Creepy behavior in social media

[nayad]

I had a situation in Facebook that ended badly the other day

Comments

[fingle]

Good advice! A majority of my Facebook friends are my ballet company peeps, and I have to carefully pick and choose to whom I respond and how I phrase things, because of the whole "young women - older man" thing. I often think of something funny to say to something they've posted, then play it back in my mind from the viewpoint of an outsider and think better of responding at all. It's one thing if it's my teen-aged dauther, but quite another if it's one of my friends from class.

Sometimes I also want to shout helpful advice at them, but I don't want to sound like, you know, Dad.

[nayad]

That's a good way to think about it. If I know someone really well, I can enjoy edgier behavior from him if he's shown over time that he's not a jerk. But if I don't know someone, I can only go by the evidence I see. If he's throwing out the wrong kind of remarks with little regard for my reactions, he becomes someone I don't want to deal with.

[fingle]

You can generally judge a man by the comments he leaves on other people's blogs and what-not. I try to maintain a polite but interested distance when I comment on a lady's post, but if it's an actual acquaintance, I can have a bit more fun. But I still maintain a distance, even though I'm pretty much madly in love with every lady I meet. It's genetic! I loves the ladies! :)

[nayad]

From what I've seen, I think you've found the right balance of playfulness and respectfulness! :)

[j_cheney]

But then he posted a comment that involved me rubbing food all over my body.

Ew. Just...ew...

[nayad]

Exactly.

[sasha_feather]

Yikes. Sounds like you handled it well.

[nayad]

Thanks!

[therinth]

I'm glad he's gone now. Women need to follow their guts. There's too many creeps out there, by far.

[nayad]

Definitely--we need to listen to ourselves! I can think of a few times when I ignored "red flags" and regretted it, but I can't think of a single time when I regretted distancing myself from a creepy-seeming person.