Are you creepy?

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So, do people think you're creepy?

I don't know whether I'm aspie or something else entirely, but it seems people think I'm creepy every now and then. I didn't understand why people thought what I was doing was creepy even when I wasn't personally aware that it was creepy (I always assumed it was because my facial expressions were "off" or not normal.), but I recently got some insight from my decidedly not-creepy socially suave cousin.

While we were out and about doing work, I would park in front of a person's house while trying to find a new customer's house, and then my cousin would pipe up "Hey, it's a little creepy if we park here. We should go over... there." and he'd point next to an empty field. I didn't understand what the rationale was for this creepiness ("So what if there's someone random parked in the street?"), but it made me realize that I might just be creepy because I don't know if something is creepy or not.

I wondered about what might cause one to be unaware of what might be considered creepy, and the only thing I could infer that it requires two basic things:

1) You have to think like most people (Especially, what other people find creepy you must also personally find creepy, at least at a superficial level.)
2) You have to have a good ToM, that is, you must be able to pretend you're someone else.

See, for him to think that action was creepy, he had to imagine he was the person inside the house looking down at the street of my parked vehicle. He had to then realize that he'd find that creepy so, thus, the person inside would probably think it's creepy. So, hence, parking in front of a person's house is creepy.

I think I failed 1) [I don't think like most people, it seems] but I don't believe I have an impaired ToM as I can pretend to imagine what it's like to be someone else, even if it isn't accurate sometimes or.... much of the time (I think this is probably due to me not thinking in the same way as the majority).

(Of course, who knows? As far as I know, it doesn't seem like a ToM is really measurable, so it's totally subjective and incomparable at current.)

I don't think I've ever been called creepy, but someone who's small, female, and presents as younger than she is tends to not be the type of person who is viewed as creepy.

I'm more likely to be viewed as child-like in innocence and naivety than creepy.

So if you're innocent and naive but happen to be tall, male and masculine, you're more likely to be considered creepy because tall, masculine males aren't supposed to be innocent and naive? I suppose there's some merit to that since, I guess, creepiness is related to how incongruous someone is based on their looks and actions.

Generally, I would not want to park in front of someones house, because it would stir or rouse them, unnecessarily. It's all manners. I'd look for an alternate, first. If not, then I'd canvas as usual.

Have I done these things, though? Yes. Why?
Is it ToM ? No.

It's a lack of considering of how you look to other people, a lack in social awareness evidenced by a disinterest in how you come across.

I'm going to stab it with ADD. ADD folk are branded as "self absorbed," and it appears this is it, simply.

Someone here posted something on Personality Disorders, and made a paradigm out of these: The victim end and a victimizer end, in that ADHD( and autism ) are at the victim end. The concept is a splitting off from others in all these cluster types, where you become the center in one way shape or form; it doesnt matter which end you are in.

The bias is you are at the center. It's a "self" unconscious bias.

I've practiced to become sensitive toward these things, due to empathy. Once I'm aware I'll yield.

I'm not Dx ing you sw, with ADD here, but this seems to be a lack in social awareness.

Last edited by Mdyar on 25 Sep 2011, 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am as creepy as kittens and proud of it!

Nobody has ever called me creepy before, and I don't really give off those vibes. I'm always really scared of coming off that way though.

Based on various real-life socially-related outcomes of mine (Even the internet to an extent, lol), I agree that I seem to lack a lot of "social awareness", lol.

But, what is that exactly? Is it experience, ToM or simple self-absorbtioness/self-centeredness like you say? (i.e., the more you think of yourself, the less you're thinking of what other people are thinking)

I'd imagine that "social awareness" basically translates to "knowing what other people are thinking", and ToM is basically what allows people to think like other people and to, hence, "know" what they'd think.

If it was a matter of simple self-centeredness, I'd imagine if someone told you about it (As was my case), you'd then be able to imagine how it might make someone uncomfortable as you take the focus off "yourself" and onto the other person. But, even after thinking about the other person, I still don't get it. How would it make someone uncomfortable? Do they think the person is going to come into their house and kill them? Is it because it "threatens their space"? Is it because seeing strangers is unsettling for people?

Maybe I simply lack experience in how other people would feel about this type of thing, but I'm guessing it's a little more fundamental than that. Maybe it's because I personally don't care if someone parked in front of my house, though I would wonder about what they're doing. [in the same way as I would wonder about what any 'strangers' in the neighborhood are doing.]

I got it! After thinking about it, I realized it's because my idea of where my "territory" is is from the house all the way to the edge of the lawn. Anything past that I consider "public space" and so I don't care if people park in the street. Most people, on the other hand, consider the area extending into the street near the curb "their territory". Is that right?

If that's true, I guess the issue here, like I thought, was that I don't think like most people, not necessarily that I have ToM problems. Or maybe not thinking like most people is considered a "ToM" problem? Or maybe, not being able to easily/quickly think like a person who thinks differently than you (Especially thinking like the the archetypal "normal" person) is a theory of mind issue?

I noticed coming to the above conclusion took some time.

Before adolescence I was often called "creepy" for speaking-in-tongues, foretelling the future, and reading people's aura.

During adolescence, I was often called "creepy" for my simple partial seizures skewing my verbal behaviour, and for my large Becker's Nevus, but most everyone who seen my Nevus still wanted to pet it, which seemed to make them more creepy than me (mine was more "Satyricon-Hadrian-Creepy-Mann" silky and dense, larger, left chest, and with a Janus-Antinous spectre upper divine neurological "nipple effect" from Priap** furry-left to the innocent Tadzio right, than the example often at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CoBvwhPXqg ).
I still wonder if the social joking with periodic seizures is very common, but one theologian pronounced my occasional Priapic seizures during the clusters as the Father's Curse, and I didn't know what the guy was talking about while in his ranting rave, until a couple decades later when I read the book "The Poisoned Embrace," by Lawrence Osborne, and the written 'scientific account' (anti-Semitic myth) of the male menses, recorded by Thomas de Cantimpre in the thirteenth century.

Late adolescence and early adulthood, I was "creepy" for already "deja vu" pre-knowing many people and for many perfect/near-perfect university exam scores (some professors punish students for having great scores!! !).

In adulthood, I was "creepy" for having complex partial seizures, secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures, 100% failed job interviews (with many aspects recorded with many synonyms of creepy), many Rehab discrimination lawsuits, and lately, I'm "creepy" for the way I walk and for my having to use a GPS to know where I'm at and to get anywhere, or to return from anywhere (I'm going to have to try a 360-degree cam for public excursions since my "creepiness" has received threats of "helpful" violence from the public and officials, but I've been luckier than people in Fullerton so far: http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2011/th ... -standard/ .

Tadzio

at least cats don't seem to think i'm creepy. but they make me itch and sneeze. why does god allow such a thing to happen?

sw, Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting you are self centered or even that these acts are self centered, per say. It's a miss, and it is not deliberate. You put much effort into this, indicating that it is not premeditated, i.e. "selfish."

It is all "ToM."

"Experience" is definitely one side of ToM. Imagine someone 16 years old, thus a 'green horn,' likely the majority of these individuals would 'miss the mark' in this scenario. ToM is developed over time. It's a natural bias, that in over time, shapes oneself to interface other people, with a one on one understanding. To know them or to be intimate with them, as naturally biasing oneself to be privy to their point of view. The more you are around them, the more you see them think, in how they think, of how they feel. You get into their heads. Then you know.
Deep introversion would affect this development. There are introverted forums out there, that discuss these 'misses.'

It would be a safe bet, that if this is done enough times, hence problems that come your way in a disproportionate manner, that there is more here than just being socially myopic, i.e introverted.

Last edited by Mdyar on 21 Sep 2011, 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have a solution! Sadly, I doubt most cats would acquiesce to daily baths.

I'm always called creepy, but when I'm comfortable in a social situation, I'm not creepy.

every cat i've ever had the displeasure of batheing, rended me poor skin with their claws nearly as much as a cartoon tiger does to a character in a warner brothers cartoon, where said poor sap is filleted into slices of human cold cuts. you wouldn't believe how much strength and wiry-ness a little ol' cat has, when it wants to get away from the water. and after all the trouble i went through to bathe the stinky creature, it usually went out promptly and got dirty again, or licked it's stinky saliva all over itself in an attempt at removing the clean smell and replacing it with the normal stinky cat smell. somebody needs to invent a cat-friendly bath machine.

I actually had a kitten who was addicted to baths. Every day she'd jump into the sink and demand it be filled. Then she'd play in the water. She was a genius among cats, too, as well as a champion mimic.

I'd found her outside totally enervated and covered with fleas, bathed her, put flea powder on her. She had no strength to fight back at first, and then later she was so used to it she just loved it. My ex was super allergic to cats, but we found that the daily bathing actually kept the allergens way down.

I'm only creepy when I want to be.

i have to be very quiet when tammy comes over and she wants to sleep (according to her opinion (which i accede to (because i do not want contention))).

i must dim the lights and shut up my voice and stop bombarding her with information which is trivial and inappropriate to what she would like to know.


even then, she will complain about the sound of my typing "clackety clack" and i have to press the keys on the keyboard very gently so she can not hear them

when i tell her "sorry", i then creep around and try to tread carefully and type silently etc, but i feel like a cat burgler (i know they do not steal cats).

i manage to stay up and do lots after tammy goes irritably to sleep,.
i have to be silent and creep my way through what i want to do without rousing her or else she will be angry and make things difficult.

so maybe i am forced to be creepy in a way.

i honestly have no idea.