What the Hell Is ‘Creepy’, Anyway?

By Maria Padhila

This week, in between handling some work, family and personal crises, I’ve been trying to get a lead on defining ‘creepy’, something that seems to come up for many out there dating. I thought this would be a pretty easy piece to write because there’s so much out there on the topic. But it all seems to be women writing about ‘the creepy guy’. There’s very little critique, and there’s a huge ‘know it when I see it’ factor when most of these women are writing.

Their fallback seems to be that any man who talks about sex or is honest about his attraction to you is creepy. I’m sorry, but I find that silly.

I can talk about sex with a man or woman without being creeped out. I can hear an honest expression of affection or appreciation or lust when the other person is capable of receiving my honest reaction — even if it’s declining the offer — with grace and ease. But I can talk about fracking with a creepy person and want to run away screaming.

Most of the critique of creepy tends to come from men, most of whom inevitably come off as at best defensive and hurt, and at worst whiny, entitled and, well, creepy.

I know creepy can be women, too — once I was creeped out by a woman at a pagan thing who told me within minutes of meeting me that she was bisexual when no one was talking about sexuality right then, and then she repeated it over and over to be sure somebody — I guess me — got the message. It wasn’t the sexuality that bothered me — it was the obsessiveness and the insistence on calling attention to herself for something that, really, isn’t all that remarkable.

Why does it matter how ‘creepy’ is defined? Because it’s a pejorative that gets tossed around with too little thought. And because it’s important to have some sense of what’s within the decent person realm and what tipoffs there might be to those who aren’t going to be any good for you, any time. In the end, who you hang with has to be your own decision — but some of these qualities are worth keeping an eye out for, just to save yourself the bad kind of trouble.

With my inclination to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, I actually get creeped out by the idea of someone being branded as ‘creepy’ without judge or jury or even a clear definition of the term. This is something that doesn’t seem to bother a lot of people, from what I’m reading.

But I think through looking at a balanced mix of sex-positive writers and combining this with my own experience, I’m getting close to pinning down what this elusive ‘creep’ factor is. It will probably always reside to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Some people are just always going to see others as flawed in some way — or themselves as victims in some way — and will grab whatever label comes to hand. Many, many people are capable of thinking only in stereotypes (that link is a very funny example of that mass tendency in action).

One warning that seems to finally be getting across is not to confuse lack of social skills or behavior influenced by autism spectrum disorders with creepiness. I was really happy to see this. I was less happy to find several blog posts out there giving ‘instructions’ to ‘geeky guys’ – some of these by men – on how to reshape their presentations and personalities in ways that seemed based entirely on women’s random complaints. That is, they were checklists on how to stop doing things that ‘scare’ women, without any corresponding examination of what’s behind these fears women allegedly have, and without any call to women to be self-responsible in examining these fears. This approach simply lumps all women together in a big Woman Entity; it comes from a place that assumes all women are the same and are going to be bothered by the same things. It says ‘don’t do this because Wimmen don’t like it’ instead of encouraging a person to tune into his or her own reactions and instincts.

I’m going to stay out of the negative and not link to these. Instead, I’ll pass on this positive post that can apply to women as well as men, and also happens to have one of the loveliest poems I’ve seen in a while that would look great on a card. Hint: One rule that’s great in this one: Always give a flirting partner an escape route – and always give yourself an escape route, too. This can be as simple as saying, “I’m really enjoying this conversation, but I don’t want to monopolize all your time tonight,” or not going into heavy flirt mode in physical settings where the other person can’t easily detach him or her self, such as on an elevator. I like that because it’s smart, practical, considerate and puts the ‘geek’ on an equal footing with the one he or she is trying to spark a connection with.

(It’s interesting to note, while we’re indulging in half-assed diagnoses, that those who write the psychology manuals seem to agree that an identifying feature of people with narcissistic and sociopathic personality disorders are described as being charming and likeable at first impression. Just one more reason to go for the geek!)

The writing I liked best on the topic was from a sex-positive blogger. Even though it’s somewhat harshing on the men, the basic ideas behind knowing which people might be less fun to spend time with are pretty sound. For instance, one of her requirements is that people she spends time with bring something to the table. She noted that in the conversation with a creepy guy, she felt like she “was providing all the entertainment.” That kind of passive energy suck is something anyone would want to avoid.

The one creepy experience I’ve had since being out and about as poly was at a dinner gathering. No one had showed up to the reserved table except myself and one man, about my age, very average and ‘normal’ looking. We got to talking, and I was doing my usual Libra-Gemini be a nice social ambassador — which I know from experience some people find pretty creepy, by the way. At first he did the usual Washington thing: tell me about how important his former job was. OK, I could play that; it happens with almost everyone here, especially with those who have retired or been downsized and are trying to get the hang of their identity outside of their former workplace.

But it soon became like lobbing tennis balls against the garage door. The same thing kept coming back to me: Why don’t you come over to our house? Why don’t you give me your number so we can have you over at our house? Why don’t you give me your name and email so I can tell you where I live? We have a hot tub. My wife would like you. You should bring your husband and your boyfriend. Why don’t you give me your husband’s number?

Then, finally, some variety in the speech: He went off on a rap about how “sad” it was that my husband and boyfriend “couldn’t express physical love for each other,” or words to that effect, and with the same stilted tone.

That was it for me. No one I want to talk to tells people I care about what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their bodies or sexuality. No one I want to talk to tries to manipulate or shame the people, even from a once-removed position.

His profile photo also showed him with a large luxury item that takes special skills to operate. When, in the interest of making conversation, I asked how long he had been doing that luxury activity, he admitted that the item was not his; he’d just happened to get his photo taken in that spot, right in front of it.

So phony is creepy.

The next biggie is being a barnacle. You know how it is, when you’re at an event of any kind, and someone won’t go off and explore, won’t talk to other people or take responsibility for their own experience, but seem to think that by clinging to you they’ve done what’s required from the night, and they’re free to just, again, suck up the energy.

Again, there are distinctions. My boyfriend Chris, after we first met, spent the next 12 hours or so next to me. But he was not a barnacle; not simply inert and clinging. He brought something to the table. He brought bottles of water to our camp, which was something very valuable indeed to bring to the table. He talked and interacted independently with people I knew and other random folks we encountered as we wandered around the Burn. Without making some big phony life-of-the-party effort, without competing or sitting passively, he was just fun, interesting and kind to have along in our travels.

Obsessiveness is another fine-line differentiator. People who are passionate about a cause or a mission may find it hard to converse about anything else. People who have Asperger’s or other spectrum disorders may be obsessively preoccupied with a subject or activity. I think the difference is being obsessive about being right, or being heard. When you have a fun, sparring conversation about health care or Ron Paul, for instance, and then you get dozens of long emails and links following up, trying like hell to win you over to their side — that’s creepy. They’re just using you to up the tally of the converted.

Which leads to the biggest differentiator: manipulation. To me, being manipulative is synonymous with creepy. In fact, maybe we should just stop with the creepy branding and just say manipulators aren’t any fun.

So a guy who puts on a big phony nice act, talking about how he just really cares about you in the first three seconds you’ve met, and how you really need to go vegan and raw, and here, read these things on my phone here (when you have the nerve to take your eyes off him for a second to joke around with a friend who’s come over), and pouts when you give a vaguely polite response, and says listen, I need to tell you this, you’re obviously a mean and fearful person because you won’t listen to someone who obviously cares about what happens to you and just wants to protect you —

Well, there’s your creepy. And it has nothing to do with geekiness, an unsettling stare, awkward pauses, too much computer time, an odd fashion sense, interest in gaming, or bringing up the topic of sex ‘too soon’.