Help, I’m Afraid of Being An Accidental Creeper!

Hey Doc,
I guess I am starting to understand where I’m going wrong, but I don’t know how to turn that into doing things right or perhaps better.

I am on the autism spectrum, and I realize how I act to demonstrate I am attracted to someone makes most women uncomfortable. I try to be polite and respectful, in addition to trying to make the person feel good or “butterflies” as it were. What ends up happening is doing that incredibly halfheartedly and I get exceptionally uncomfortable, causing the same for her. A lot of my thoughts are that this is definitely doomed to failure and “can’t you see how uncomfortable she is? You’re just like all the guys who harass on the street.” It feels like the boundary for doing the right thing is 0, never say or do anything.

I know putting so much pressure on is probably one of or the biggest issue, but I don’t know how to reach an abundance mindset. The latter half of college and the decade plus since has seen me experience very few crushes or attraction strong enough to even try. It’s hard to think you’ll find another person when anytime someone says “let this one go and look for someone else.” I hear “be okay spending 1.5-3 years nursing rejection, then do this all over.”

I know my being attracted to someone is normal and healthy, but I can’t see a way of expressing that, that is not like all the guys who harass women and are pushy and bad with no. And honestly I don’t know how to show what I’m good at, things that make me light up and passionate about because I don’t open up to strangers easily or quickly so the vibe that come across is more “incel crossing into potential mass shooter” as opposed to “boyfriend material.”

I think that’s where I’m at right now. I hope I don’t need The Chair Leg Of Truth, but I could use some direction and behavior role models.

Don’t Fear The Creeper

I wish you’d included more about what precisely you do, DFTC, because honestly, it’s hard to make recommendations based on the little you’ve given us here.

So, absent being able to do a more detailed breakdown of what you’re doing, let’s talk about some best practices when it comes to approaching women and expressing interest… without being a creeper.

The first thing to consider is what makes somebody creepy in the first place. Just finding someone attractive, or even even expressing interest in someone isn’t inherently creepy, no matter what some of the sadder sacks on Reddit or the YouTube comment section will tell you. What makes someone creepy (rather than, say, annoying) tends to be the sense of threat; behaviors that set people’s Spidey-sense tingling. Consider, for example, the dudes on the street with clipboards, trying to get you to sign their petition or donate to their cause. These are the folks you run into on any average weekend who try to strike up a conversation with you as a pretext to have an opportunity to pitch their particular cause. They tend to be obnoxious, annoying even because it seems like they won’t take the hint and like demons of old, you have to deny them three times before they finally leave you alone. But they very rarely come off as creepy. Why?

Well, to start with, the location: you tend to run into them on a busy street during the day. With the large numbers of people around and in broad daylight, you’re generally assured that they’re not going to present an immediate threat to you. They may be annoying, and if you acknowledge them at all, then it takes forever to get them to give up without being actively rude. But as pushy as they tend to be, they rarely come off as threatening. You don’t (usually) fear for your safety when they approach you; usually you just fear for your time and inconvenience.

Now contrast this with dudes who catcall women on the street. These tend to be aggrivating at best, but can often cross straight into being creepy and scary. Why? Because of their behavior. While the clipboard folks tend to be irritatingly persistent, you generally feel like if you tell ’em to fuck off enough times, they’ll go away. The catcallers though, tend to make people more uncomfortable. To start with: they rarely take “no” for an answer. Ignoring them, responding negatively or otherwise just existing in their presence often leads to escalation; they get upset that women’re not smiling when they tell them to, they often follow her and make other comments and those comments are frequently crude and sexual. These come off as a threat, in part because they behave as though they’re ready to force their targets to a dark alley. They might, they might not… but does anyone feel safe rolling those particular dice without some backup to help them out?

That ambiguity – are they a threat, are they just being an asshole? – is precisely what makes them creepy. There’s the sense that there’s danger here, more than just the base level that women experience by virtue of existing in the world, and that danger has a distinctly sexual edge to it.

(In the case of catcallers and street harassment, this is deliberate. They’re not seriously thinking that they’re going to get a date this way, they’re trying to shock or disturb women for kicks, and their anger at being ignored is very close to the surface.)

So right off the bat, if you want to avoid being creepy, then consider your surroundings and the social context. Is this a place where talking to strangers is generally seen as being something that’s acceptable or encouraged? Are you around other people, or does it seem deserted? Is it well lit and comfortable, or dark and shadowed? Similarly, have you cornered them or backed them into a wall? Or is it easy for them to move away from you or around you without the risk that you could easily grab them? Are you keeping a reasonable distance (which, admittedly, varies depending on culture and circumstances) or are you up in the personal space of someone you don’t normally have personal-space privileges with? Similarly, are you being crude or making sexual comments to someone who isn’t receptive to them, or are you paying attention to their comfort level and interest?

Now, this can seem like a lot of things to keep track of, especially if you’re paying conscious attention to it for the first time (or first few times, for that matter). However, like most forms of social calibration, these are things that you cultivate through practice. Over time, they go from being things you need to think about to things that you just do, because they became part of your muscle memory. It can feel intimidating or intense at first, but the more practice you get in, the easier it becomes.

The next thing to consider is how congruent your behavior is with your surroundings. We have various expectations of behavior that’re context sensitive. The behaviors and energy level that might be appropriate at a nightclub or a rowdy bar are different from the behaviors that’re acceptable at the grocery store or the mall. If someone at Trader Joe’s is bounding up to someone with the same energy and intensity of a dude trying to get a woman’s number at a pick-up bar, he’s going to seem off. Matching your behavior to the social context of your surroundings is important; it tells people through your actions that you understand the unwritten social rules. Someone who seems to violate those rules – the overly-intense dude at Trader Joe’s, for example – can come off as more threatening because they’re not following those rules. They aren’t congruent with their surroundings. This can make people uncomfortable because it’s difficult to know if this is someone who doesn’t know the rules… or if they don’t care about breaking them. And if they’re willing to violate those norms so casually, what other norms and rules will they break?

The third thing: are you paying attention to the other person’s interest and comfort? Are you plowing ahead with your full-court press, despite the fact that you’re getting no positive feedback from them? Or are you mindful of how they’re responding and adjusting your behavior accordingly? If, for example, you are flirting with someone and you notice that they’re starting to show signs of discomfort – a smile that seems stiff and forced and doesn’t reach their eyes, looking around the room instead of at you, or who seem to be backing away – then what you do next makes the difference. If you dial things back, give them a little more physical space, maybe even apologize for making them uncomfortable, then you’re not being creepy. You’re acknowledging how they feel and prioritizing their comfort. By dialing things back, you’re saying “I see you’re not interested and that’s ok.”

If, on the other hand, you press on or call out their discomfort in a way that makes it sound like they’re at fault… well, that’s where things start moving to creepy territory. This is behavior that says “I see that you’re not comfortable, but my desire to see you naked takes priority over your sense of safety, so I will use forms of social pressure to get you to give in to what I want.”

At this point, there’re a lot of folks who will let their fear of being an accidental creeper push them to overcorrect in the other direction. Sometimes they’re so worried that they’re afraid to actually express interest. Other times, they get so caught up in the worry of accidentally creeping someone out that they become avoidant and often refuse to approach or talk to women at all. This is, needless to say, counterproductive when you’re hoping to date. It doesn’t do you any good to try to get dates if you can’t let someone know you’re interested in them as a potential sexual or romantic partner. So there is a delicate balance to be found: the tension between expressing your interest without crossing the line into creeper territory.

Again, this is often something that’s found through practice and a willingness to court rejection. You can’t develop the feel for where the line is without actually interacting with people. However, one of the things that can help is learning your flirting style and flirting in ways that’re comfortable for you. You can flirt and express interest in people without being crude, pushy or overtly sexual. You can let someone know you find them attractive or alluring without being rude or pushy or taking it to a sexual place. Not everyone can flirt like Craig Ferguson does, nor should they. If you pay attention to, say, the way that Will Smith flirts in Hitch, for example, you can see someone who expresses interest in a confident way without being overtly sexual. It’s teasing, yes, but often in a complimentary way. You don’t even need to be smooth or suave; being shy and adorkable is like catnip for a surprising number of women.

It can help to think of flirting as a collaborative exercise, where your goal is to convince someone to do something they want to do anyway… or to give them permission to do so. So, think of how you might convince someone to get into a pool of nice, cool water on a hot summer day. Do you tease them about letting a little cold water stop them? Do you make a big deal about how nice and refreshing the water is? Do you use reverse psychology and gently tease them about how it’s ok, they couldn’t handle it anyway? Flirting works much the same way; you’re both expressing interest in a fun and playful way. So, if you’re worried about crossing the line with overly sexual comments, you might focus more on how nice the water is rather than, say, jokes about shrinkage or pokey nips.

You can use humor to flirt. You can even be direct, using your words and say “I’m bad at subtle, so hey, I like you. I’d like to take you out on a date. I’m going to $FUN_THING this weekend, and I think you might really enjoy it. If you’re interested, I’d love to take you.” It all comes down to your personality, their personality and what you’re most comfortable with. If you aren’t good with making someone “feel butterflies” – for whatever that means to you – then don’t worry about that. You want them to have fun with you. We instinctively prioritize relationships with the people who make us feel good in their presence; this is known as the Reward Theory of Attraction.

The more they enjoy their time with you, the more they will want to spend time with you. So if you aren’t a graduate of the Lando Calrissian School for Players, don’t worry about it; find the flirting style that does mesh with your personality and helps people have fun with you.

However, we do need to talk about how attitude plays into this as well. You actually sum up your single biggest sticking point here: What ends up happening is doing that incredibly halfheartedly and I get exceptionally uncomfortable, causing the same for her. A lot of my thoughts are that this is definitely doomed to failure and “can’t you see how uncomfortable she is? You’re just like all the guys who harass on the street.” This, right here, is going to be the single biggest reason why you fail. You’re going into these interactions thinking that you’ve been pre-rejected, and that’s coming across when you talk to people. It’s one thing to be nervous or shy. It’s another to have an attitude of “It’s ok if you don’t like me; I wouldn’t like me either.” The former can be appealing. The latter is uncomfortable, and it puts people off.

Don’t get me wrong; you don’t need to roll up to women as though you thought you were the hottest thing since World War III. While this can help – confidence gives you advantage on your charisma rolls, after all – you don’t need to think you’re the best around and nobody’s going to bring you down. However, coming into an interaction with an attitude that you need to apologize for your existence and that your attraction to someone is inherently bad… well, that’s going to affect how people feel and how you perform. Having a negative, defeatist attitude means that you’re going to miss opportunities to meet people who may well be into what you have to offer. It means that you don’t put much effort into connecting with them – why should you, you’ve been rejected before you even opened your mouth, after all – and that you’ll have a much harder time recovering when you do have negative results.

Now, this usually leads to people saying “well, how are you supposed to feel good or have confidence if you never have success to be confident about?” And the answer is that what you’re describing isn’t confidence; that’s external validation, and it’s inherently fragile. If your confidence is solely dependent on success, then you can never be confident. Leaving aside the whole chicken/egg question, there’s the fact that you can be the best at something and still fail. Michael Jordan may be the GOAT but he’s still lost games and missed shots. Models get rejected from jobs for petty “imperfections” and there’re women who wouldn’t bang Brad Pitt with a borrowed vagina and Harry Styles to do the pushing.

Confidence isn’t about knowing you can’t fail. Confidence is about knowing and owning your awesomeness, and knowing that what makes you awesome is independent of what other people think. Recognizing that you’ve got great qualities and that the right people would be lucky to date you is confidence; thinking you can’t fail is arrogance. So finding the things that make you feel like Han Solo (who, let’s be real, is actually a big goddamn dork) or a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus is part of how you get there. Finding your style and dressing in ways that make you look in the mirror and say “Daaaaaamn”, leaning into the things that make you feel awesome and recognizing that not everyone is going to like you and that’s a good thing all make it much easier to feel confidence.

And yes, the fact that not everyone is going to like you is a good thing. Like I’ve said many times before: if you’re strongly flavored, there will be people who simply won’t be worth your time. These are the folks who will reject you out of hand; they’re self-selecting out of your dating pool. Not everyone likes gorgonzola. Not everyone likes incredibly hoppy IPAs or peat-heavy whiskies. That doesn’t make them bad; it just means that they’re often acquired tastes. And if someone rejects them out of hand or isn’t willing to see about acquiring those tastes? Well, then there’s no great loss.

And honestly? Even if you were just the Frankensteinian gestalt composed of all the best parts of Winston Duke, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, you’d still find people who wouldn’t be into you. To paraphrase Dita Von Teese: you can be the sweetest, juiciest peach on the tree, but there’re still going to be folks who just don’t like peaches. And hey, that’s fine. It just means that those people aren’t right or you. Worry less about them and more on meeting the people who are right for you.

So here’s my last suggestion. Instead of talking to women with a mindset that you’re already rejected or that you have to “impress” them, embrace your curiosity about them instead. Instead of thinking “I need to prove to this sexy someone that I’m worthy of her,” you want to think “Ok, she’s clearly attractive… but is she worth my time? Is she someone who’s worthy of me?” Rather than just trying to show off your plumage like a peacock, get to know her. Find out more about her, who she is, what she’s about and whether she’s someone who’s actually compatible with you. Coming to the interaction with a mindset of “ok, I’m curious about you, let’s get to know each other, see if we mesh and have fun talking to each other” rather than “Oh god, you’re just bothering her, go away, can’t you see that you’re wasting her time?” means that not only will you be more confident (and thus, increase the likelihood of success), but you’re both much more likely to actually, y’know, enjoy talking to each other. And let me tell you: that’s going to get you a lot farther than damn near anything else.

Good luck.