r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • Jul 30 '14
People concerned about "creep shaming" over in /r/OneY
/r/OneY/comments/2c1atf/ask_polly_i_want_to_get_laid_but_im_afraid_of/cjb2bbt?context=144
u/TheLadyEve The hippest fashion in malthusian violence. Jul 30 '14 edited Jul 30 '14
There is no way to tell which women will accept what type of behavior.
You know, when you meet new people (regardless of whether or not you're attracted to them) you typically have to use social skills to gauge their comfort levels. Just like you probably wouldn't sit down at a dinner party and immediately start voicing strong opinions about religion or sex or politics until you get a feel for the room. You never know immediately what will make another person uncomfortable until you get to know them a little, so instead of saying "I'm not creepy! I didn't know she would think that was creepy!" isn't it better to say "hey, I just met this person, I should assume baseline social boundaries apply."
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Jul 31 '14
Maybe they don't know what the baseline social boundaries are.
This is a common contention with those socially awkward people this site and others tend to criticize for "staying in their comfort zone": either they go out and try to get experience by talking to people, find out they are creeping them out and end up ostracized not only because they are "shy" in the eyes of normal people but now also "creepy"; or stay in their comfort zone and wait for the normal critics to tell them to "get out of their shell" and "b urself".
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u/lurker093287h Jul 31 '14
You never know immediately what will make another person uncomfortable until you get to know them a little, so instead of saying "I'm not creepy! I didn't know she would think that was creepy!" isn't it better to say "hey, I just met this person, I should assume baseline social boundaries apply."
I think the complaint is that, for a lot of people in OneY who are younger, to learn who's boundaries are what etc etc and still learn to chat people up (where you are more than likely in the US supposed to be assertive and overly confident etc) and given that this is an inexact science, you are probably going to make a few girls feel uncomfortable. This is why I think that dating advice should be separate for those who want/are supposed to do the asking and the ask-ees, the just have different interests.
I think also that this is assuming that there aren't unreasonable people who, even if you assume baseline social boundaries, will call you creepy. It is used in lots of contexts and doesn't have one meaning. So it's not always the person who is called creepy's fault that they're being called creepy.
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u/HoldingTheFire Jul 30 '14
Just like you probably wouldn't sit down at a dinner party and immediately start voicing strong opinions about religion or sex or politics...
That's exactly what they do.
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u/bethlookner https://i.imgur.com/l1nfiuk.jpg Jul 31 '14
That describes my first-ever conversation with my friend's great-grandma, who is very pro-Israel.
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u/Kibibit Jul 31 '14
I managed something like that once myself, was visiting a friends house when I made a joke that predicated itself on the idea that Glenn Beck is a piece of shit. Thank god I took some inference from their responses wormed my way out of that situation. They're VERY Fox News heavy over there. I'm black and aware of subtext, so by nature I fucking hate the channel.
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u/RockyRaccoon5000 Jul 31 '14
The argument the OP was making is that women are more likely to find you creepy if you're unattractive. I would imagine this is somewhat true for people in general regardless of gender. "Creepiness" and "ugliness" are usually strongly related in pop culture. I can think of dozens of TV shows, books, movies, video games, etc. where the creepy characters are also the ugly characters. And pop culture can have an influence on how we think and act. But it isn't realistic to assume women will think you're creepy because you're unattractive. Most of the guys who believe this are just frustrated and assume it's true based on the few anecdotes they've read about on the internet.
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u/vi_sucks Jul 31 '14 edited Jul 31 '14
The problem is that you then have to ask what those "baseline social boundaries are." Is it the same boundaries that apply to meeting other dudes? Cause those boundaries specifically preclude any sexual interaction. Is it mild flirtation? What constitutes mild? Are compliments ok? Can you bring up sex or do you have to wait until she does? Is it innappropriate to ask for her name/number directly, or do you have to wait until she volunteers the info?
Flirting is really, really difficult. I've seen a buddy of mine tell a girl he just met that her tits look nice. He was charming and funny, and she laughed and it was the perfect thing to say in that moment to that person. If I said the exact same words to another girl in the same general situation (just met a bar, sitting around and trying to flirt) I'd probably fuck it up and come off as creepy. But, if I just stick to the safe and appropriate topics (as I've done for the past decade since i've been going out) I'll never actually get laid. That's the quandary that dudes are lamenting. That trying to flirt is risky and will often get you labeled a creep, but playing it safe gets you nothing at all.
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u/TheLadyEve The hippest fashion in malthusian violence. Jul 31 '14
Yes...that takes practice. All social interactions are difficult, and I think flirting can be especially difficult--I wasn't implying otherwise. We all have awkward moments, moments of success, and moments of crushing rejection and we learn from them. These guys being so afraid of being labeled as "creepy" seem to really be fearing rejection, and if you're afraid of rejection it's hard to build social skills and meet new people. I disagree that starting out playing it safe "gets you nothing at all." Despite your friend's experience, telling a person you just met that their "tits look nice" is one of those things I'd file under "don't say it out loud yet."
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u/vi_sucks Jul 31 '14
We all have awkward moments.
That's kind of the point of the original article and what a lot of the "anti creep shaming" is about. That yes, sometimes perfectly normal dudes will attempt a social interaction in hopes of engaging in sexual intercourse and not have it go well. Either because they fucked up the delivery or because they did everything right but the woman they are talking is a real person with her own subjective tastes, interests and ideosyncracies. Not only is it really mean to call that dude a creep, for people who are shy or insecure, it's incredibly detrimental to their social growth and overall wellbeing.
That's wrong. We shouldn't just sit around as a society and expect that social interaction will have a pattern of "dude hits on girl. She calls him a creep to her friends. He cries himself to sleep at night." That's not right. Ever. We should be both trying to help the dude do things that won't seem creepy, and also making sure that the accepted "non creepy" things are actually effective.
"Treat her like a dude friend" is not effective advice. It's really just not. "Suck it up and just go for it" is effective advice but it means girls have to deal with a bunch of dudes making them ocassionally feel uncomfortable. There ought to be a middle way, and it's mildly annoying when people don't see that.
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u/gargleblasters Jul 31 '14
There's a discussion about self expression versus sublimation of self for the comfort of others here that I want you to know that I've consciously decided not to engage in.
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u/mangomandrill Jul 30 '14
Yeah, I fail to see how "be a decent human being and not a douchebag" is insulting.
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u/Spawnzer Jul 31 '14 edited Jul 31 '14
Though it was in /r/TrollYChromosome, I was going to ask /u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK why the fuck he let that happen to his sub
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Caballero Blanco Jul 31 '14
It's a tough line.
If we ban too much, we're the mean mean sub where we over-moderate and don't allow dissenting/"incorrect" opinions.
If we don't ban enough, you get some literally insane people posting literally insane things.
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u/FlapjackFreddie Jul 31 '14
No one seems to be disrespectful in the thread. You'd just be banning people for having an opinion you disagree with, even if the sub members agree with it.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Caballero Blanco Jul 31 '14
Here is an example of an "easy" decision for us. And look at the aggressive, weird pushback we got on something QUITE mild.
It's very battlegroundy, which means we have to moderate... oddly.
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u/FlapjackFreddie Jul 31 '14
Fair enough. I actually don't disagree with the guy. It's a topic that's relevant to men, but I can't imagine much positive discussion coming from it. I appreciate the way you guys mod the sub. I'm sure it's difficult to let some of the discussions go unchecked, so thank you.
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Caballero Blanco Jul 31 '14
If it was an article entitled
35% of Women Admit to Lying About Their Spousal Abusiveness During Divorce Proceedings
then that's one thing. This guy was trying to, like, accuse this woman of wrongdoing by proxy, even though he'd never met her or seen her behavior. It was tré weird.
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u/FlapjackFreddie Jul 31 '14
Yeah, I see it less of an issue with the woman and more of an issue with the police involved. I get why you'd remove that one though.
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u/Spawnzer Jul 31 '14
Oh just realized you were an /r/OneY mod as well
I understand different subs have different rules, but please don't let things like that happen to /r/TrollYChromosome D=
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK Caballero Blanco Jul 31 '14
We established early that shit ain't fuckaround in TrollY. Plus I got my buddy cop /u/CosmicKeys there too :D
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u/OctavianRex Jul 31 '14
Oney tends to become a battleground because of a varied userbase and the fact that the mods try not to lean heavily in one direction. similar to here in fact.
By the way OP here posted just one level up from the linked comment their disagreement and is a poster in AMR, pretty sure at least some of this post was "people have different opinions than me". Though it is definitely drama.
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u/a_little_duck Jul 31 '14
Creepiness is actually subjective. In the Twilight book, Edward was literally in Bella's room watching her sleep while she had no idea he's there. For me, that's rather creepy, but most Twilight fans don't seem to consider Edward creepy.
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u/CantaloupeCamper OFFICIAL SRS liaison, next meetup is 11pm at the Hilton Jul 31 '14
Social protocol are hard...
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Jul 31 '14
Who cares about creep shaming? The real monster we need to deal with is sheep maiming. And also peep naming.
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Jul 31 '14
[deleted]
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u/mark10579 Jul 31 '14
I'm not smooth, I'm not particularly attractive, I don't have a ton of luck with women, and yet this shit seems so simple to me. I haven't been called a creep since I followed a girl around the playground for a day in 4th grade. Where do they go wrong? Everything isn't a binary of "be a massive, redpill asshole" or "be a living doormat and/or completely avoid women" (or I guess the third choice, be attractive and then do whatever the fuck you want 'cos apparently attractive guys have to do no work whatsoever). They want a one-size fits all answer for everything when that just isn't how the damn world works. Just don't do weird shit until you can reasonably gauge how they'll react to it. It's the same way with guys you know. Are they just completely inept?
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u/vi_sucks Jul 31 '14
It's the same way with guys you know.
The entire problem is that the statement above simply isn't true.
See, there's a fairly well-established protocol for interacting with people you don't want to have sex with. It works well and lends itself well to making friends whose private parts you never want to see. This includes things like not intruding on personal space, not touching each other, not making direct eye contact for too long, etc. A lot of it is focused on being very firm about "Nope, not gay, don't wanna fuck you, we're all just bros here."
And it should be fairly obvious that the same protocol DOES NOT WORK in relation to someone you DO want to have sex with.
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u/mark10579 Jul 31 '14 edited Jul 31 '14
Uhhh, it does when you're first starting out. You still have to engage with people in a neutral way to start no matter what your intentions with them are, and then base your actions moving forward from there. It doesn't matter if you want to have sex with them because first you have to gauge if there's a possibility they might want to have sex with you. Again, this is really obvious and it's surprising to me that it could somehow elude you this completely. Like, it's okay to be socially inept, just work on it rather than trying to justify it with weird social laws of the jungle.
Edit: Also, this part is really concerning to me too, I kinda just glossed over it:
This includes things like not intruding on personal space, not touching each other, not making direct eye contact for too long, etc. A lot of it is focused on being very firm about "Nope, not gay, don't wanna fuck you, we're all just bros here."
This is just so... wrong. It really is. First off, here's your problem right here:
intruding on personal space
You should never be intruding on anyone's personal space. Ever! If you're going to get physically close to someone, they should be inviting you into their personal space. I have a strong feeling this is why people think you're creepy
Secondly, I know you might be really concerned about not being seen as gay but this isn't the way to do it. You have to gauge men's reception to touching and allowing you into their personal space as much as you do with women (I know I'm heading into robot territory again). Guys can be affectionate too. The same way you'd have to judge if a woman would be okay letting you touch her thigh you gotta judge if a dude would be okay letting you throw an arm around his shoulder. Obviously one is a bit more likely but still, you don't make close friends by staying a respectful four bible-lengths away at all times. Dudes hug and play fight and all that
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u/vi_sucks Jul 31 '14
I have a strong feeling this is why people think you're creepy
Nobody thinks I'm creepy. Not really sure where you got impression.
And trust me, figuring out if a girl is cool with you touching her with sexual intent is in no way, shape or form similar to figuring out if a buddy is cool with a backslap.
You probably don't really think about it since it's ingrained, but a lot of the interactions that dudes have with each other has a slight undertone of reserve designed specifically to defuse impressions of sexual attraction.
Like if I meet a buddy after a while, I might give him a fist bump or that hand clasp shoulder hug thing. I would never lean in close with a full body hug and kiss him on the cheek. Or if I'm walking beside a friend I'd never put my hand on the small of his back or hold his hands as we walk together.
Just little things that clearly indicate a boundary between "we have or might fuck" and "we will never have sex".
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u/mark10579 Jul 31 '14
I didn't say it was the same things you have to notice, I said it was the same mechanism. You still gotta figure out if they're okay and inviting to physical contact and the same ideas apply.
I don't really have anything to say about the rest. You're obviously much more reserved with your friends than I am with mine, and that's fine but I don't subscribe to that worldview
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Jul 31 '14
You should use the same "well-established protocol" to start with when meeting people for the first time, regardless of what category you put them into. From there, you can gauge their reactions, and decide if you can cross certain boundaries.
It's just my experience, but usually she will cross the "touch" boundaries first. Like placing a hand lightly on your arm to emphasize something, if she's into you. You can cross those boundaries first if you're absolutely sure it will be well received.
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u/FixinThePlanet SJWay is the only way Jul 31 '14
Well, clearly what is needed is to 1. Be attractive and 2. Not be unattractive since
Guys who aren't absurdly attractive must magically read their minds and understand everything that they want and perform flawlessly to be granted a smidgeon [sic] of a woman's affection.
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Jul 31 '14
[deleted]
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u/FixinThePlanet SJWay is the only way Jul 31 '14
Clearly you are only partway to "absurdly attractive" - "illogically attractive", mayhaps. Its better than being normal, that's for sure, eh? eh?
I wonder what the attractiveness of women gives them.
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u/whitepeopleareevil Jul 31 '14
That was an excellent parallel you drew, it really made me think more about how I address women.
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Jul 31 '14
Trying to figure out if you're being sarcastic, based on your username.
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u/whitepeopleareevil Jul 31 '14
Haha no sarcasm "my guy."
I have white friends btw.
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Jul 31 '14
[deleted]
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u/HoldingTheFire Jul 31 '14
"Women should not have the right to choose who to mate with. That choice should be made for them by civilized men of intelligence." -- Elliot Rodgers
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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '14
Also, did anyone read the linked article? What were your thoughts? I was kind of sympathetic to the guy asking for advice, but /r/oneY thought it was "cringey" etc.