How to avoid the creep-zone on Facebook

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Januaryman makes great points here, Punkguy.

I have been exactley where you are and it sucks but if you want to feel in anyway satisfied with your lot in life.......you just need to let it go.........Take all that anger and resentment (at society, at women, your parents, or whomever else) and put it behind you. No it's not easy. I never said it was. It's what you have to do and you need to find your own way to do it.

I understand what you are saying but what do I do when someone offends me am I supposed to just walk away? I have never been able to do that. Just not how I am. The problem is, I misinterpret information and half the time it seems I get upset with people who are really not doing anything wrong. It is very confusing. I mean there has to be a way to learn how to pick up on this and online it is very difficult. The person I talked to yesterday and blew up on said something that to me was insensitive and he acts like he did nothing wrong. Maybe I reacted instantly and told him off. He had no clue he was going to offend me? No he did he knew exactly what he was doing. He even said he teases people to help them get used to teasing. Nice job man that really helps people. That is messed up to me.

Be considerate about more than just your own world of people and things, and there's more of a chance it will be considerate back. Much like life, it's not all about you.
Let's turn your argument about rights on its head. Say if you found me to be a jerk. Do you have the right to call me that? What if I said you don't? You'd disagree wouldn't you? Well, everyone has the right to make their own judgment calls on others. They might be wrong in how they feel, it might hurt your feelings but they have every right to do it and have no obligation to anyone much like you don't. When you put people in a position where only you can tell them how to feel, to think, what is right and wrong..it's crossing a boundary and being overbearing. There's nothing nice about that.

About your past - I am very sorry this happened, whatever abuse it might be. People from the present should not have to pay for your past, though. No one is asking you to be a calm person, but exerting more self control yields great results and makes life a hell of a lot easier. You want life to be easy without willing to make it easy. You also have to realise, not every action requires self defense, or at least self defense in the way you see it. Sometimes that can be pre-emptive and it goes from being defense to abuse and harassment. Establishing boundaries is not our strong point, but taking the time to do so is very important.

About people accepting you. You are going about it in a way where it's "accept me or else". Let me tell you something, I tried that. It scared people and I was more alienated than ever. How old was I? 15.
If you are honestly as nice as you say you are, people will grow to love and accept you, even the ones who find you off at first regardless of those faults and quirks. In fact, they might even like them after a while. Generally speaking, if you want to talk about all this more in detail I'd be glad to chat about it but let's try and keep it related to the topic. Applying some of this self control, and establishing boundaries like mentioned above is also something worth doing on social media outlets.

Edit: On a further note, do you feel it is fair to be unkind to one person because a completely unrelated person was unkind to you? How does Person A affect Person B in any way?

Edit: This comes down to the "accept me or else" mentality that JM pointed out. I'm familiar with it being a popular aspect of "Punk" culture but the inverse is rarely true. Punks aren't supposed to care what "society" thinks and neither should you. In case I'm not mistaken, thats what punk is........

Basically I just go by the saying, Give what you get. I respect those who respect me just like they respect me because I respect them. When someone disrespects me they get the same and if I disrespect someone else they are free to disrespect me. Now I am starting to think this is not the right way to go. It is kind of a tough guy almost outlaw mentality. It is appealing to me even though it seems to be to my detriment.

Also if you don't like me I really don't care all that much. Not everyone has to like me which means I do not have to like everyone else.

It is okay if you turn everything into humor. I have no problem with that. But when someone does this and does it in an insensitive way that is what I am judging not the actual use of humor.

Sometimes I guess I take things out on other people. I am not proud of this. I am completely wrong in doing this. The reason why I end up with friends is that I am willing to say I was wrong and be a man about it. And then try to not do it. I need to find another way because it is like I have two personalities one good and one bad. You cannot completely eradicate either one. It is the duality of man. The bad part of me is arrogant and sometimes mean the other side of me is caring, giving, respectful, genuine, I would give you the shirt off my back. Part of me accepts everyone as equal and is not judgmental. Sometimes when I get upset at people this goes out the window. I really dislike that about me.

Thank you for all the advice. It does help me and I really appreciate it. I probably will not respond since the thread needs to go back to the original topic.

Off topic but based on what I have seen in this thread and experienced IRL myself: Awkwardness hasn't necessarily creeped others out (it may creep out the insecure type), Shyness doesn't creep people out, and being nice doesn't creep people out. What creeps people out: Miserable behaviour and dishonest people.

^^^Great insight!

If you are weird and don't truly care that you're weird it's significantly less likely to creep someone out. If you weird and self concious about it, it will set off a lot of people's alarms (either conciously or subconsiously.) i.e:
"Why is that guy so nervous? Should I be nervous around him?"
"That guy is acting strange, he must be up to something."
"That guy is staring instead of talking, wtf?"
I used to get the creeper label in the past. No longer (I think.)

I honestly wouldn't care at this point. It is such a relief to have this mindset. Soooooo much easier to be satisfied. The only people who's opinions I really give a s**t about are my friends but I don't need to change my behavior too much to impress them, that's why they are friends.

^^ and not washing and wearing dirty clothes is always creepy no exceptions.

It's a popularity contest, just like Myspace was when it was what everyone used. The real purpose of social networks is for women to show everyone their breasts. Didn't you get the memo?

Despite what he might think to the contrary, I wish Punkguy well. I apologise if he thought that a post on garden implements, of all things, was attacking him. With hindsight, I naively tried to help in a way that he probably found confusing. I made my motives clear at the time. I wished him well at the time, and I still do. I think it's disappointing that things which were said are now being reinterpreted and twisted, in my opinion, but that is nothing to do with me. I think some of the posts and the help on offer here are excellent, and if anyone's got a time machine at their disposal, if they want to go back to yesterday and make them, then spotty dog.

As far as I am concerned, that is that, it's yesterday's news, and I hope that Punkguy can let it go, too - why hang on to anything.

Sorry for that, back on topic.

Yes, and it was people who had met him in real life who said they felt there was something "predatory" about him. To be fair, I didn't get that sense about him, but then I haven't met him in real life. One woman, who'd met him a couple of times at meetings of the group we're all members of, happened to meet him while she was out with her husband. He joined them, uninvited, and talked only to her - ignoring her husband - and then posted on Facebook to the effect that he'd had some kind of date with her.

Male friends find him a bit annoying, largely because he has a tendency to interrupt serious discussions with silly and irrelevant comments - both in real life and on Facebook.



The internet gave him the opportunity and the means to intrude on my personal space in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. It got to the stage that I felt reluctant to use Facebook because every single time I went there he instantly sent me a message on chat. I don't use chat very much, and I never instigate a conversation on chat. I told him that, and it didn't make any difference. I told him I was busy, and didn't have time to chat, that I found it disruptive as I was working, that that wasn't how I chose to use Facebook. All this was over a period of a couple of weeks. I'm not talking about "the slightest bit of contact" here. I gave him plenty of chances to back off, but he continued to do what he wanted to do, despite me making it clear that I didn't like it.



The chances are that I will meet him at some point in real life. We are still both members of the Group and I continue to interact with him, minimally, as a fellow member of that Group. I haven't cut him out completely, I haven't blocked him, and if he says something in a discussion that I want to comment on, or "like" then I do so. I feel that I did, and do, treat him as a "proper human being". He didn't return that courtesy, unfortunately.

The particular event that I didn't go to took place at a time when I was feeling pretty down, having experienced a few bereavements in a short period of time. I just couldn't deal with meeting him at that time. Now, yeah, I could handle it, but I can't say that I would be looking forward to it.

I think he is some "sad alone guy". One person who has met him, said as much to me. He is divorced, and lives alone. Same as me. I also work from home, unlike him, so for me Facebook does provide a way of keeping in contact with people that I wouldn't otherwise have. His persistence made me uncomfortable and had the effect of making me more isolated.



It is a shame that it has changed, especially with you having had much more positive experiences than you have now, or the one I have described here. This is the only time it has happened to me, though. I suppose when internet access was more "niche" then the on-line population was different. Now it has expanded to include pretty much everyone. Many people are still finding their way in working out how to use this form of communication.



No, if you sent this message or a similar one related to something you'd seen me say there, I wouldn't "block you instantly". I like to discuss things with people, and there have been times I have sent messages to people I don't know on Facebook because I have seen them comment or post things which I have found interesting. I don't do it often, but I do it.

I wasn't rude to that man, but he was rude to me. He persistently ignored my requests for him to stop messaging me all the time, and in fact, his reaction was to increase the number of messages he sent me.

Most of my Facebook friends I do know irl, but I also have a few friends that I only know through on-line interactions. That particular man is the only person I've had a problem with.

I'm sure it is unintentional, but there is a whiff of the Nice Guy TM in what you are saying here about the way you feel I should have reacted to that man. As someone else has already said, I owed him nothing. I told him his behaviour was making me uncomfortable and he ignored me. In all successful relationships, irl or on-line, there has to be mutual respect for each other's boundaries. I made it clear where my personal boundaries were and he trampled over them, knowing where they were.

If he doesn't accept "no" after that, what else won't he accept "no" for?

I certainly wouldn't ever want to be on my own with him.

keep the posts short and sweet.

Most of the time people arne't going to read posts that are very long. Unless they're interesting.

1 Limit your interactions with people of the opposite gender that you barely know.

2 Be on the lookout for signs of the person on the other end feeling uncomfortable and leave them alone.

Ie: The other day I had to send a free sms to a female I was somewhat close to(iher birthday was near and we were planning a "surprise party" and she hadnt replied to other friends attempts over fb, I had her number).
Within 10 minutes I had a reply and I was told to contact her at her email/fb. I cleared that someone else had approached her on fb with no reply and I had been asked to try my best to get a reply(I made up a very important meeting she just had to come to and a female friend had sent her a message over fb about some important changes on our meetings that were about to be discussed...).

In the end she showed up, gave me a hug and thanked me for the attempt to make sure she was there for the surprise birthday thingy because I had been on the lookout for signs of her feeling uncomfortable at the texting(contact her at email/fb), earlier me could have made her feel uncomfortable.

^ 3. Don't join WP facebook group.