I started this list a while ago, so these articles are pretty old. I think they are all still good reads, though.
The Creepy Guy In The Friend Group, Revisited: Four More Geek Social Fallacies
Captain Awkward is a brilliant advice columnist. Preach, sister.
People can selectively be nice to the people whose opinions they care about and who they don’t want to harm. And predators consciously groom and choose people around them to be their defenders and spokespeople, the exact same way they groom their victims.
I have met some version of the negging, boundary-pushing, missing stair, misogynistic ‘nice guy’ more than once in my life and it’s always jarring. You can’t trust everyone. Most people are mostly good, but, yeah, some people are mostly bad.
I recently* went out with a guy — a friend of a friend. There were so many red flags, but I kept pushing them away, second-guessing myself.
List of reasons this is not someone you want to spend time with
- He told me I looked scrawny and not strong, that my fitness routine wasn’t working.
- He told me I lacked empathy and that he can tell I have trouble connecting with people. This is one of my biggest fears about myself, so pushing that button irked and terrified me.
- He kept touching me after I told him, repeatedly, that I don’t like to be touched by people I don’t know. The touching was brazen, on my thigh.
- I told him about my body language adjustments, trying to foster extroversion and social magnetism. He told me I was doing a terrible job and that I seemed extremely closed off.
- He kept trying to take my phone.
- He told me to ask him out and then he asked me for nudes. I think this is why he kept trying to take my phone?
- Every single thing he did took so much longer than a normal human being would take. Giving directions, ordering a drink, giving me my phone. It felt deliberate and manipulative and I found myself incredibly frustrated by the interaction.
This list is longer than you would believe, but I still chatted with him for over three hours, trying to see what my friend saw.
And then I realized, oh, he doesn’t treat men this way. Men won’t see him as slimy because he’s not slimy to them.
This rant doesn’t really have an end. Dating is hard.
The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s: Many of us have learned that happiness is a skill and a choice.
Here’s an article I sent to my mom that we both really liked. I don’t think the advice is just for older women though.
“Gratitude is not a virtue but a survival skill, and our capacity for it grows with our suffering. That is why it is the least privileged, not the most, who excel in appreciating the smallest of offerings.”
That’s stoicism, man. Don’t become a snob and a connoisseur of only the Best Things. You will not be happy because the Best is not always available. If you’re happy with good enough, you’re a lot happier most of the time.
“We don’t need to look at our horoscopes to know how our day will go. We know how to create a good day.”
You’ll be a lot more content if you focus your attention on the things you can control. If most of your brain chemistry is spent contemplating impossible wants, you’ll be miserable.
Good: I want to change something about myself I don’t like.
Bad: I want to change something about someone else I don’t like.
“As my aunt Grace, who lived in the Ozarks, put it, ‘I get what I want, but I know what to want.'”
As Thriftygal says, “I buy whatever I want, whenever I want. I just don’t want that much.”
I like Aunt Grace’s saying better.
Finally, to tie in with the first article:
Most of us don’t miss the male gaze. It came with catcalls, harassment and unwanted attention. Instead, we feel free from the tyranny of worrying about our looks.
Full is not crazy
An excellent article on time management and how to look at scheduling activities. She nails my feelings perfectly.
“I am also naturally a planner. I like knowing fun stuff is coming up. I can anticipate the fun stuff and stretch the experienced pleasure. I know not everyone feels the same way about plans. Some people feel they are constricting, but I also know that many fun things in life do require planning, and failing to plan means time will be spent mindlessly. In our connected world, that tends to mean time will be spent scrolling around online. Such time is effortlessly fun, but it’s also completely forgettable. It disappears as if it never existed.
Which is why I cringed when I saw a recent post on Instagram: “I don’t understand people who plan things for the weekend. We just did things all week. What’s next, more things?”
Yes, indeed, more things. More wonderful things. More things that make us feel like we’re living life, rather than spending all potential leisure time watching TV or, well, scrolling around on Instagram.”
More things, please.
*Okay, not recent, last year sometime.
I’m so sorry you had to deal with such a creeper, but I say high fives for realizing this so immediately. It reminds me of an ex whose true colors I didn’t fully see until I was way too invested, so good job noting those red flags from the get go. I’d say that makes you pretty emotionally perceptive! Thanks also for the fun reads. 🙂
Maybe your guy just tucked his red flags into his pockets until you were invested?
Concentrated wisdom. Love this.
Man, the list about that super-creepster made me cringe.
I read it for the first time since I wrote it and it made me cringe too! I haven’t thought about this much since.
Well, why don’t you go out with a good guy who respects you. Here’s my contact let’s keep in touch. Daniel
I’m bad at emailing. 🙁
Creepy guy needs to fuck off. Why would you bother with such an ass?
Still love your blog after all these years, thanks. Great comment about gratitude.
You observed many red flags but still went out with him? After 15 minute of that dude, you should have bid him farewell!
I think someone that comes with a recommendation from someone you like and trust deserves at least an hour, no?
TY for commenting!
😞
It happens! I hope this article doesn’t dissuade people from trying to introduce two people. Not everyone is going to get along with everyone and there are three sides to every story.
What a douche. I’d have probably punched him the second time he touched my thigh after I told him not to. I have a low tolerance for assholes.
That would have been fun to watch. 😉
I’m with the nothing on the weekend person. It’s so luxurious. I like having the time to ‘contemplate my navel’, as my mother used to say. I think that comes with being older and wanting even less do
I definitely have nothing days built in on occasion. There’s something luxurious about a free day.
Hi Thrifty gal:
I have been reading your blog for awhile, but don’t think I ever commented before.
I really enjoy your writing. Thank you for doing it. I especially like the book recommendations and have read many of them. The books are always in my “queue” of books to read.
That guy is an ASSHOLE. Stay away. I am so sorry you had a horrible experience. It sounds like you are past it now and learned something valuable.
I felt compelled to write and support you on being so vulnerable to write this. Anyone who does that does not have a difficult time relating to others. It sounds to me like you have a full and wonderful life. No one’s life is perfect all of the time, but being alone is better than being with that person.
Take care
Lovely comment! Thanks! I get my book recommendations from all you guys, too, so I think it’s a giant circle of queue books. 🙂
I can’t beileve this person said these things to you – absolutely unacceptable and completely false!!!!
PS. love your stuff.
TY!!
I beg to differ. Dating isn’t hard at all. You performed an experiment with a negative result. This fellow is obviously not a suitable companion. Happily, you learned this after 3 hours. This is a blessing. Some people take 3 years to learn this. If you don’t go out with someone else real soon, you’ll attach too much significance to this negative result.
I believe you are in a numbers game: some %-tage of the human population suitable to you. You just need to guestimate that %-tage, take it’s inverse and date that many people to find a suitable companion. (Aren’t math majors annoying?) This world has a few billion people to choose from…
There are suitable people out there and my the best advise to finding one of them is to make oneself maximally suitable.
Let’s agree to disagree. I’ve been on many dates since this one and most of them are terrible. Dating is hard.
A forum I participate in recently tried to define what makes a guy “creepy”. It actually got a bit heated, this from a normally very analytical & calm crowd (more proof dating is tough). Anyway, after much discussion a simple formula was basically agreed upon. drum-roll… Creepy = Needy + Aggressive
Sounds likes like that guy fit the bill!
Anyway, if you’re interested to know the answer to a previous comment, now closed. No, no one notices when you delete them as friends from FB. They DO notice if you don’t accept friend requests though. So it’s easier to just accept, then if you’re not hanging around with them anymore (for me work assignment ends), then delete. I’m a bit of a manipulative bastard, at least that’s not in the “creepy” formula 🙂 Maybe it should be?
that’s a good point about the friend request thing. I would gradually like to unfriend every one and then quietly delete my page. But I can’t because of the reasons I’ve already listed.