I think it’s quite likely to be true, but not merely because a pseudonymous poster coming out of nowhere said it. (Though of course that’s evidence; people are more likely to turn up making that claim when it’s true than when it’s untrue.)
So why do I think it likely to be true? Because, I’m sorry to say, lots of things about this affair look very much like cases I’ve seen before where someone is creeping other people out. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming to know and I absolutely could be wrong; but I would bet at quite heavy odds that that’s how it is.
Now, there’s a difference between “lots of people find X creepy” and “X is behaving in a bad way” or “X poses an actual threat”, and I think it sometimes happens that a person who in fact is no threat to anyone and would never behave in a way that harms anyone (or that would even be perceived as unpleasant if it were someone else doing it) gets widely perceived as creepy. So even if I’m right to believe the claims that multiple people are creeped out by you in person, it’s possible that this is an unfair affliction and no fault of yours at all.
But … there’s no nice way to say this, so I won’t try: I think people whom lots of people find creepy and whose response to being found creepy is to complain that they are being mistreated, and who have trouble believing that anyone finds them creepy … those people, I think, often are more than averagely likely to act in actually-harmful ways, or in ways that would be unpleasant whoever was doing it—and on the basis of what I have seen in this thread I would totally support anyone who preferred not to be around you. Again, it’s possible that I’m dead wrong, it’s possible that my and others’ creep-detection and threat-detection are throwing up false positives, and if so that’s a very unfortunate situation for you and I sympathize. None the less, it’s everyone’s right to avoid people they think or feel are likely to be unpleasant to be around; the heuristics we use are fallible but they’re all we’ve got.
I think it’s quite likely to be true, but not merely because a pseudonymous poster coming out of nowhere said it. (Though of course that’s evidence; people are more likely to turn up making that claim when it’s true than when it’s untrue.)
So why do I think it likely to be true? Because, I’m sorry to say, lots of things about this affair look very much like cases I’ve seen before where someone is creeping other people out. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not claiming to know and I absolutely could be wrong; but I would bet at quite heavy odds that that’s how it is.
Now, there’s a difference between “lots of people find X creepy” and “X is behaving in a bad way” or “X poses an actual threat”, and I think it sometimes happens that a person who in fact is no threat to anyone and would never behave in a way that harms anyone (or that would even be perceived as unpleasant if it were someone else doing it) gets widely perceived as creepy. So even if I’m right to believe the claims that multiple people are creeped out by you in person, it’s possible that this is an unfair affliction and no fault of yours at all.
But … there’s no nice way to say this, so I won’t try: I think people whom lots of people find creepy and whose response to being found creepy is to complain that they are being mistreated, and who have trouble believing that anyone finds them creepy … those people, I think, often are more than averagely likely to act in actually-harmful ways, or in ways that would be unpleasant whoever was doing it—and on the basis of what I have seen in this thread I would totally support anyone who preferred not to be around you. Again, it’s possible that I’m dead wrong, it’s possible that my and others’ creep-detection and threat-detection are throwing up false positives, and if so that’s a very unfortunate situation for you and I sympathize. None the less, it’s everyone’s right to avoid people they think or feel are likely to be unpleasant to be around; the heuristics we use are fallible but they’re all we’ve got.