Creepers

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I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to assume most people here know what a creeper is (if you don't please ask for clarification).

A lot of my female friends (and one or two guy friends) and myself are having issues with creepers (my case sporadically, others semi/constantly). I myself (and my friends) have tried ignoring these people and at the most only saying "hello" if they speak to us in order to be polite. (Also, the one guy I know who has a creeper doesn't seem to know he's creeping out one of our other friends, but I'm planning to stay out of that mess.) Any advice on how to get rid of & deter creepers (I thought not being pretty & telling people I'm asexual would be good deterrents, but NO...)? A few of my friends have offered to tell the person whose bugging me to back off (one offered to kick him w/ cement shoes ) (I think the cement shoes was a joke). But I'd prefer to not have to involve friends in my crap b/c I have b4 & they've got enough to deal with .

uhm... explain what a creeper is.

A guy who continues to hit on a girl despite her showing absolutely no signs of interest in him, and perhaps explicitly stating that she is not interested in him.

Yep, that's what I meant. My case though not sure if he was hitting on me, but he makes me really uncomfortable (staring, complimented my dress & hovered at a dance/ I stayed near other friends to keep us apart, etc.) Today he sat next to me at anime club & proceeded to seemingly watch me eat lunch (I have to eat there b4 my bio lab) & scoot his seat really close to me during the anime. I moved away to the back corner of the room to get away from him. Its a little more than just being annoying... (only thing I've noticed is if I stay near one of 2 particular guy friends, he backs off). But I'm not a fan of constantly using male friends as technical body shields...

Orwell: The only thing I'd add to your definition is that creepers can be of either gender (or even trans) and be hitting on either/in between genders.

I'm afraid I've had a little experience at the creeper end of these creepy situations. Of course, I'm a guy, so any interest I might show in any woman makes me creepy by definition , but if I am not interested, nothing will happen either. Meeting women has been as of thus far an unassailable, can't-win proposition.

My experience with these situations is that some new woman will catch my eye, and for whatever reason the interest is not reciprocated, and then I'm uncomfortable because I am in situations where it's possible for me to look at her, and it's difficult to resist. The interaction is sour yet it's continually put before me and I am attracted and repulsed at the same time.

Why is this guy placed within sight of you? I'm guessing that if you remove yourself from routines which place you in his line of sight, he won't follow and in fact he will be relieved at not having to look at you anymore.

Have you tried eating gassy food before anime club?

excessive flatulence might do the trick.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McCjesvl-vE[/youtube]

To the person who posted the video, its good idea but as I'm a college student (and even if its legal in PA/US for civilians to have a baton) it won't be on campus. Closest thing I have that is legal is an umbrella (only problem is its collapsable).

I have a knife on campus*, and so do at least half the people on my floor. Certainly a young woman would be permitted to carry a baton, pepper spray, or perhaps even a taser for self-defense.

*I don't carry it around with me or anything, it's just a Swiss Army knife in my desk, and everyone has similar items. But seriously, you won't get in trouble for having something like a baton or pepper spray. When my sister lived alone in an apartment, we made sure she had a taser and knew how to use it. The taser might not fly on a campus, but the other things will.

I think a knife that has a 4in. blade or less is permitted. My one friend files her nails w/ a 3-4 in. knife in class . But I'd probably prefer pepper spray or a baton b/c I don't know how to use a knife (though I know people who could teach me how to use one).

I'm surprised you guys talk about other people being creepers. I'm autistic and I've been referred to as creeper many times when I was in high school. I never intentionally do anything wrong, but words just never come out right.

If anything, try a push knife (linked). And technically speaking, it's entirely legal to carry anything onto campus (so long as you have the right permits in certain situations), it's just generally against school policy to carry certain things with you. If you get caught, you'll probably get away with it if you apologize and don't get overly defensive, except in the case of guns (you run a high risk of getting expelled with these). If you're a female and carrying pepper spray/taser/baton/push knife, you'll more than likely get away without any problems. Hell, I always have been and still am known in my department for carrying multiple knives at all times, and no one cares that I do.

Though really, this guy doesn't seem to be needing of anything so extreme, maybe just pull out a canister of pepper spray and say something along the lines of "Back the *bleep* off you creepy little bastard. I've never been and never will be attracted to you, and if you don't leave me the hell alone, I'm going to use this to make you cry like a little *bleep*."

I've actually had a few female creepers do similar things to me. One was a girl in my college English class that would sit next to me every day and whisper sweet "nothings" in my ear (which generally involved lewd sexual acts). Another was a lady with whom I worked that was at least twice my age that would "accidentally" rub up against me in the break room and the like.

Seriously, I know that safety can be a serious issue (I live in Australia where Universities & even the cities are just not as dangerous as a lot of other countries, like the States I guess).

As a girl/woman (I'm never sure anymore which one.. I think it alternates) I can say i'd support other single girls to carry & be well versed in how to use a small knife, pepper spray or other self-defense item.

When it comes to 'creepers', I have experienced them (and when I was younger, in my teens, I had no comprehension of social signals & through naiviete was in a couple of situations where I was interpreted as one though perhaps the people were leaning toward cruelty there, too).

Whenever I've had guys like that, I find if they don't get the initial 'I'm not attracted' signals, like when you don't talk to them, move away a lot, etc then the only way to deal with them is be really really blunt.
All you have to do is use a really rude tone one or two times & they should get the message. It doesn't really matter what you say, just as long as it's downright rude (or as rude as you can possibly manage, in tone).

If not & they're still after you relentlessly you may have a psychopath on your hands & therefore need aforementioned weapons.


btw, DNForrest it was great to hear about your project in the other thread. Really loved it. In a few weeks we're making a hydrogen-fuelled carm I'm looking forward to that.

This thread seems to hit home with me but in the opposite sense: I believe I am viewed as by many many women/girls as a creep or close to one and the vast majority of the time (over 99% in the last 4 years), I can not pick up the signs and once it took a girl's boy-friend telling me she was creeped out by me. I did not know she had a boy-friend and she never mentioned anything about her having one. In that instance, I stopped all communication with her to be 100% sure she can't ever say anything about me again. The guy was nice and did not threaten me or anything, but the whole subject really worries me because I have no way so far to verify or show others my actions leading up to rejections by women that may put me in this category.

Is it possible that you can go into major detail about what exactly is and isn't allowed when someone wants to express romantic interest in another person? In my case, I need very specific information almost to the level you would tell a robot.

I have mentioned this subject to my therapist before and she is clueless because 'creepiness' is a moving target and can be very vague at times. The line is so fine that someone without very good social skills will know exactly where it is. Most people probably know either extreme (something that definitely is and isn't, for instance) but not much in the way of grey areas. I'm surprised this thread isn't more popular on this forum and that no-one has asked what I asked in this post yet as I bet many of us ASers have had similar issues before.