Dear Adam,
While I strongly agree with the previous letter to Eve about the “creeper” label, I feel the need to add some thoughts. I agree that guys are often misjudged simply because the object of their affection doesn’t share their feelings. (Not to be confused with actual creepers, who require girls to take on the safety-in-numbers mentality and to travel in herds.)
That being said, if you’re a decent guy, you might be wondering how to not cross over into creeper territory. Let me go over some of the signs and signals a girl gives off to let you know she’s actually not interested in you standing outside her window with your boom box raised high. It might save you some heartache in the long run.
Scenario A: You approach your ladylove and strike up a conversation. She carries is polite and friendly, but her arms are crossed and her eyes are darting around the room. A lot of her sentences end with an awkwardly dangling “so…” Yes, these could all be nervous ticks, and the poor girl might just be as love struck as you are. But more than likely she’s trying to shut the conversation down, all the while looking for an escape route.
Look for eye contact. If a girl is interested, she will look you straight in the eye while you’re talking to her. She will use her hands in conversation. Whether wildly gesturing to tell a story or putting her hand on your arm to laugh at one of your jokes, these are all good signs. Crossed arms, not so much. And smiling? If she’s interested in you, smiling will be her favorite.
Scenario B: Your conversation with the beautiful girl at church is going great. But crap… her friend just walked up and grabbed her by the arm saying, “I’ve got to tell you something! Can we talk over here for a minute?” I’ve got news for you, friend. This was a pre-arranged maneuver—the female version of a wingman. This is the gal who identifies an awkward situation and swoops in to extract her friend. And all girls have this friend.
Look for undivided attention. Yes, her friend might still walk up and try to pull her aside. But if she were really into you, she wouldn’t allow the distraction. She would make her friend back off with a simple nonverbal conversation, which girls can have in a split second with a single look. Her friend would quickly take the hint and back away.
Scenario C: You’ve scored the girl’s contact info from the church volunteer sign-up sheet (what could be wrong with that??), and you’ve texted and emailed a couple of times to get to know her better. But it’s just hard to get a good conversation going because she seems so busy. You’ve even tried to plan a few opportunities to get together, but she keeps pushing it back because of her oh-so-busy schedule. Guess you should just try harder, right? Not always.
Look for her to make a priority out of your friendship/relationship. Now, it may be that she really, truly is a busy girl and it’s just hard for her to carve out time. But homegirl can return a text, I guarantee you. If she’s not showing much effort in any category, you might want to rethink whether she’s too busy or just not interested. Basically, if she were interested she’d be looking for opportunities to keep the conversational ball rolling, even if her busyness might not always allow for the most prompt reply.
I’m a girl, so I can tell you this for a fact: we do these things. Welcome to the inner workings of our brains. We’re doing all we can to avoid the awkward “I just don’t feel that way about you” talk. We’re not encouraging you in conversation, we’re closing ourselves off, we’re doing everything we can to escape conversation, ignoring many of your texts/emails/phone calls, avoiding hanging out with you more than what’s necessary, etc.
We’re trying to help you get the message, and by doing it this way we’re hoping you’ll take the opportunity to decide on your own not to proceed further. In our minds, we’re letting you know loud and clear that we’re not interested. So when guys don’t get those cues, or worse, see them as a green light waving them forward, the “creeper” label isn’t far behind.
I don’t envy you guys. Girls are complicated creatures.
A wedding and commercial photographer for the past 7 years, Linda Spratt remembers that her childhood dreams always consisted of the power to fly or to be invisible–dreams that showed problematic signs of staying within the boundaries of reality. Maybe that’s why her first drive home from college resulted in her arrest and a couple of hours of jail time. Linda loves all kinds of music, except country, and will travel to cities near and far to have her face rocked off by Muse, her favorite band of all. When it comes to people in the Bible, she is most drawn to Peter because of his well-meaning impetuousness; she wishes she had a fraction of his zeal for the Lord. Linda prefers her Sonic cherry cokes with easy ice, dislikes every other person in WalMart while she’s trying to shop, and once worked for a national franchise that specializes in dog poop removal (they were #1 in the #2 business). You can follow her on Twitter @lindaspratt.
*Photo credit: adihrespati
