Why Girls Really Need To Stop Calling Guys ‘Creepy,’ As Told By A Guy

Creeeeeepy!!!!!
Call me an butthole. Call me a scumbag. Call me a prickhead. But don’t call me creepy. Please. I don’t ask much.
All I ask is for you to disparage me accurately, and — I think I speak for many men here when I say — while I’ve definitely at times deserved all the other stuff, the creepy description just doesn’t fit.
It’s really been bothering me lately how creepy is one of the most overused and misused words in the current dating landscape. You can be an butthole. You can be a prick. You can be all of the above and still go about things in such a way as to not deserve to be called the other one.
And yet, for as long as I can remember, “creepy” has been the go-to phrase for women to describe just about anyone they don’t want to be associated with. Girls use it to mean innocent things like “annoying” and “ugly” and “I just don’t like him” when really the word has a more insidious — sometimes legally so — connotation.
Jared from Subway was creepy. Dark figures in shaded alleyways are creepy. Crawlers are creepy. But because of dating apps and social media and what feels like a lazy lack of vocabulary more than anything else, “creepy” has come to mean just about everything else.
What that’s done is cast an infuriating and often unfair shadow on otherwise well-intentioned men who just don’t happen to be your cup of tea.
Let me give you an example.
Say you give a guy your number, but have no intention of ever texting him back. He adds you on Instagram and likes five of your not-quite-most-recent pictures.
The resulting conversation with your girlfriend typically unfolds like this: “Look at this creepy guy who liked all my pics.”
Now say, for instance, an attractive guy you’ve known for an equally short period of time does the same thing — likes those same five pictures.
The resulting conversation typically goes like this: “Look at this guy who liked all my pics!”
Neither guy acted any differently from the other, and you showed them the same level of interest. Yet one is branded and ostracized, while the other is lauded. One welcomed, while the other deemed a danger.
It’s totally unfair to the guy who treated you the exact same way. You don’t need to ever see or even answer the first guy. But you don’t need to label him the way we label men who do blow-up dolls either.
Fast forward six months. I went to same type of show in the same neighborhood. I was with my friends from the last show. And all of a sudden, here comes that Girl, walking up to the bar.
That Girl! I never thought I’d see her again. How often do you get to confront someone who treated you so terribly? I just had to go say hello.
I went up smiling, to try to laugh the whole thing off and make amends. She was not happy to see me. I apologized and said she might have owed me one, too. She didn’t see things that way.
Instead, she said this: “What are you doing talking to me? This is so creepy!”
To which I took much offense.
Creepy?
No!
That’s not what this word means.
I did not follow you here. I did not ambush you in a tight space. Just seeing someone in a place you also happen to be at doesn’t make it creepy. That’s coincidence. And maybe a little understandable, given that you listen to the same music in the same city.
I did not stalk your social media. I did not text you — ever. I did not show up back at your door when the sun came out demanding my umbrella — which I needed, by the way.
You just happened to ever see me again, and I just happened to say hello.
A prick move? Probably. Annoying? Certainly so.
Call me an butthole. Call me whatever. But don’t call me creepy. Please. I don’t ask much.
~CONFESSIONS OF A DATE BOY
