I’m a happily married man so I don’t even hit on women who are interested in me. I was asking because there’s an undertone of that in some posts. Maybe I’m overthinking it.
That is what sucks about dating (well one thing that sucks), we get hung up on shit that doesn’t matter and ignore the stuff that actually does. People sometimes think losing 5 pounds or saying something awkward is more important than halitosis or rudeness and it isn’t.
Most women are thinking in the back of their mind whether a man would produce attractive offspring, so they give the benefit of the doubt to attractive men with lesser personalities.
Men do the same thing but for different biological reasons. They want to conquer.
…And that is how the leopard got his spots!
One of my college classmates looked a lot like Caesar, only 20-some and alive. OK, and with more hair that most of the Consul’s busts. He got a nose job because he thought the reason at least half the girls in our class had refused to date him was his nose. No, it was that after a whole evening of flirting with one of us who was flirting back like mad (and who in half the cases had started it), he’d disappear and come back half an hour later slurring “nna… gw…g…w’ou wif me?” We liked his nose, but not his pals Jack (Daniels), Jim (Beam) and John (Long, Silver).
I guess we should have grabbed him when he was sober and explained it slowly :smack:, preferably before he got into the habit of starting his day with some rye :(.
I hated dating. It’s only natural to interpret rejection as there being *something *wrong with you. But you (hopefully) have a relatively small number of rejections to evaluate and they naturally aren’t going to fully and clearly communicate why they’re not interested. Even if they did, most people aren’t very rational when it comes to romance.
So you’re left with feelings of inadequacy and less than ideal information about how to improve yourself. Even asking friends is risky, as there’s no guarantee your friends aren’t stupid. When I was younger I used to ask my friends if there was something about me I should change and the two most frequent answers I got were that I lacked confidence and that I came off too confident.
At least creepy is right out front. HSV status is not as yet required to be tattooed on your dick.
People do use the word creepy sometimes when it’s unwarranted, just like the words stupid, or bitchy, or racist are sometimes used when they are unwarranted. It might be because of poor word choice, or a misunderstanding, or some other reason. That doesn’t mean that it’s never warranted.
Also, I think some people are misunderstanding when things are creepy. Imagine this scenario. I’m a single woman sitting at a bar, playing with my phone, waiting on my friend. An Average Looking Guy walks up to me.
ALG: Hey, I saw you sitting over here alone, and thought I’d come over and ask if I could join you? (So far, nothing wrong.)
Me [uncomfortable, since I’m not interested in talking to him, I’m waiting on my friend, but feel awkward in saying directly that I’m not interested in talking to him]: Umm, well, I’m actually waiting for a friend.
ALG: Ok, I’ll leave you to that then. If you’re interested in chatting later tonight, I’ll be over by the pool table.
If the conversation happens like that, he’s a decent, non-creepy guy. I might go over to chat with him later depending on how the night goes, or maybe not. Things would be different if instead of saying that, he said one of these things:
ALG: Are you sure you want to wait alone? I’d love to sit and talk with you.(Because of my body signals of discomfort and previous answer, this could be creepy of him, but it’s not terrible. This also depends on how desperately or aggressively he says it.)
-or-
ALG [as he sits down]: How bout I just sit here until your friend gets here? (Definitely starting to get creepy, pushing too hard on boundaries)
However, imagine it was the same scenario, but Super Hot Guy came over to talk to me:
SHG: Hey, I saw you sitting over here alone, and thought I’d come over and ask if I could join you?
Me [surprised that someone so attractive is wanting to chat me up, but smiling and open to talking since I’m talking to someone I’m attracted to]: Umm, well, I’m actually waiting for a friend, but you can keep me company until she gets here.
[SHG sits down, we start having small talk]
Average Looking Guy only started being creepy after I was obviously disinterested, didn’t want to talk, and he tried to push things further. Super Hot Guy isn’t creepy at the start since I am interested in talking to him, and I am obviously showing that. ALG started being creepy when he was ignoring signals that I wanted him to go away. SHG isn’t ignoring those signals since I’m not sending those signals. It’s definitely still possible that SHG could turn creepy later, by saying something about going back to his apartment and keep pushing it or talking about it after I’ve said no. But he has more of a chance to get further into conversation, since I’m more interested in talking to him at first.
Sort of.
Women, to a much greater extent than men, are interested in a man’s ability and willingness to provide for his offspring (and for her). They’re also, to some extent, interested in the man’s ability to produce attractive offspring (and in cues that mind indicate a healthy immune system), and they usually have to balance these competing goals (and probably some others).
How about, on this board of all boards, we knock off the biotruth bullshit just-so stories? Thanks in advance.
You have to realize that there’s a very significant distinction between “the guy is attractive” and “the gal is ATTRACTED TO the guy.” If some handsome fellow is getting away with behavior that would be deemed creepy in a schlub, it’s because the woman in question finds him charming for some other reason. If some handsome fellow is JUST handsome, and is also awkward and inept and can’t respect boundaries and is hitting on a woman, chances are she’s going to find him creepy.
It’s really not that hard to understand.
What are biotruth bullshit just-so stories?
It could be that ‘creepy’ comes off less judgemental as ‘ugly’.
If a woman rejected a guy for hassling her, by saying it was because he was ‘creepy’ she makes it more about her safety and less about her shallowness. Then she avoids people trying to rationalize the scenario “Oh he wasn’t such a bad guy, give him a chance!”.
This doesn’t mean ugly=creepy. It just means some women might be using this word as a placeholder for a more judgemental adjective. When I was dating online, I met a lot of women over the years. One of the most common reasons they weren’t interested in another date was, “I don’t think there was any chemistry”. This used to drive me nuts because it sounded so friggin vague. No chemistry? Maybe I should go to the Apothecary and have him mix me up some chemistry in his little mortar and pestle! 
.
Later when I grew up a bit more I realized that a lot of them were saying “No chemistry” as a blanket ego-sparing cover for some real reason they didn’t want to tell me directly. Maybe it was my personality, maybe I talked too loud or they didn’t like the shape of my nose. Rather than tell me and have me desperately try to change that ‘thing’ to get them to like me, they just said “No chemistry” which is obviously not anything you can ‘fix’ with a specific person. For them its a good way to get guys they aren’t interested in to leave them alone, and for most guys its an ego sparing way to avoid giving them some complex.
You sound like someone whose advances have been spurned.
That.
He’s from the thread that prompted this discussion.
I don’t understand your second question…
It’s totally possible for an ALG to be non-creepy and yet still approachable and friendly with women who don’t want to be advanced upon… But I can’t quite explain it. Something like radiating “I’m perfectly willing to have sex with you later if you want” is preferable to “I want to have sex with you.” The first seems to respect boundaries and choices more. I don’t know. I can sit next to the first person at the bar, but not the second. Broomstick?
On this page –
Hence this reply –
I’ve seen each gender do both more than enough times, especially in certain scenes. I hear the physical thing all the time from males, while at one point, the female:male ratio at work was 16:1, so I’ve most certainly heard it there, among other examples. Truth is, people judge actions as quickly as they do physical appearances, in itself, it doesn’t make a person more or less shallow. What is interpreted as creepy by one person, may not be by another.
Physical attractiveness falls in line with first impressions and how much emphasis any individual places on it, while behavior is something best understood the longer you can analyze it. It varies by person since we all have differing opinions and levels of tolerance, but generally speaking, seeing and knowing what you like (and using it as a filter) is slightly easier than accurately reading behavior in a moment (granted, some intentions are more obvious).
As others have stated, if you find someone attractive, you tend to lower your defenses enough to invite attention, possibly looking past a few things. If their behavior sends enough red flags, you then retreat. There is no hard rule, but for many people, if they aren’t physically attracted to a person, any further interaction just as often slows or even stops there.
Somewhat related to this thread, I often hear (e.g on this board) that a 50 year old guy who dates 25 year olds is creepy, but when famous 50 year olds like George Clooney date 25 year old models no one says they’re creepy.
The usual statement is something like “but he’s too old for her”, when the real explanation is “but he’s too old and not famous/rich enough for her”.
The common thread between the above and the topic of this thread is that there is often some disingenuousness when people talk about why someone is creepy.
Ok, those statements may be phrased poorly and exagerrate the subject but there are biological imperatives at play. If not there wouldn’t be mating game to discuss. Since one particular of this thread is about attractiveness defined in a way largely dependent on cultural norms it isn’t very useful to insert them in the discussion unless you want to discuss outlying cases of some very unfortunate men with outlying physical ugliness and some equally unfortunate women with outlying mental ugliness.
(emphasis mine)
Doesn’t this essentially validate the idea that the OP was lambasting?
Are you sure they just, you know, didn’t feel any chemistry?
Look at it this way. A guy could be model-attractive, wealthy, Ivy League intelligent, funny as heck and a real sweetheart…and you still wouldn’t date him, because while he is a perfectly wonderful human being, he’s just not your type.
That doesn’t mean something is wrong with him. It doesn’t mean you are shallow or unfair. It just means the two of you are not a good match.
Maybe. But ‘no chemistry’ is a “safe” way for a woman to turn down a guy on a second date. Maybe some people didn’t feel chemistry, but for maybe others there was something specific they just didn’t want to delve into it.
Talking to some women online, they mentioned that if they tell the guy its something specific “You talked with your mouth full” “You were rude to the waitress” “You directed the entire evening conversation about yourself”, then the guy will plead for a second date, promising to change. At that point, they are just not invested enough in seeing if it works out on a second try. So they say “I’m just not feeling any chemistry” because its 1.) Not some personal attack about the other person and 2.) Not anything you can really have control over/change.