The following is my personal experience only, and does not negate the feelings and opinions of those with different experiences.
I have almost never felt creeped out by a female. Even if they are overly huggy or complimenty, it tends to lack the predatory or aggressive/disrespective vibe that makes me feel creeped. Or rather, it doesn’t cause in me a reaction of feeling predated. At worst, I feel mildly uncertain.
I can only think of one time when I ever felt creeped out by a woman. It was a couple years ago, so my recollection is not the best, but to the best I recall: We had only been talking for about a minute or two, when out of nowhere she says something along the lines of “So, are you interested in women?” It was ugh-y.
As a straight-leaning female myself, who’s good at social cues, I do get to be more huggy and complimenty with people, without having a significant chance that I am going to creep anyone out.
I do think I might have once mildly creeped a fellow LWer though. We had recently met for rationality camp, and she made a comment that I had read as being insecure about her appearance. My reply was along the lines of “Seriously, when I first saw you I thought ‘Oh wow, she is so pretty!’” and then complimented her. Later I found out that I might have misread her first comment (not certain if I actually did or not, but realized later that there was a possible alternate interpretation to what she said), which would have made me all of a sudden complimenting her looks to be a weird and creepy thing. But I’m pretty sure that IF I did misread the comment, that she realized the miscommunication, and was just too polite to say. (So in other words, her response was “Oh, she thought I meant X and is trying to make me feel better. Well I don’t want to hurt her feelings by saying she misunderstood” which is significantly better than “Oh my god, why is this random person all of a sudden complimenting my looks?!?”)
ETA- At the time of this incident, I actually was dating a female, which is a factor that could push the interaction from “awkward” to “creepy”.
That’s the only time I can recall making a “creepy” faux pas, and realizing it.
The following is my personal experience only, and does not negate the feelings and opinions of those with different experiences.
I have almost never felt creeped out by a female. Even if they are overly huggy or complimenty, it tends to lack the predatory or aggressive/disrespective vibe that makes me feel creeped. Or rather, it doesn’t cause in me a reaction of feeling predated. At worst, I feel mildly uncertain.
I can only think of one time when I ever felt creeped out by a woman. It was a couple years ago, so my recollection is not the best, but to the best I recall: We had only been talking for about a minute or two, when out of nowhere she says something along the lines of “So, are you interested in women?” It was ugh-y.
As a straight-leaning female myself, who’s good at social cues, I do get to be more huggy and complimenty with people, without having a significant chance that I am going to creep anyone out.
I do think I might have once mildly creeped a fellow LWer though. We had recently met for rationality camp, and she made a comment that I had read as being insecure about her appearance. My reply was along the lines of “Seriously, when I first saw you I thought ‘Oh wow, she is so pretty!’” and then complimented her. Later I found out that I might have misread her first comment (not certain if I actually did or not, but realized later that there was a possible alternate interpretation to what she said), which would have made me all of a sudden complimenting her looks to be a weird and creepy thing. But I’m pretty sure that IF I did misread the comment, that she realized the miscommunication, and was just too polite to say. (So in other words, her response was “Oh, she thought I meant X and is trying to make me feel better. Well I don’t want to hurt her feelings by saying she misunderstood” which is significantly better than “Oh my god, why is this random person all of a sudden complimenting my looks?!?”)
ETA- At the time of this incident, I actually was dating a female, which is a factor that could push the interaction from “awkward” to “creepy”.
That’s the only time I can recall making a “creepy” faux pas, and realizing it.