A Theory of Creepiness

I was hoping that the article would explain the increase in the popularity of 'creepy':

https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=creepy https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=creepy&year_st...

I think it's really naive to brush aside the fact that almost all women elicited thoughts of men as being creepy. Women are scared of being raped or worse happening to them, and they're constantly on the lookout for it. This has nothing to do with "categorization", and everything to do with "potentially dangerous".

Being afraid of a creepy guy who won't leave you alone is very different than being creeped out by a clown or an abandoned building.

> a peculiar smile; having greasy or unkempt hair, bulging eyes, abnormally long fingers, very pale skin or bags under the eyes.

Did Steve Buscemi help define creepiness for the polled group, or did he hit a genetic jackpot of pre-existing ideas of creepiness? (Or both?)

Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Buscemi

Interesting side note: The words "Awkward" and "Creepy" don't exist in German and there are no direct or inderect equivalents. It goes so far that it is culturally impossible to have creepy or awkward behaviour.

I've developed my own thoughts about creepiness, since coming across as creepy is one of my biggest fears.

1) The theory of mirror neurons. This theory states that if you are nervous, the other person will pick up on it subconsciously. As the article states, false confidence, even if you try your best to hide it, will come across as a barely disguised nervousness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron

One of the things that I've observed while watching some pick-up artists practice is that those who eventually become "successful" are basically asking nothing of those who approach. They don't fear rejection. In fact, they can be quite entertaining and good listeners. However, for most of these individuals, they probably had to go through a lot of rejections to get to the point where they didn't honestly care what the reaction was.

2) The hover zone/kill zone

Commonly used in pick-up artist terminology. This is easily described as wanting to talk to a specific individual, even approaching within several feet, yet not doing it. I know we've all done this, at some point, at a bar or even at a friend's party. You know the person knows that you are interested in them.

3) Reciprocity

In one of Pedro Almodovar's movies, in the director's commentary on the DVD, there is a man in a woman's apartment who is looking through his host's stuff. The director makes a statement along the lines that "liking without reciprocity" makes it stalking (or worse).

In the very rare times, where a woman who has explicitly hit on me, asking lots of questions, showing interest that is out of norm with the pace of conversation (e.g. we just met), I can attest that it feels creepy as in (What have I done to make you so interested?). In more common circumstances, I recall people who are seemingly interested in you but quickly steer the conversation to something like network marketing.

Given these factors, what can be done to not come across as creepy?

First, don't hover. Talk to someone right away, even if it just a quick introduction.

Second, being quiet can actively work against you in most social situations. Especially when you are meeting new people. To this day, I can be enjoying a party by meeting new people in a group and listening to their stories and (usually) extroverts will ask if "are you having a good time?". Even if I am, it doesn't outwardly show, at least in the manner they'd expect.

Third, the answer may lie in being mindful of reciprocity. For example, talking to a cute individual, what is it about him/her/they that you find interesting (that is not related to something she cannot easily change, like her looks).

When I've talked to my good looking friend girls, they basically say they have to ignore all the attention/cat calls when they walk down the street.

Fourth, to escape the friend zone, you have to make it explicitly clear that you are interested in someone romantically and tell them why. Asking someone out to coffee to talk about their job v. asking someone out to a picnic because you like them.

One last side note - if you walk into a party with a couple good looking friends (male or female), people will automatically ascribe a higher status to you, whether you care to agree with the theory and practice of social proof or not.

I don't get the "essence" and living things thing.

I think it boils down to unknown, potentially threatening behavior. The big eyed, tail wagging mix of a dog and a mouse is not so creepy. Walking on to cobblestones and they feel like they are floating scares us. A house painted in perfect white, all lights turned on, but without furniture or any people is creepy.

The funeral director and taxidermist is creepy, because he isn't creeped out by death himself.

edit: reading the other comments: this is about scary creepy, as in "freaks me out", not creepy as in "ugh, leave me alone you perv". Though there are overlaps of course.

I sort of explored this a few years ago in a story. A scientist creates rabbit-human hybrids and it causes all kinds of problems precisely because they can't be treated as animals and can't be treated as human.

https://github.com/johngtait/mixie-novel/blob/development/fr...

The article isn't about the creepiness described in the comments here. It's more about creepiness in general, like in clowns. It's pretty standard stuff actually...creepiness isn't just physical threat, it's a sense of impurity or a pollution of a thing's essence. Clowns are impure in the sense that they are humans gone wrong, with waxlike and distorted features.

When going from riding a bicycle to learning to drive a car, it is very easy to feel a lot of anxiety about it. After all, driving a car on American roads is a very morally strange thing: you are in fact imposing upon other people a risk of death or lifelong-debilitating injury. And you have to work to accept this. Of course you can and should avoid exacerbating that: only drive when sober and well-rested. Don't text and drive. Don't have complex discussions when driving. Scan your mirrors for bikes and motorcyclists. But as long as you are going to get up and go to work, you cannot reduce risk to 0%. And you have to work to accept this. There are even things you can do to actively be much better than most drivers: do the Dutch Reach[1] when you open your door. Spend $10 on a wide-angle mirror[2]. But ultimately you are still imposing an increased risk of death on others. And you have to work to accept this.

Likewise, when going from reading things like http://tinyurl.com/schrodingers-rapist, or various blogs written by and for those on the receiving end of stalking and street harassment, it is very easy to feel a lot of anxiety about the possibility of creeping someone out. But humans are strange and varied people who have all sorts of backgrounds and perceptions. And you have to work to accept this. You still must avoid doing things that will cause a reasonable predictive model of people to feel fear: Keep a situationally-reasonable distance from people. Don't shout things at people on the street. Don't present sexual/romantic intent to someone with a high cost to removing themselves from the situation. There are ways you can trade time/money or your preferences for other's comfort if you choose: learn to choose and wear nicer clothing. Speak in a slightly higher pitch. Avoid facial hair or tattoos. Have a friend smell-check you if your nose is impaired. But ultimately, people percieve things in different ways and some might perceive you as a threat. And you have to work to accept this.

[1] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/09/08/this-cyclist-wa... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Fit-System-RM011-Clip-Mirror/dp/B001A...

The article states a couple times: "cognitive paralysis is what generates the sensation of creepiness."

It's the most confident statement in the article, but without supplying a reference. Can this be validated?

Thinking about movie stereotypes about ie: people who collect hair, I think a distinction should be made between those described as merely "scary" and those described as "creepy".

Take a horror movie. If said collector is a recluse who's history nobody knows about, they're described as scary. If they're out and about, visiting neighbors, trying to relate and engage with people, they are much more likely to be described as creepy.

As such, bringing it back to everyday behavior, I think the critical aspect that determines whether something is creepy or not is whether there is a mismatch between what the person is explicitly informing they want to do (be a friendly neighbor), and whether the person on the receiving end suspects there are ulterior motives (they want to collect hair).

I found this essay interesting:

>It’s not “creepy” if he’s hot. I freely admit it. When a very attractive stranger approaches me and tells me I’m beautiful, it brightens my day. When a guy who is short, fat or balding does it, it makes my skin crawl no matter how tactful he is about it. I just want him to go away. I’m not alone in feeling this way. Most women feel the same, but hide the true extent of it when the guys are around.

http://theplacetorant.com/ugly-creepy-guys/

Just take comfort in knowing that female attractiveness usually drops off a cliff far earlier than male attractiveness does. The same girl writing that essay will one day be 40+ and begging for any of those "genetic superiors" to give her five seconds, while the same male "uggo" with a stable income and decent hygiene will be able to take his pick of a bunch of nicer women who didn't view the whole of humanity through the lens of the beautiful people master race.

I found this reddit comment interesting:

> [–][deleted] 3796 points 2 years ago*x2

Lots of Indian dudes are great guys. Most, even. Smart, funny, sociable, kind, handsome, eyes to kill for, the works.

But just as with every group, some aren't. Some are creeps. Usually creeps have no idea that they're creeps, don't understand why they're creeps, and get mad when people call them creeps. So why are Indian dudes so often creeps? Well, for the same reasons any guy is a creep, with a few cultural factors thrown in. I'll try to explain why in a way that encompasses creepdom as a whole, and which I think might be comprehensible to creeps. Now, if I could establish an informal Creepiness Quotient to describe the feeling someone gives you in the first few seconds they're hitting on you, I would do it as follows.

Creepiness = ( (Awkwardness x Forwardness) / (Attractiveness) ) ^ Persistence

Now, let's look at the factors here, with "you" being a nonspecific potential creep who is hitting on "me," a nonspecific person of sexual interest:

Awkwardness is the extent to which you demonstrate your inability to operate effectively in my chosen social environment. A person who cannot initiate or maintain a comfortable conversation with me is an unappealing choice of partner. Immigrants often score highly on Awkwardness, which is natural--they're working in an unfamiliar social environment. I think that's unfortunate, because usually it's not at all their fault.

Forwardness is the extent to which you convey that your goal is purely to use me as a sex-thing. If I think you like me because I'm interesting, this is noncreepy and good. If I think you like me because my part fits your part, that is creepy and bad. Men from some cultures tend to be more forward than men from others, depending on the appropriate gender roles in their societies. In my own personal experience, Indians are high on the Forwardness list. I'm not remotely qualified to offer a guess as to why, beyond "lol culture" which is not explanatory of anything.

Attractiveness is a saving grace! Maybe you're hot, maybe you've got a great voice, maybe you've got nice arms, maybe you told a great joke, maybe I like your clothes, maybe you belong to the same subculture I do. Maybe you aren't an obese scuzzlord with halitosis who smells like BO and salmonella. Rules #1 and #2 aren't all there is, but they definitely help. I don't think your ethnicity makes you more or less likely to be attractive as a rule, though some individual people have some degree of preference.

Persistence is bad news. Persistence is when you don't take "no" for an answer. Persistence is when you apply pressure, is when you get aggressive or defensive, and is when you demand explanations for why I won't date you. At high levels, persistence is when you start to give off rape vibes. Persistence is what you get when someone believes they are entitled to sex with me or entitled to a relationship with me, and my opinion on the matter is an inconvenience. Persistence is a creepiness multiplier. An awkward, unattractive dude who says "ey, you got nice tits, I got a nice dick, so, wanna fuck" then leaves when I say no? He's creepy, yes. A dude who is otherwise normal but who won't leave me alone? Way creepier. In my experience, this is where so many Indian guys lose it: the entitlement/persistence factor. Begin with traditional gender roles, teach them to a child of a rich businessman in a society with sharply defined social classes, who has always gotten everything he wants, and who is somewhat inclined to see people 'below' him as less deserving of consideration. Then turn that child into a STEMlord engineering student who has had minimal successful contact with actual human beings. That's a recipe for a guy who thinks he deserves women but doesn't have any idea about how to 'get' them. So he gets persistent, because hey, that's how you succeed at anything, right, you just find what you want and take it? And now he's creepy as fuck.

This whole thing is of course not limited to Indian dudes. Any guy can be a creeper, for similar reasons as above. But if you're asking why so many Indian students in Western universities are creepers, well, that's why: unfamiliarity with their new nation's social norms and gender roles (Awkwardness and Forwardness) combined with a disturbing sense of entitlement and an inability to handle disappointment (Persistence) means high creepiness. EDIT: Women can be creeps too, of course. In the above, I assume the creep is a man, partially for ease of pronoun use, and partially as an reflection of the relatively higher incidence of male creeps.

- https://www.reddit.com/r/cringepics/comments/21gf9b/i_get_mo...