Scenario: It’s night, and a man is walking home. He sees ahead there is a woman going in the opposite direction as him. Knowing not to stop or approach her, but his presence makes her nervous. What would help further in this scenario if anything?
Scenario: It’s night, and a man is walking home. He sees ahead there is a woman going in the opposite direction as him. Knowing not to stop or approach her, but his presence makes her nervous. What would help further in this scenario if anything?
Just don’t be weird man, that’s all you gotta do.
“Just don’t be weird” is exactly the kind of thought that’d cause me to come off as weird. Suddenly every detail of what I do is manual and scrutinized by myself.
I live in a city, just do the same thing I do when walking past literally anyone - leave a few feet of space, eyes forward, ignore.
Forgot how feet work
At least she’ll have a funny story about the creepy guy muttering “right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot” that she passed.
To tell you something that actually helps:
Keep your hands in view. Fidget a bit if you want.
If you’re walking towards her, take a glance at her from about I’d say 5-10 meters away.
Walk a clear path. Pick a lane so she can pick hers to pass you.
Think of something else for a second. Look at a car, building, cloud.
Hit a street sign. You’ll make her laugh, she’ll feel 100% safe then.
In all seriousness now that should let her know you don’t have any dangerous objects in your hand, she’ll know you acknowledged her presence, and she’ll see you’re not 100% focused on her. That’s kinda all a girl needs to not be weirded out.
:-)
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Thank you. I’m legitimately curious how to ease tensions some in such a situation. Was hoping this would be taken a bit more seriously but apparently not many did.
Yea it’s hard to comprehend for normal people that “act natural” doesn’t help someone like me an you, because “natural” isn’t the norm in my case at least…
Social anxiety, potential neuro-diverget I don’t have a “normal” to base things on like some people do I agree. As well not every person is the same so some I imagine would be fine me just casually saying hello and acknowledging they exist while others want me to just walk on.
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Are you serious? I’m genuinely asking
Yea
Idk where I first heard these, I think they were separate though.
Afaik the hands thing is especially good.
When do I hand her the note with large crayon letters misspelling “It’s OK, I’m not weyrd or annything!”, though? Using colorful and friendly letters, of course.
Man, that advice helped me a few years ago. Idk. It wasn’t a massive difference but some people told me I act more natural, so I think it worked?
I used to be very awkward and pretty much every girl my age would avoid being close to me. Now that is not an issue anymore. Idk if that helped or other changes I made, or both…
It’s like a malfunction in autopilot. Suddenly you have to take over the controls and it is painfully obvious.
But I was born weird!