And that is just the beginning of a wondrous little exchange between a self-described “nice guy” trying out some bad boy charm on a not-very receptive woman on OkCupid who nonetheless deals with his ridiculous assholery with aplomb.
Note to “nice guy.” You might want to reconsider some of your assumptions. And work on your typing.
I found this on the endlessly fascinating, if often deeply disturbing, CreepyPMs subreddit, one of Reddit’s few redeeming features. You can read the rest of the conversation here, and the CreepyPM post here.
It’s so insulting to autistic people to use them as a defense for harassers. My brother is autistic. I have met plenty of autistic guys. Never have I met one that acts like a Nice Guy creeper.
Yeah. I think it’s just kicking up more dust to try and act like “socially awkward” and “creepy” are so easily confused with each other when no, actually. Sometimes they come TOGETHER, but it’s not that hard to tell creepy from awkward.
Awkward is when someone won’t talk about something they obviously adore, but you couldn’t care less about.
Creepy is they’re standing deep in your personal space, won’t get out of it, and pitch a fit when you ask them to back off.
Awkward AND creepy is when they’re doing BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.
I know so many awkward people that I have to concentrate to notice is these days. Creepy, however, I have much less tolerance for. And autism is something again completely different than the prior two things! Seriously, people, this isn’t that difficult! It’s like trying to pretend, “oh, they’re not being narcissistic asshats, they’re just DEPRESSED.” No, you are comparing a thing to a different thing. They are different, not the same!
argh argh argh you are so right.
It’s hard enough being mentally ill without people thinking you’re automatically going to be a horse’s arse (or even dangerous). It’s lonely enough being shy and socially awkward without people thinking you have to be a creep. I can’t imagine dealing with the sensory overload and general strangeness of the world that comes with being autistic, and then having neurotypical buttwipes thinking you don’t understand what it is to be human.
I’m in a mean mood (oh noes evil depressed lady!) so I’m bypassing the Lego and wishing full-blown multi-day aura migraines on all these creep-defenders and mental-illness-demonisers.
RE: maggiesausage
Exactly! At best, you get folks going, “Aw, that’s so cute, you’re not being a complete ass, you must be trying so hard!” which is incredibly condescending. Neurotypical != nice.
As a genuinely shy guy in person, I will verify that Fedora-in-Hot-Topic guy was not shyness, in any way, shape or form. I would be unable to contact a random person on the internet, for the same reason I’m really bad about speaking to strangers in real life–it is a constant war to get over the feeling that I’m bothering the other person and ohgodIdon’twanttodrawattention.
I can barely manage to contact people via channels that invite such contact (say, a webcomicker who puts their Twitter link on their home-page for fans to get in touch). And even then, I’m just hopeful that a lone Tweet isn’t going to come across as pushy.
The Kotaku guy was not being shy. Shyness would’ve meant one message at most, and then dropping off the face of the planet when he got no reply. He was ignoring every sign the other person was putting out, and hoping that it would work out if he was just persistent enough. Now, there’s a lot of cultural baggage that goes on in this–the socially awkward ARE encouraged by a good portion of Hollywood claptrap to be creepy. But that just ups the need for them to get a comeuppance that knocks that BS clean out of them.
The “think of the men on the autism spectrum” (but not the women, who cares about them?) thing is such an obvious piece of bullshit. I’ve worked in the tech industry, with lots of guys who were at various points on the spectrum. Were they awkward as hell sometimes? Did some of them talk at me repeatedly about a random thing I knew nothing about without noticing that I didn’t seem to be interested in that thing? Sure. Did they send me creepy messages on the internet? No, because they were not creeps. Did they suggest that if I didn’t want to be harassed I’d delete my social media presence? No, because that’s fucking ridiculous.
Over the course of years in that environment I was never been sexually harassed by someone who was obviously on the spectrum (or who I knew was because they’d told me). It was the sleazy sales guys with excellent social skills and no moral compass who were the problem.
Not that someone who’s on the spectrum can’t be a harasser, but the thing is, if they are, the autism isn’t the reason why they’re doing it.
It’s the same old, isn’t it: men who want to harass women (or worse) will seize anything to make themselves and other harassers the innocent, deprived ones and/or the ones seeking justice against women’s outrageous denial of vagina access. One day it’s “but he’s on the spectrum!” next it’s “women only like arseholes!” And of course women are always to blame, whether we follow social conditioning to Be Nice To Men and put with it/don’t round on them for fear of the consequences, or we do tell them to go fuck a cactus.
It comes back to the whole tautology of it. How do we know the person is “in the spectrum”, answer = they do creepy behaviour. Why does that person do creepy behaviour, answer = “because they’re ‘in the spectrum'”.
Nope, people can be arseholes for whatever reason. If they happen to be in one group and not another, that’s an accident.
The nasty, unhelpful undertones of all this is not just that “he can’t help it” but it’s fucking enabling because he will *never* be expected to “help it” in this dumbarse model of human cognitive functioning.
Part of the reason this annoys me so much is that the combination of Be Nice To Men social conditioning and autism can put women who are on the spectrum in really difficult situations, and none of the people who’re so worried about the poor guys who can’t help being harassers seem to give a shit about that.
Crochet brain bleach: http://www.marymaxim.com/cozy-kitties-afghan-pattern.html
Squeeeeee!
Yup! Furthermore, folks who’re neuroatypical are way more likely to be victims than perps. You’d think people would be waaaaay more concerned about people taking advantage of others’ lack of social skills to victimize them, since that’s what ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENS.
But it’s always menz who are the victims here! Women give them sad boners all the time. How much more victimised can one be than that?
Bingo. I’m a fairly shy person myself, and I have never stalked a guy or harassed him, not even using the vaunted anonymity of the Internets. I’d be creeped out, not flattered, if anyone did that to me, never mind his intentions. And I would fully expect him to be creeped out if I did that, too. In fact, I’d expect precisely this kind of nasty “overreaction” that Kitty had.
Or worse, it makes them into “fair game”. Because we all know that mentally ill women = Hawt Sex, right? Roosh, Fartiste, etc. tell us so…
Is there ANY tech/gaming site that has decent comments?
I haven’t been there in a while, but Ars Technica used to be better than most
You know, it really warms my heart that we still call him Fartiste.
The Gameological part of the A.v. Club on the Onion is pretty decent.
Birch, please.