When it comes to dating advice, “don’t be creepy” is a pretty good place to start. Yet for many men and women, the social rules that come naturally to “normal” people are as confusing and frustrating as Calculus is to non-math majors. When the socially awkward try to pursue someone romantically, their good intentions and persistence run afoul of social etiquette, and instead of appearing sweet or thoughtful, they come off as creeps. Big fucking creeps.
Graham Mitchell, a computer science teacher at Leander High School, used to be a creep. But now he’s overcome it and moved on, and he uses his personal experience with the creep mindset to help others avoid the blunders and misunderstandings that create creepiness by giving talks like the upcoming “How Not to Be Creepy: Ways to Raise Your Social Status” (see sidebar for details).
“I was a late bloomer socially, I guess is the most charitable way you could put it,” said Mitchell. Though he had female friends in high school and college, it wasn’t until his until his mid-twenties that he grasped the unwritten rules of human interaction that had previously been stifling his dating life.
“I didn’t used to know the social norms, the social rules,” said Mitchell. “I now know them and I know them in a way that normal people don’t because normal people pick them up as they grow up naturally, natively. I didn’t. I learned them like you learn Spanish.”
Though he said creeps exist throughout the population, Mitchell, who received his bachelor’s in computer science from UT in 1997, admits that the socially awkward tend to congregate in certain disciplines.
“Computer science and engineering is more about what works, and less about what we would like it to be,” said Mitchell. “I think that people who are socially awkward, they maybe don’t succeed in advertising because they have to deal with human variables, where as when you have to deal with something more mechanical like physics or mathematics, you’re able to thrive in that environment.”
Since the public education system often discourages women from pursuing math and science, fields like engineering and computer science tend to feature a heavily skewed male-female ratio. But that’s been changing in recent years and students like Paul, a civil engineering major working on his PhD, said that associating creeps with engineering is flawed.
“I think it’s a misconception that they’re only majoring in engineering and math,” said Paul. “But at the same time, people who lack social skills have a tendency to get into engineering because they might prefer to focus on studying over socializing.”
Despite majoring in a field with a disproportionately sized male population, where you might find the occasional creep, Paul said it hasn’t really affected his dating life because social mixing isn’t limited by majors.
“Just because our classes were mainly male didn’t prevent us from meeting females,” said Paul. “[At UT] we have a tailgating group of civil engineering grad students, but they bring friends and so you get to meet people.”
When talking to college audiences however, Mitchell’s talks go over more than just not creeping out girls. Even in highly technical fields, interacting with coworkers and management, without making them feel uneasy, is a crucial skill.
“Their core flaw is undervaluing politeness,” said Mitchell.
Mitchell continued, saying that the problem creeps tend to have with socializing is failing to understand that just because something is true, doesn’t mean it won’t have emotional consequences for the person hearing.
“Another thing for maybe creeps specifically, as opposed to just nerds or the socially awkward, is the belief that if someone doesn’t like me, I can win them over they way I do in the movies,” said Mitchell.
Romantic gestures only work when the other person is interested. If someone likes you back, sending them flowers is sweet. If the object of your affection doesn’t even know your name, showing up at their house at 2 a.m. with a boombox Lloyd Dobbler-style isn’t cute, it’s creepy. Super fucking creepy.
