Ex-Creeps Reveal What Made Them Change

By Annie N. in Social Issues On 7th March 2022
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Sometimes you need it spelled out for you

"My brother used to catcall women ALL THE TIME until once when I was with him. He was driving, I was the passenger, and he yelled out to a woman in another car about how hot she looked. I turned to him and said very casually yet matter-of-factly, “You know, women hate it when men talk to us like that. It’s not flattering, it’s objectifying and disrespectful.” He got quiet, his eyes glazed over, and I saw him taking in what I’d just said. It had simply never occurred to him that what he was doing could be seen as anything other than flattering. He never, ever did it again, and I saw him grow into an extremely respectful person over the next couple of years.

Sometimes all it takes is someone to make them aware. This is why women call on men to call out their guy friends for this type of behavior. Some men look at women as objects, and they don’t take us seriously. But, the same thing coming from your sister or one of their guy friends? Completely different reaction."

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A little self-awareness goes a long way

"Hearing women complain and thinking 'oh shit, I've done that'

Seriously has helped me improve a lot of things"

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Breaking and entering ≠ Flirting

"Saw this answer some time ago It was this dude that tried to confess to the girl he liked by going to her apartment and make her dinner with candles, flowers and all that shit But then the girl came home and the first thing she said was " are you going to kill me"

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Hindsight is a hell of a drug

"In middle school, I was a mid-puberty, horniness-stricken, little perv. I didn’t do a good job of concealing it either, I would always get really close to my one friend because I liked her at the time, and looking back it was so wrong to do

It took me looking at what they were thinking and how my behavior affected them to really stop being creepy. Hindsight helps a lot as well."

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Once you know them as real people, you gain understanding

"Talking to women, becoming friends with women, changing my circle of friends, growing up, learning empathy, and the final nail in the coffin was sobriety."

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It helps to look back at past behaviours

"Growing self-awareness that I wasn't the centre of the goddamn universe.

Went through a chasing-potential-girlfriends-too-hard phase in my earlier adult years, including mistaking simple offers of friendship and work colleague status for actual interest. It wasn't "stalking" level and it never reached the point of discipline (or even commenting), but it was probably to the point of being a little unprofessional and uncomfortable for the girl involved.

That was decades ago and I'm now with a company that doesn't tolerate that sort of thing."

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Don't give strangers back rubs

"I'm guilty of this, though naively and innocently so.

This sounds weird to me now, but I actually grew up in a household that valued back, neck. and shoulder rubs.

I did this for a long, long time to people I was friends with, men and women. In my head, it was just a way of saying I cared.

In retrospect, it undoubtedly gave off a super-creepy vibe.

I stopped once I saw it in context of someone else doing it to a woman, and her facial reaction to it. Then it just clicked. "Oh...OHHHHHhhh...wow, that's inappropriate...""

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Nervous laughter is a defense mechanism

"They aren't laughing because I'm funny, they're laughing because they're scared.

Edit: thanks for the votes and awards everyone. I was sure that this would get me nothing but criticism for being a creeper in my youth."

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Contextualising it bring the bigger picture into frame

"I used to have this older man always flirt & be unprofessional towards me at work when I first started, I was around 24 years old. After I had enough of his weird comments & flirting, I told him that he has a daughter the same age as me (which was true because he'd talk about his family at times) and that how would he like it if some older man was talking to his daughter like that and making sexual comments to her. He became less weird and flirtatious and more "regular" holding normal conversations. He moved shifts so I don't even see him anymore."

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Don't cat call. Ever.

"I wasn't being actively creepy, but:

I used to think cat-calling was just flirtatious compliments, and who doesn't like those, right? >.> I never cat-called anybody, largely because that's not my personality type.

But now I live by the motto: "Never say something to a stranger that you wouldn't want a big guy saying to you in prison."

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