Thinking back on people I have noted as being creepy - the creepyness was a result of a combination of ugly and overly confident. By ugly, I dont mean purely aesthetic ugly - but facial expressions ugly.
And by creepy I do not mean dangerous, violent or socially inept.
trupa --where has anyone here said anything about being mean or rude or nasty to these people?
Again and again, manners are brought up–how we are civil and/or polite to the “creepy ones”.
I realize this must hit home to you–but I posted myself that if you are not obviously retarded or autistic and you exhibit lack of eye contact/inappropriate eye contact etc THEN I would be creeped out.
High functionin or not, I can usually spot autism or developementally delayed folks because I am trained in assessment. I don’t turn it off when I’m off duty–and it’s a PIA, often.
I am sorry to get testy, but I am feeling like we can’t even come in here and bitch about a common occurence and try to find defining characteristics etc. We are exploring a phenomenon here–not dissing your son.
I hear ya. And the sad fact remains, most of us are not trained to pick these people out. We remain polite, but you can’t help but be creeped out by someone who exhibits these traits. It’s a built-in response to feel this way.
trupa does make an interesting point, though - if there is no chance of danger whatsoever, what does it hurt us to be polite and kind to people who creep us out?
Well, if someone makes you uncomfortable, to the point of the creeps, it’s pretty hard to be buddies with that person. Cordial, yes. Polite? Definitely. Sitting with someone at lunch? Eh…occasionally I suppose. But it’s hard to strike up a friendship with someone who doesn’t respond in a way that makes you feel like you’re in a two-way street situation.