DEAR DR. NERDLOVE:I happened to find you through a google search when I tried to look up info about how to avoid creeping people out. I’m emailing you because I want to see if you’re able to answer any questions that I have about your article: “Social Awkwardness is Not an Excuse” in writing? I’m asking because I have limited ability to pick up on non-verbal cues and adhere to social norms due to my Aspergers, which is often resulting in me being subject to numerous complaints to school officials and authorities. Many times, I normally don’t realize that what I happened to do to someone is actually crossing the line until the very last minute, which by then, it’s already too late for me to fix. Here are the following questions:
1. What creepy behaviors would most likely subject the person responsible to civil and/or criminal penalties, including disciplinary action from school?
2. Do difficulties with social cues and norms really increase the risk of unintentionally creeping people out? If so, can you explain how come and how prevalent this issue is?
3. Many times, I often resort to briefly advocating to those I’m about to associate and/or frequently cross paths with about my Aspergers and the extent of it (which especially includes my frequent need for clear communication) in order to reduce the chances of any misconceptions that could happen. What do you have to say about that?
4. I’ve heard rumors that because women and girls are conditioned to be nice in certain situations, any chance of them communicating clearly to you if something was to happen that I may not know about is very rare. Is that really true? If so, how can I possibly get around this?
5. How come can’t you use “I wasn’t really aware since she didn’t communicate her boundaries to me clearly” as an excuse when it comes to being accused of unintentionally creeping her out? Bc for me, this is more of a concern if the circumstances were a misconception
Please note that I am NOT seeking a dating relationship by asking these questions, I’m only trying to make sure I have confidence in building friendships the acceptable way and staying out of trouble in general from there. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you,
Trying To Find The Manual
DEAR TRYING TO FIND THE MANUAL: Alright TFTM, I think you may have misunderstood part of the point of “Socially Awkward Isn’t An Excuse“. The point of the column wasn’t “It doesn’t matter if you’re neuroatypical or not,” it’s exactly what I said in the lede:
“[The] problem isn’t about being socially awkward, it’s about pushing boundaries; claiming that being socially awkward – or defending someone on the grounds that they’re just awkward – means that we shouldn’t be so hard on them becomes about excusing their behavior and helping them put pressure on women to tolerate that behavior.”
That is, people will use “Oh, he is/I am just awkward, so really you shouldn’t be upset that he violated your boundaries or did things that were wildly inappropriate” as a defense when people point out just how creepy, inappropriate our out of bounds a person’s actions were. In the example I gave in the column, a guy developed a crush on a cashier at Hot Topic and tracked her down on Facebook in order to try to get a date — ignoring not just her soft “no’s” (she ignored him until he poked at her again, at which point she wanted to know how the hell he found her personal account) but the fact that tracking down people you don’t know on social media is creepy as hell. Whether he intended to or not, the message he was sending was “I should be allowed to press my case for us dating despite the fact that you’ve never shown any interest.”
People were defending him for “not knowing better” or “just being a little awkward”, and that clearly she should give him a break. Except it wasn’t about his being awkward. It was about the fact that he was stalking someone he decided he was in love with, despite her not giving him so much as the time of day.
In other words, what he was saying was that his interest in dating her overrode her interest in not talking to him. The fact that he took the extra step of tracking her down by getting access to information she hadn’t given him permission to have made it worse. It says that he’s willing to put effort into ignoring her boundaries. That’s not him showing how devoted he is or how deep and abiding his affection is, that’s him demonstrating just how easily he can track her down. If he’s willing to plow past things like “no, not interested” AND he’s going to seek her out using information that she never gave him, what else is he going to do if he decides he doesn’t like her answer?
And that misread — along with other things in your letter — that makes me wonder if you’re not missing more of why I wrote that column.
Case in point: your first question. Now in fairness, maybe you just worded it awkwardly. However, the way you wrote it makes it sound like you’re more concerned about avoiding the consequences of being creepy rather than not making other people feel uncomfortable. And honestly, when it’s paired with “often resulting in me being subject to numerous complaints to school officials and authorities,” I have to wonder if you’re not getting just what the problem is. It makes you sound as though you’re less worried about how your actions have made other people feel and more about what it means for you, personally.
It also doesn’t help that your first question is fundamentally unanswerable beyond “it depends”. There are so many factors involved that it’s impossible to give a hard and fast answer to what actions will get you into trouble with the authorities. Your concern shouldn’t be “what’s going to get me into legal/disciplinary trouble”, it’s “what am I doing that’s making people feel so uncomfortable or threatened that they felt they had to report me to someone.”
If this has happened multiple times and you still haven’t learned to not do the thing that got you into trouble, then I think you’ve got bigger issues than a loudmouth with an advice column can answer.
As for your second question: yes, not being able to read the room can make you be creepy by accident. I’ve written about exactly why this behavior can bother people on many occasions, with many different examples and explanations and you should read those. The short version, however, is that things like ‘ignoring somebody’s disinterest’, ‘invading their personal space’, ‘displaying unwanted sexual interest’ or ‘talking about inappropriate topics’ can all be signs of predatory behavior. While these can be the result of misunderstandings or not reading the room, they can also be signs of someone testing boundaries and seeing just what they can get away with before the other person puts up any resistance. It can also be an indicator that they’re willing to ignore somebody’s boundaries and discomfort; if they’re willing to ignore that someone isn’t interested in talking to them or that they’re making somebody feel uncomfortable, what other things are they willing to ignore? How many other “no’s” are they willing to ignore if they want something?
Now, telling people “hey, just FYI, I have a hard time reading signals, so I would appreciate if you were blunt and direct with me” is a good idea. Letting folks know what you need for clear communication, especially if it means that you and they are going to be on the same page, is a good idea and something that folks should put into practice. I know plenty of people who’ve had issues understanding subtleties or implied messages; after they got over the initial awkwardness of admitting that they didn’t understand, they had a much better time overall. They got in the habit of asking for clarification and making sure they were understanding what the other person was saying and, as a result, had far fewer problems communicating with folks. I’m a big believer in normalizing using your words, even if it feels like something you “should” be able to grasp. If you don’t know or don’t understand, no amount of “but you SHOULD understand it” is going to change that. Better to have a brief moment of awkwardness where you ask for clarity than to proceed on incorrect information.
Question 4 is a great example of this. You’ve worded this awkwardly, and it sounds like you may have misunderstood what you’d been told. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re talking about how women are socialized to prioritize not making a scene or causing people — especially men — discomfort or inconvenience and this may lead to them being less direct or clear when communicating with people, or may even do things that they’d prefer not to do. Assuming that I’m understanding you, then yes: women are frequently taught from a young age that they should put other people’s priorities and comfort ahead of their own, even when it inconveniences them. This has lead to issues like not feeling like they could say “no” to being asked for favors, or even turning someone down directly when asked for a date. This is where soft “no’s” often enter the picture, where a person will not say “no” directly but will instead give a socially plausible reason why they can’t do something. The “can’t” part is important, because it softens the refusal; it’s not a rejection, it’s that things are just not going to line up the way they would need to and it’s nobody’s fault.
The way that you deal with this is two-fold. First: you invite the “no”, if you’re not sure someone would be interested. This is something I tell folks to do when, say, they’re letting a platonic friend know that they’re interested in the possibility of a romantic or sexual relationship: make it clear that the other person can say “No” if they’re not interested and it won’t make them upset or ruin the friendship. So in this case it would be “Hey, I love what we have together and I would never want to lose that, but lately my feelings have been changing and I wanted to know if yours had been too. If you’re interested, I’d love to take you on a date and see if there’s more between us than just friendship. It’s totally ok if the answer is ‘no’ or that you’re not interested; if that’s the case, we’ll just drop the subject and we can keep being friends.”
Secondly, you want to focus on getting a “yes” instead of not getting a no. If you have a hard time reading signals, then if someone isn’t giving you a solid and unambiguous ‘yes’, then it’s safer to assume that what they’re really saying is ‘no’. If they know you well enough to know that you have a hard time reading signals — or, getting back to question #3, you told them about this — then they will know to be clear and direct with you, one way or the other.
However, question 5 gets right back into the “I think you’re a little too focused on YOU” issue. While you may not be intending this, it certainly sounds like what you’re looking for is a way of getting out of trouble when your behavior harmed others. Part of the problem with the way you’ve framed the issue is that it gets very close to the way that some folks will excuse sexual assault or sexual harassment: they didn’t say “no” clearly enough or at all, so clearly you weren’t at fault.
Part of the trouble with this question is that there are a lot of behaviors and boundaries that we take as being understood — things that most of us were taught in kindergarten or grade school. Ask for permission before taking things or touching people; if you realize you’re making people uncomfortable, then apologize and stop doing that behavior; avoid talking about certain topics in some places, especially when other folks have indicated that talking about those things make them uncomfortable. Don’t persist in talking to folks who aren’t interested in talking to you.
If you’re consistently having issues with behavior that makes people uncomfortable to the point that the authorities get involved, then you need to put a lot more time in understanding what behaviors you need to stop f--king doing than worrying about whether “well she didn’t clearly communicate her boundaries” is your “get out of consequences free” card. Because here’s the thing: while folks can and should be in the habit of stating and enforcing their boundaries, if you violate them then that’s on you. And if you’re doing so consistently, then either you aren’t paying attention enough to learn or you don’t seem to care. This is especially true if you’re only violating the boundaries of, say, women you’re attracted to and not the boundaries of people in positions of authority over you. If that’s the case… well, then it’s not that you can’t read the signs, it’s that you’re doing so selectively.
And that’s a much bigger problem than worrying about whether someone’s giving you a soft no or not.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com