eve, too, or any other eve for that matter). Actually most of her questions are inane, pointless and totally irrelevant to any normal course of conversation. You find yourself thinking “Why would anyone give a rat’s ass about whether I use wood or plastic toothpicks?” (Unless, of course, they were in IMHO)
Then there’s the “gushers.” My brother brings over this woman he was sort of dating (meaning, he was dating her, she just needed a handy man and babysitter.) She walked into our relatively crappy apartment and immediately started gushing. “I LOVE your stairs.” “I LOVE your rug.” “I LOVE your couch.” Yes, an old quilt hap-hazardly thrown over stained upholstery does a lot for me, too. I’m sure she was trying to be nice or something, but it was just way too much.
I’m actually someone who emits Creepy Guy vibes. I’ve never been quite sure why.
I’d been fairly sure for a few years that I’d been giving them off - mostly from social responses of others - but I had a few female friends in a room and the topic was there. I asked. Did I actually register on creepy guy radar?
Yep. Unanimously - 6 votes to nil.
I’m 6’4", somewhere between overweight and obese (mostly in the gut) but fairly muscular (especially across the shoulders - I wear size 40 suit trousers but I can’t get my arms into less than a 48 jacket) and babyfaced. I’ve been told before that I look like a paedophile. I look big, slow and dopey, but I’m pretty light on my feet for my size, think quickly, have a tendency to get osbcurely allegorical without warning and get passionate about things that others don’t. Add to that the fact that I enjoy arguments and, as a rule, don’t like people much.
I think I unsettle people easily. I don’t categorise well.
Despite this, I tend to be polite. I’m careful about what could be considered inappropriate because I know that people (especially women) react hypercautiously around me. On the other hand, I can unload verbal barrages on people I feel deserve it. One of my better, if not prouder, moments was at a New Year’s Eve party when a five-minute volley of insults made a (more than necessarily pretentious) professional domme cry.
I’ve long been used to being misestimated. Sometimes I’ve taken advantage of it, but most of the time it’s just a pain in the hole. I don’t know whether it’s entirely my social skills that are to blame (and, trust me, they’re certainly sufficient to do so), but creepy guy vibe definitely exists, and I like to think that it’s not always entirely deserved.
There is a custodian where I work who really creeps me out, and I have heard other people say the same thing about him.
He is this old, ugly (looks like some kind of Frankenstein) guy. I sometimes wonder if I am mostly just freaked out by him because of his looks which he really can’t help. But it seems to be more than that. He works in the food court, and is always approaching people to take their trays instead of letting them do it themselves. I guess he is just being helpful, but for some reason it makes me feel uncomfortable.
He just generally seems a bit too friendly, especially to the younger and more “conventionally attractive” women.