Men, what bothers you about the word “creep”?

43 comments

  3. Same thing that’s hurtful about any insult. It comes from someone’s pride and is distinctly meant to make someone else feel bad.

  6. It’s too broad of a term . And there are soooooooo many actions that are deemed creepy and some actions are deemed creepy by some and okay by others .

  7. I’ve known some people that creeped me out as a younger person, and I do not want to make someone else feel how they made me feel

  9. As a verb it’s useful to describe what cats do. As an noun describing men, meh, don’t give a shit.

  10. It seems to carry such a disproportionate amount of social weight for how loosely it’s thrown around.

    It’s otherwise pretty vague.

  11. How often it is applied to people who are just minding their own business based on other peoples irrational fears.

  14. The same thing that bothers me about most words which bother me, it is used incorrectly and inconsistently.

  15. I don’t know but whenever I hear it I can’t help but drop my comically large sandwich and jump into the safety of my talking dog’s arms

  16. Kinda like calling someone a witch n salem in around 1800s. Basicly is a attempt to socially murder someone.

  17. If it’s a woman calling a man that: The fact they wouldn’t call a woman doing the same exact thing a creep.

    Double standards.

  21. It’s not an assessment that there’s a general agreement on. It’s devastatingly subjective. “Marriage material” to one woman is “creep” to another.

    And that would be fine if women didn’t report “creeps” to each other. But they do. And suddenly one person’s deeply subjective opinion has gotten you thrown out of an entire social circle.

    I absolutely hate having to socialise knowing that almost every individual woman effectively has perfect veto power over my presence. Oh, the random radfem in the corner doesn’t like you? Guess you’re toast! Goodbye, and please, *let* the door hit your ass on the way out.

    (Before you do your best impression of that radfem, *yes I know* this is a cognitive distortion and that real women aren’t this simple. But it takes a *huge* effort to convince my gut of that.)

  22. It’s become like ‘Nazi.’ So over-used, it’s lost all its meaning.

    I mentioned I checked out a woman at the gym. Not like, leered or stared, just, y’know, ‘there’s an attractive, scantily-clad, fit woman in my vicinity, so I’m going to look.’ What did I get called? Creepy.

    I was waiting in line to get into a bar, and started talking to the people in line behind me. Nothing weird, just, “How’s your night going? Is this your first place tonight? Have you seen the band before?” introducing myself, small-talk, making-new-friends-while-waiting-in-line kind of stuff. What did I overhear them talking about later? That creepy guy in line.

    It’s become a catch-all phrase for, “I was approached by a stranger that hadn’t been vetted by my dating app, and since I wasn’t ready for it and in control of the situation, I got anxious and my fight-or-flight kicked in, so I’ll call them creepy to avoid having to deal with my own issues.”

  23. There’s a feeling that you can be a “creep” without doing anything deliberate to earn the title. Like, we know how *not* to be a thief. You just have to not steal from people, and nobody can rightfully call you that. Someone might try, but you can demand that they show some evidence to back up their accusation, and if you haven’t stolen then they wouldn’t be able to keep up the accusation.

    But there isn’t a clear definition of “creepy” behavior. Some things are creepy when one person does them, but not creepy when another person does them. Some things are just naturally more likely to be creepy, but even then there’s never a 100% certainty about what things you would do that would warn you the label of a “creep”.

    Ultimately, it feels like someone only becomes “creepy” when the *accuser* decides it’s creepy. Which is troubling, because then it feels like you can call *anybody* a creep if you want to. Your motives never get called into question, nor do your feelings about the person and their behavior. It feels like someone can call you a creep, because of a situation beyond your control (a misunderstanding, a deliberate desire to hurt you), and you have to just accept the accusation, and any social harm it causes, with no recourse.

    I’m just saying, it’s easy to feel like this is a system built to hurt you, not to protect others, when you don’t know how to navigate social cues and stuff like that.

  25. Not all the time, but more often than not, when a woman says “creep” she really mean “guy I’m not attracted to.”

  27. When I’m talking about crepes autocorrect frequently messes it up. Shit guys, sometimes I just want desert for breakfast.

  28. I dislike how overused it is and how seemingly innocuous behaviors can have a man labeled a creep or creepy. It has massive weight to the words and can completely overtake your personality or efforts in a social circle immediately.

    It’s also a decent Radiohead song.

  30. Its become a meaningless word to describe someone thats even as much as mildly annoying to a woman.

  31. Only a man will be called a creep when displaying creep behaviour, but when I worked in a bar and middle aged female creeps were sexually harassing me, I get told by my feminist manager to suck it up because it “doesn’t count”

  32. How often its applied to things/people that arent creepy and more a reflection of how weird a lot of women are about behaviour/people that are ok but not in keeping with her very narrow framework of whats normal.

    My friend was called a creep because if how his breathing was slightly loud yet this woman would go through so many ppl FB profiles that she wasnt even friends with.

    Basically, womens lack of self-awareness, a major source of woe.

  36. It’s a very dehumanizing term. “Creepy” is just the name women give to the feeling they have when confronted with the idea of sex with someone they aren’t attracted to, and yet, they use it as some sort of moral condemnation. The only crime a creepy man is guilty of is not being attractive to a woman. That’s not a moral failing on his part nor has he committed some sort of assault on a woman by existing.

    I had a glowup in high school. The exact same behaviors that had been described as “creepy” became attractive once I became attractive.

  37. Women love advances by men they find attractive. The exact same advances are “creepy” from men they’re not attracted to. As an attractive guy, I got away with abhorrent behavior because women liked it. My less attractive friends had to be so much more subtle. It’s hypocritical and arbitrary.

  38. Creep for a man is like slut for a woman but on steroids:
    A slut is not hurting anybody so to speak, she is living her best life consensually one might assume.
    A creep has some non-consensual undertones. Almost predatorial.
    No man wants to be remotely connected to the idea of rape, not even in his own mind.
    But that’s just one perception of the word creep.

  39. You can have no history or intention of doing anything to women children or animals and still be perceived as one

    I literally just got banned from r/relationships for clowning bitch ass people for equating older men dating younger women (18+) to pedophiles

    So literally I’m supposed to be a child molester because I date hot girls who like to do fun things and haven’t already been emotionally destroyed, jaded and dogged the fuck out by a bunch of limp dick losers who don’t eat pussy and cheat on their woman

    You gotta take everything with a grain of salt these days

  40. Women throw that word around to include any man that they find unattractive or simply don’t like. Creep is as bad as pedophile.

  41. It basically means “I don’t like you, but I can’t come up with a good explanation as to why so I’m just going to use this catch-all word and pretend it’s a rationalization for my feelings”

  42. My brain can’t decide which 90s song to play when it hears the word “creep”. STP or Radiohead?

  43. The word “creep” is an anti-men hate term. It is never used about women. Anyone who uses the word “creep” is pushing misandry.

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