Girls and creepiness

[ImBigBob]

Yes, another dumb dating thread. There's a specific experience I've been dwelling on lately because I feel it's representative of a much large problem I have when it comes to girls.

About six months ago I was at an anime convention with some friends. While I was there, I met a girl who was cosplaying as Yukiko from Persona 4. Now that's kind of a niche game, and she pulled off the cosplay very well, so I struck up a conversation with her. We talked about RPGs, and the upcoming P4 games, her costume, the convention, etc. She was cute and we had plenty to talk about, so I wanted to ask her out. However, I'm 24 years old and out of college, but she looked comparatively young. I know it can be hard to judge someone's age, but I didn't want to be asking out a girl who was underage, so I kind of just let the conversation slide.

I talked to some friends about it later in the day, and they told me that I should have asked her, because how else would I know for sure. And apparently even if she was younger than me, why should it matter if we got along? I felt kind of weird about their advice, but the next day I wound up seeing that cosplayer again. I struck up a conversation with her, and I decided to say "Hey, uh, I'm just wondering: how old are you?" This girl's face went white, and she felt like that was just crossing the line. "You don't ask a young girl her age!" The conversation ended right there.

The thing is, I still don't know what the hell I did wrong. When I was talking to her, I was asking about her interests and her costume. I didn't pepper the conversation with sexual innuendos, I didn't try to "show off" or anything to her. I just treated her like a human. But it really hurt because I felt like the fact that I was interested in her was enough to make me seem like a creep. And this isn't the only time this has happened. One girl unfriended me from facebook for suggesting we get lunch together. One time in a bookstore I asked what book a girl was reading, and she went out of her way to not making eye contact with me in her response. People say that confidence is key when talking to girls, but I find that advice really stupid when I'm treated like a weirdo just because I ask a girl out. Not once has a girl ever said "yes" to me when I asked her out in real life.

Sometimes people have suggested that maybe it's the way I'm presenting myself that makes the girls I talk to uncomfortable. Of course, I don't ACT particularly different around girls I'm interested in (as in, I don't stand oddly close and I don't treat her as if she's the most important thing in the world, because she isn't). It's something that's bothered me a lot throughout my life and I feel like the advice I get about dating is completely contradictory to my own experiences. If that girl was just some random person in the line for Starbucks I can understand being weirded out, but we were at a con and had plenty in common.

 

[Phasmal]

Well... some people just aren't up for being approached by guys randomly.

Of course, it's hard to know what you could be doing `wrong` by just your explanation.
If you think you are coming across as `creepy`- here's some advice on that: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2011/12/dont-be-a-creeper/all/1/.

Maybe you didn't do anything `wrong`, but women aren't machines you can press the right buttons with and win the game. Maybe that girl was not interested in you as a potential romantic partner at all and that's why she shut down the conversation if she felt it was heading in a direction she didn't want.

My advice would be to look for signs that people aren't interested, the girl who didn't make eye contact? Clearly didn't wanna get approached.

Because people are complicated, there is no `one size fits all` to dating and approaching people.

Some more general tips: http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/09/dating-101-meet-women-without-creepy/. I like that website.

 

[ImBigBob]

I've seen the Doctor Nerdlove page before, and I swear I'm being honest when I say I don't do any of that crap. I try to be aware of myself, and I don't do anything to others that I would be uncomfortable if it were the other way around. Then again, I wouldn't care if anyone asked how old I was, which lead to the problem I described.

First response in this topic says there's no "right way" to get a date. Second response says I could have handled that situation in so many different ways. Do you see how confusing this gets? (and asking her friends wasn't an option because she came to the con alone).

 

[Phasmal]

First response in this topic says there's no "right way" to get a date. Second response says I could have handled that situation in so many different ways. Do you see how confusing this gets? (and asking her friends wasn't an option because she came to the con alone).

Not really, those two things pretty much mean the same thing.
There is no `right way` but there are lots of `ways`.

Yeah, dating gets complicated, but people are complicated.
Anyone who tells you there is one fool-proof way to get a date is having you on.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Not once has a girl ever said "yes" to me when I asked her out in real life.

Out of interest, where have you been going to ask out girls that isn't part of your real life?

OT: I can't really help, man. I have no idea what you did wrong. There's a girl I met recently who I get on fantastically with, we share a ton of interests, and she shot me down when I asked her out. You can never predict how people will react - even if you think you're perfect for one another, maybe she thinks you're not attractive or that you smell of hammers.

Maybe she thought that by asking her age, you were suggesting you were only into...uh..."younger" girls, if you take my meaning.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Maybe you didn't do anything `wrong`, but women aren't machines you can press the right buttons with and win the game.

Wait, what?

I thought that was how sex worked...

 

[ImBigBob]

I've successfully gotten dates via dating sites, though my success rate is still poor. And even one time I got a date via twitter. But never have I gotten a date by going to a meetup or a party or something.

If the girl wasn't interested in me, that'd be understandable. I just hate the idea that I offended her by asking something that wouldn't even bother me (and it was clear that I hesitated to begin with, and only asked because my friends unanimously said I should). Girls don't come with a manual of what to not say.

 

[endnuen]

You basically just nevr ask that. Girls are sensitive like that.
But you could easily have gotten yourself enough info to determine if she was old enough or not.
Ask about what she does when not dressed up like a game character for instance.

 

[EeveeElectro]

When I was younger (around 14-17) older guys would strike up conversations with me and ask how old I was. I'd tell them and they'd say "Oh." or "Ha, you're just a kid!" get up and walk off without saying goodbye.
If that's happened to her, I'd be wary about giving my age out too. There may have been the possibility she liked you but was scared if she told you she was drastically younger, you'd say "well that's me out!" and jump out the window.

It also may be a possibility she didn't and she felt like you were leading up to ask her out and she didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of turning you down.
If you can find her again somehow (Facebook, Twitter) then I'd try apologising if you made her uncomfortable. I personally think you did no wrong but some girls are extremely sensitive.
She might have even heard it as "Hey, I want to fuck you. You're legal, right?" People will sometimes hear what you're not trying to say.
If she doesn't want to know, chalk it up as a bad experience and learn from it.
Be more crafty in future. "So, you at college/working?" I know living in the UK, if they say school they're too young. College or sixth form is probably still a bit too young but better. Work can mean 16+ and university is about the right age for me.

 

[Johnny Impact]

You can't plan on people's reactions.

At PAX this year I was sitting in the wargaming section when this hand came down on the table next to me. My eyes went to the hand (female), up the arm, stopped at the chest just long enough to read the single word on the T-shirt, up to the face, then back to the table, all in a quarter of a second or less.

Her reaction? She turned to the guy next to her and said, "We need to go. I'm tired of getting oogled."

Thing is, I'd have done the exact same thing if it had been a guy who had come up to the table. Lots of people wear awesome T-shirts at PAX. I read as many as I can every year. She was close enough for me to have slid my hand around her hips without getting up. Any person approaching that close to me, male or female, is getting the once-over.

Putting words on her chest was her choice. Spending the day with thousands of sexually repressed guys was her choice. Getting offended was her choice. It had nothing to do with me except as a minor footnote to a life full of encounters like the ones you describe.

Maybe your scenarios don't have anything to do with you specifically. Some folks are just plain unlucky.

 

[Phasmal]

You can't plan on people's reactions.

At PAX this year I was sitting in the wargaming section when this hand came down on the table next to me. My eyes went to the hand (female), up the arm, stopped at the chest just long enough to read the single word on the T-shirt, up to the face, then back to the table, all in a quarter of a second or less.

Her reaction? She turned to the guy next to her and said, "We need to go. I'm tired of getting oogled."

Thing is, I'd have done the exact same thing if it had been a guy who had come up to the table. Lots of people wear awesome T-shirts at PAX. I read as many as I can every year. She was close enough for me to have slid my hand around her hips without getting up. Any person approaching that close to me, male or female, is getting the once-over.

Putting words on her chest was her choice. Spending the day with thousands of sexually repressed guys was her choice. Getting offended was her choice. It had nothing to do with me except as a minor footnote to a life full of encounters like the ones you describe.

Maybe your scenarios don't have anything to do with you specifically. Some folks are just plain unlucky.

Ok, gotta heckle a bit here.
Specifically, this bit:

You can't plan on people's reactions.


Putting words on her chest was her choice. Spending the day with thousands of sexually repressed guys was her choice. Getting offended was her choice.

That is some pure quality grade-A bullshit, my friend.
Sexually repressed guys still have to act like people in polite society.
It is not a female in the games community or any male-dominated communities `job` to avoid giving anyone a sad-boner.
Most of my interests have a large male community, a lot of them sexually repressed, but I'll be damned if they're gonna blame me for being female in their space.
Don't peddle that shit, kthanx.

Yeah, maybe you weren't oggling and the lady's response was over the top, but don't bring that mentality around with you.
Sexually repressed people are still people.
They do not `get away` with anything for being sexually repressed.

Back to you, OP:

I've successfully gotten dates via dating sites, though my success rate is still poor. And even one time I got a date via twitter. But never have I gotten a date by going to a meetup or a party or something.

If the girl wasn't interested in me, that'd be understandable. I just hate the idea that I offended her by asking something that wouldn't even bother me (and it was clear that I hesitated to begin with, and only asked because my friends unanimously said I should). Girls don't come with a manual of what to not say.

No shame in meeting people online.
Often it gives you more time to think about what you want to say and how it might sound.

Of course girls don't come with a manual of what not to say.
Because girls are people.
And people are different.

Something that offends me may not offend another lady, and something that offends her may seem silly to me.
You can't really tell until you know the person and if you hit on something that offends them accidentally, that's just bad luck.

 

[Durzo_Blint]

That is some pure quality grade-A bullshit, my friend.
Sexually repressed guys still have to act like people in polite society.
It is not a female in the games community or any male-dominated communities `job` to avoid giving anyone a sad-boner.
Most of my interests have a large male community, a lot of them sexually repressed, but I'll be damned if they're gonna blame me for being female in their space.
Don't peddle that shit, kthanx.

Yeah, maybe you weren't oggling and the lady's response was over the top, but don't bring that mentality around with you.
Sexually repressed people are still people.
They do not `get away` with anything for being sexually repressed.

This. A thousand times this.

 

[Johnny Impact]

That is some pure quality grade-A bullshit, my friend.
Sexually repressed guys still have to act like people in polite society.
It is not a female in the games community or any male-dominated communities `job` to avoid giving anyone a sad-boner. Don't peddle that shit, kthanx.

If I lifted weights and wore nice clothes I would expect to be looked at. Not all the time, and not by every woman, but certainly by some. Each person can choose whether to call it blessing or curse, but it undeniably comes with having a nice body.

(And please don't cry to me how this is worse for women. A buddy of mine, an ex-bodybuilder in his fifties, is routinely approached by smoking-hot twenty-something women, I've seen it. He shows them his wedding ring and they don't even care. Not the only example I can give, either. Men might be pigs, but not more than women.)

Anyway. Suppose my girlfriend were to take me and my sweet bod to a convention center full of 35,000 young people, a disproportionate number of whom were socially awkward females. Most of those 30,000 women would be courteous enough not to stare, but if even 2% weren't, I could be ogled 600 times before I left. I think the number would be much higher than 2%.

In short, I would expect to be eye candy for most of the day. Why? Because any other expectation would be sheer idiocy.

I'm not saying that represents the perfect scenario. I'm not saying the guys couldn't have done better. I'm saying I can't bring myself to feel sorry for someone who puts him/herself in that situation and is offended when the obvious happens.

PAX-girl handled the situation poorly. I like to think I would handle it much better than she did. Most people would: it is worth noting that I saw plenty of women there who were NOT overreacting or telling off their boyfriends. I wouldn't tell my girlfriend we had to leave, she would tell me I was getting a lot of looks, to which I would reply, "Maybe, but you're the only one who can have me, sweetness" and give her a peck on the cheek. Or somesuch. Handled correctly, the discourtesy could provide an ego boost to me and my woman both.

People, repressed or otherwise, just aren't perfect. It is every person's right to expect a modicum of courtesy. It is nobody's right to expect total, robotic disinterest.

Kindly put your fangs away, or bite someone who actually deserves it.

 

[gazumped]

The thing is, I still don't know what the hell I did wrong. When I was talking to her, I was asking about her interests and her costume. I didn't pepper the conversation with sexual innuendos, I didn't try to "show off" or anything to her. I just treated her like a human. But it really hurt because I felt like the fact that I was interested in her was enough to make me seem like a creep. And this isn't the only time this has happened. One girl unfriended me from facebook for suggesting we get lunch together. One time in a bookstore I asked what book a girl was reading, and she went out of her way to not making eye contact with me in her response. People say that confidence is key when talking to girls, but I find that advice really stupid when I'm treated like a weirdo just because I ask a girl out. Not once has a girl ever said "yes" to me when I asked her out in real life.

While I, in the con girl's situation, would have probably just smirked and said 'too young for you' and let you decide if you still wanted to hang out with me, I can understand the gut reaction of wanting to shut down a guy as quickly as possible. If someone shows they're interested in you, even if you say no but you carry on being nice to them, that can be perceived by some people (I guess because of wishful thinking) that you don't entirely mean no, or you're willing to be won over. And then when you're not, they get upset and accuse you of leading them on. Sometimes. And I've seen this happen with guys and girls on either side of this scenario.

So once you know someone's interested in you like that, you've got to gauge whether it's worth gritting your teeth through the awkwardness so that you can stay pals, possibly risking looking like the total asshole in the long run, or if it's easier just to make sure they've got the message loud and clear the first time around. And if you're not good buddies in the first place, they're not losing anything by just cutting the strings.

Not that I can give you much advice on how to get them to say 'yes' instead, I just mean, don't take it personally. It's just that unrequited interest is an awkward situation and most people are shit at dealing with awkward situations.

(And please don't cry to me how this is worse for women. A buddy of mine, an ex-bodybuilder in his fifties, is routinely approached by smoking-hot twenty-something women, I've seen it. He shows them his wedding ring and they don't even care. Not the only example I can give, either. Men might be pigs, but not more than women.)

You can't go 'the other group are being pigs so this group should be expected to be pigs too!' Those women shouldn't dismiss your friend's 'I'm married' response just because he's attractive, right? So what's with the 'She should expect to be treated like meat 'cause she's fanciable' attitude? (Again, like Phasmal, not saying that that's what you were doing, but in response to the 'Spending the day with thousands of sexually repressed guys was her choice' remark.)

 

[Johnny Impact]

You can't go 'the other group are being pigs so this group should be expected to be pigs too!' Those women shouldn't dismiss your friend's 'I'm married' response just because he's attractive, right? So what's with the 'She should expect to be treated like meat 'cause she's fanciable' attitude? (Again, like Phasmal, not saying that that's what you were doing, but in response to the 'Spending the day with thousands of sexually repressed guys was her choice' remark.)

Aaaaaaand here we go again.

No, people should not be treated like meat. In a perfect world it would never happen. What I am saying is we don't live in a perfect world. No matter our ideas for what we wish the world to be, we have to deal with the world as it is.

Attractive people of both sexes get unwanted attention. This is reality. Could things be better? Oh, certainly. Could they ever be perfect? No. No matter how much courtesy may improve, there will always be a few people who are either too clueless to stop themselves from staring, or who just don't give a rat's ass.

Since the "sexually repressed" part is giving everyone so much trouble, let's call it a mistake on my part and omit it. The argument still stands: Spend the day with thousands of folks of the opposite sex and you're going to be stared at. Not by all of them, not all the time, but it will happen.

Ideal situation? No. Have to be happy about it? No.

Gonna have to live with it from time to time? Pretty much yes.

This whole discussion is tangential to what I was trying to get across originally. That girl at PAX did not fly off in a huff because I, personally, glanced at her for a quarter of a second. She flew off because I was the 10,000th guy to glance at her that day. I wanted OP to understand he, through no fault of his own, may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. If the girl he was talking about had had a really shitty day, she might have looked at anything new with dismissive exasperation rather than an open mind. In other words, it might have been "NOW what??" instead of "Hey, what's this?"

 

[Angie7F]

maybe its the way you say things.
I noticed that many guys commenting on AKB blogs and twitter write comments that probably have no bad intention at all, but come off as creepy simply because of the way they say it. (I am not implying that AKB fans are all creeps, but it seems to a good specimen)

For example, if you suddenly asked "How old are you?" the girl will not know if you are saying that she is too young and you disapprove of her being at the convention, or too old to be a cosplayer, or just plain rude.

If you say " I am really attracted to you and want to ask you out, but I dont want to get myself in trouble. May I ask if you are underage?" then you are flattering her, telling her you like her, and asking her out in one sentence so the girl has no need to second guess your intentions.

Also, you did not need to know how old she is, just if she was underage or not.

Another example.

A girl who usually wears glasses is not wearing glasses, so you say "You look good/ better without glasses".
Now, a girl can think "So I dont look good when I wear glasses?".
It would be good is you can say "I noticed you are not wearing your glasses today. You always look nice, but this is nice look for you too."


Yeah, its stupid, but just something to think about...

 

[gazumped]

No, people should not be treated like meat. In a perfect world it would never happen. What I am saying is we don't live in a perfect world. No matter our ideas for what we wish the world to be, we have to deal with the world as it is.

Attractive people of both sexes get unwanted attention. This is reality. Could things be better? Oh, certainly. Could they ever be perfect? No. No matter how much courtesy may improve, there will always be a few people who are either too clueless to stop themselves from staring, or who just don't give a rat's ass.

Since the "sexually repressed" part is giving everyone so much trouble, let's call it a mistake on my part and omit it. The argument still stands: Spend the day with thousands of folks of the opposite sex and you're going to be stared at. Not by all of them, not all the time, but it will happen.

Ideal situation? No. Have to be happy about it? No.

Gonna have to live with it from time to time? Pretty much yes.

This whole discussion is tangential to what I was trying to get across originally. That girl at PAX did not fly off in a huff because I, personally, glanced at her for a quarter of a second. She flew off because I was the 10,000th guy to glance at her that day. I wanted OP to understand he, through no fault of his own, may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. If the girl he was talking about had had a really shitty day, she might have looked at anything new with dismissive exasperation rather than an open mind. In other words, it might have been "NOW what??" instead of "Hey, what's this?"

Ah, yeah, for sure. I also am unsurprised that this happens, in a similar way that I am unsurprised that if, I dunno, off the top of my head, a person was out/outed as gay but still wanted to go church they'd probably get problems from (some, I know very well not all) fellow church goers. Should they just deal with the world as it is and take the flack from the homophobes in their community? Should they stop practising their religion because it should be expected that religious people are often anti-homosexuality? Or should they get angry, call them out on it, and confront the problem?

Due to the nature of people in general it is indeed hard to expect everyone to be lovely all the time, and actually, if the PAX girl was simply reacting to being looked at then I reckon she's got to cool her jets anyway, but a lot of the 9,999 (or substantially lower but still enough) guys looking at her before you may well not have been casual or respectful about it. I don't know about her, but most of the time that I notice being oogled it's because it's accompanied by gross gestures, noises and loud comments. And while she's gonna have to live with a natural reaction of guys finding her attractive, it doesn't mean she has to live with guys being dicks about it. But yeah, I might be giving her too much credit, maybe she was just getting freaked out by too many males having eyes that happened to be pointing in her direction, in which case I feel sorry for her being made so paranoid about male attention.

Basically, in summary, just because we know that people are often shitty, it doesn't mean we should just sit back and go 'oh well, why try to change anything for the better?'