This is exactly how I am, but it has nothing to do with the #metoo movement. The reason is because I discovered at a young age that girls didn't want a ugly boy talking to them. It makes them uncomfortable, and as a result, it makes me uncomfortable.

So in my mind, avoiding attractive women is being polite.

Something nobody will admit is that "creepy" is really 90% based on the looks of a person, and 10% what they are doing. People aren't comfortable with the idea of an unattractive person potentially having a romantic interest in them (regardless of whether they do or not).

edit: My horrible solution to the issue of a lack of women in tech is to get more conventionally attractive men in tech. More guys like in that Napa photo and less ones like that chubby, 1980s stereotype one.

It's based mostly on relative status, and it mostly exists in the mind.

People aren't comfortable with the idea of an unattractive person potentially having a romantic interest in them (regardless of whether they do or not).

It's different between women and men. Men are a bit more physically dangerous to women, so a man liking a woman carries a bit more risk than a woman liking a man. Also, the state-of-nature potential downside cost of unwanted attention, should it go very badly, is higher to a woman than it is to a man.

This can be circumvented for sure, but my usual method is simply to keep conversations about work only, and not to linger when a work topic has concluded. This might seem like overkill, but I'm trying t err on the side of caution here.

Put differently: the word "creepy" means one thing. Actually saying someone is "creepy", however, is a social signal with a very different meaning (namely: your attention is unwanted / you are lesser / something like that).

Parsed that way, it makes sense that that message would not be sent in situations where it doesn't seem socially unacceptable to send it, even if everyone is thinking it. One of the better things about being an adult is that it becomes socially acceptable, usually, at least in good company, to do what's right even if it violates some status-signally thing.

Although this problem is frustrating to me, I fully admit it didn't arise out of nowhere. Women have some real bad actors they need to be on the lookout for. That this is an intuitive reaction (instead of an intellectual calculation) really implies this is not a new problem. Unfortunately, though, it does mean observing some old-fashioned boundaries with women is the safest course of action.

I'm corroborating this.

I've also seen a shit-ton of creepy borderline sociopathic behavior from males, much of it gone uncalled out (by the supposedly sane males who were standing by)

Let me guess: It was from the highest status male in the immediate vicinity?

Failing to read a _woman's_ boundaries correctly may not say anything about your intentions, but intentions don't matter if you're violating someone's boundaries. People shouldn't make excuses for not reading other's boundaries, they should learn to read other's boundaries and if they're repeatedly incapable or unwilling to do so, they should be treated as either children, adults with social disorders, or violators. There is NO acceptable excuse for violating another person's boundaries.

I'm a man, nerdy, below average attractiveness, but a majority of my friends are women because I don't approach them trying to get something, and I've found that a majority of women are extremely receptive to being friends.

If you have a lot of women as friends, that's great. Your experience is not the experience of a lot of men. A lot of men can't relate to women on a platonic level, and that doesn't mean they're misogynists.

Young conflict-averse man starts life being a little socially inept. Tries breaking the ice with unreceptive women, typical human psychology sets in and this behaviour is generalised to all women. Now socially inept man continues through life with underdeveloped social skills while the people he wants to interact with are developing more complex social skills.

Who is to blame? Nobody in this scenario, Consider looking to why the man is conflict averse in the first place.

This statement doesn't hold up on its own --- boundaries are not always clearly marked, nor are everyone's boundaries compatible, or even fair.

It's very easy for a third party to see a man and a woman having regular workplace relationship and associate that with flirtation and even cheating.

Of course this varies wildly in intensity depending on companies/partners, but it almost inevitably generates gossip. It's even worse if you're above her in the company hierarchy.

I know I would probably stray away from attempting this sort of work relationship with a woman for both my job and my partner's sake. It's a really thin line to navigate on both cases.

I've seen people get fired because a woman hinted that a man harassed her when I knew it was not the case.

But as said on another comment, this was true way before #metoo, that just brought even more visibility to this.

This is very real. Why complicate things if I can be more relaxed and free talking to my male colleagues? They will even tolerate childish jokes I'd never do in front of any women (and as we all know, some people did and lost their jobs because of that). No, thank you.

She said it was not a good idea as we were coworkers, and thinking about it I fully agreed and immediately backed of, tried to do the professional thing and did not ask her to join me for coffee or dinner anymore. It was only later that I realized that this was also not what she wanted - she was in a new country, didn't know anyone, and now she kind of lost one of the coworkers that she did have a good (friendly) connection with.

It was only about half a year later, after we were both in a relationship with different people, that we reconnected as friends, and we still speak occasionally today after we moved to new jobs.

I guess the point of this post is to say, it is more complicated to be friends with someone of the opposite gender than to be friends with someone of the same gender.

Also, a lot of men use certain body language and tone when they talk to other men that just may not be appropriate when talking to most women (of course there are exceptions). As one example, at least the area I work in, guys are constantly challenging each others egos. If you grew up as a guy, this is totally normal treatment for our culture, if not welcome treatment. I've heard of at least a few stories where a bunch of guys tried to treat a female colleague like one of the guys in this fashion and it usually turns out very poorly.

Yeah I am wondering why someone would stick their neck out, especially if they have below-average social skills. Lots of personal liability for little personal gain, and #MeToo just publicized the existing uneasiness with professional interactions. It's not like any women helped when I was evaluating a career in nursing.

Yes it's an exception but it's a possible life/career wrecking exception. If you look at it objectively, this entire scenario is only possible with a man to woman interaction.

If the woman had said the exact same thing to a man, he could never file a sexual harassment complaint against her. In fact he'd probably be laughed at if he tried. The same situation would happen if both were men. Logically speaking, why take the risk?

I don't know how we tackle this though.

In fact, it's much riskier for me to reach out to them than for them to reach out to me. If they're too stupid to realize that, I'm not interested in being their friend. And if they're perceptive of my risk and they still expect me to submit myself to it for their convenience or whatever then I'm not interested in being their friend.

How should men who go on a literal killing spree because they believe they are owed sex be classified? That sounds like pretty psychopathic behavior (or would it be sociopathic? I get those confused).

1. Making friends isn't even remotely close to a line. The line is way out in workplace romance and sexual power politics land. The very basic mitigation strategy you have is simply not to go there. If you can't not go there, then you have other problems to deal with first, and the sooner you go about that the better!

2. If making friends isn't crossing a line, it's therefore not sticking your neck out at all.

3. There is no more liability than any other workplace friendship, and just as much potential for gain as any other workplace friendship. Plus, if you are socially awkward as you claim, you know darn well that the potential for gain is ginormous. If it's hard for you to make friends, you need all the good friends you can get!

4. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with nursing, but it's silly to hide behind that as an excuse. You need to get on with your life.

5. The less you put women on some weird fetishized platform of unobtanium, and the more you just treat them as fellow humans and geeks, the less likely you are to cross a line. At least, that's my conviction, and it seems to work pretty well.

a) My comment about nursing meant that the workplace barriers within opposite-gender mentoring exist on both sides of the spectrum...not acting as an excuse. Your reaction is just like telling the author to "get on with [her] life."

b) Who said anything about "weird fetishized platform of unobtanium"? I was just pointing out the legal realities that exist within the workplace.

c) The line is not in "workplace romance and sexual power politics land", the line is the HR department. Who may share your sense of humor and attitude. Or not.

I say you are letting your fear of sensationalized stories, and/or general fear of the Other, lead you astray.

As it stands now, this line is very easily "shifted" by spin and outright lying.

Sheesh.

Men talk about how aggrieved they are in this new world of transparency and accusation. This transparency has come about because many women have been subject to some really, truly awful stuff. Yet reactions like this this are unbelievably unfair to women too. It's almost like it's _women_ who are in a lose-lose situation here, not men!

What on earth will it take to get men to simply treat women as reasonable, decent people?

From what I have seen, it happens fairly often.

Would you really cast out all women from your professional circles because of it?

What!? Strawman much? Put words into another's mouth much? Sheesh!

Let me tell you this. I was pretty much a butthead (lowercase b) in my 20's. The older I get, the stupider 20-somethings seem, and the wiser my parents seem. Heck, I was still plenty stupid in my 30's. Younger people have a lot of good things going for them, but there are going to be overreactions and, let's say, "deficits in experience." This is entirely an equal opportunity phenomenon, too, across genders, races, orientations, religions, heights, etc. So no, no probably one gets cast out. Human beings need checks and balances, and groups of humans working together sometimes need the check and balance of experience and another's point of view.

Men talk about how aggrieved they are in this new world of transparency and accusation. This transparency has come about because many women have been subject to some really, truly awful stuff.

At a fundamental level, this isn't about men vs. women. It's about transparency, fairness, and due process. I know firsthand about how really, truly awful stuff can happen under the surface of things. I know because those things were done to me. Both in the fashion of racial bashing and sexual abuse. I could probably talk for hours about the things done to me by white males. Still you can't abandon principles just because something was so very bad. Those principles are what separates good people from the brutal vengeance of purely tribal thinking. You can't have true justice without those principles, because power corrupts and human nature will pollute what happens. "An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind."

"Listen and believe," is okay as a first step, but taken as a substitute for due process, or as an excuse to throw it away, it's morally bankrupt and it denies human nature. There are reasons why we have things like courts and the 5th amendment. It's very, very easy for people to fall into groupthink and for lives to be ruined for absolutely no reason. This is something which is cognitively difficult to understand, but which is a hard won lesson of our society. It's also something which I've seen firsthand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQYB2Coufg

Women are human beings too. And human beings have the capacity to and sometimes lie. They have lapses in judgement. They get corrupted by power. They sometimes lack the experience or haven't processed their experiences. If "listen and believe" is the full extent of how you would treat with women, well, that's about the most dehumanizing and belittling thing toward women I've heard someone suggest today.

You say this isn't about men vs. women. But specifically, all of this is in response to (what I assume is) a man refusing to make friends with a woman, because of whatever politics they think currently govern _that_ specific dynamic in the workplace. It _is_ what this is about, fundaments be damned.

Don't strawman me again. I never said that it's too risky to make friends with women in the workplace, and that men should never do this. My actual position is this: Right now, in many different contexts, it's a bit too easy for a woman to make a fabricated accusation against a man. There's an imbalance here, both socially/culturally and institutionally.

But specifically, all of this is in response to (what I assume is) a man refusing to make friends with a woman, because of whatever politics they think currently govern _that_ specific dynamic in the workplace.

So what? He's free to associate as he wishes. It's not what I would want, however. It's not how most men behave in most contexts, from what I have seen. Furthermore, there have been adjustments and readjustments of the politics and the balance of power in the workplace, between workers and bosses, between men and women, etc. It's an unlikely one sided fallacy to suppose that justice means that all of the power should flow to one side, only. In our history, an important inflection point was when we realized that due process was required, to prevent the abuse of power by authorities and the powerful.

It _is_ what this is about, fundaments be damned.

Men and women are of the same species. Groups of men and women have been cooperating productively since time immemorial. Again, it is you who are coming out with the idea that anyone should be cast out. No one need be cast out, so long as we are honest about everyone's humanity -- both the good and the bad sides of that.

I was a part of an organization in college that naturally maintained a 50-50 male female ratio. There was no system of quotas or any attempt at adjusting populations. Women who were a part of it, years after graduating, talk glowingly (sometimes longingly) of the equality they experienced in that environment. If men and women -- really people in general -- are to get along, people need to do four things: 1) Be tough. 2) Be kind. 3) Respect. 4) Trust. It also seems to work in culturally Chinese companies in SF. (One good thing about a lot of Communists, is that many of them really are sincere about the equality of men and women.) It's the organizations where people act like they're in Mad Men and the organizations where people have bought into Social Justice where all the drama seems to happen.

"Fundaments be damned?" When you abandon principles, you get chaos. That's precisely when you get injustice.

I have a hard time simply coping with people being behind me, much less attempting to interact with me without first entering my forward field of view.

To avoid anyone else misunderstanding: That's "remind by looks, posture, etc", rather than "assaulted by looks, posture, etc".

This, plus seeing some of the "social media star women engineers" on twitter calling out the "White dudes" on some guys just for trying to have conversations with them.

This #MeToo movement gave power to a minority of women that know how to use it in their political advantage, while creating a bigger separation between women and men in general.

As the author mentioned, girls tend to "engage in more prosocial behaviors" than boys. This means teenage and college-age men - especially those who gravitate towards fields of study that are "perceived to be anti-social" - may come across as socially awkward in their interactions. And while their interactions may be entirely innocent, that awkwardness can be interpreted as "creepy" by some.

IMHO, one viable solution to this is to add and strengthen social and emotional intelligence education in our schools. And perhaps, offer workshops for parents as well. Many schools are already beginning to do this. We just need more of it - and to continue it all the way through higher education.

This is very highly dependent on perceived relative status. I remember just standing in an entryway literally doing and saying absolutely nothing, watching a woman melt down into delusion and accuse me of being a creeper. If you can be mistaken to be a homeless person, it's a lot more likely. If you dress well in an expensive suit, you're immune. Heck, you're a bit over-immune.

I still see people who are able to bridge these divides and still establish rapports, if not acquaintanceships.

Friendships/acquaintanceships are also two-way streets. Some people will have a very difficult time forming such bonds, no matter how socially intelligent the other party is, regardless of gender.

This depends on a lot more than your social abilities such your the way you look and your social status, none of which can be changed easily.

With that said, I still do see some people (albeit rarely) still find a way to bridge the gap using what seems like infinite patience and grace on their part (which I would say are part of social intelligence).

But even then, there are people who will always allow their implicit biases come to the surface, no matter how graceful you are.

It is also true that some people are really adept at social skills maybe due to experience or maybe due to innate, genetic factors. Some people are really fun and fascinating to talk to. Even nerdy, unattractive people! Like, sometimes I get to know people whose only passion in life is mathematics and they're generally very unattractive but they are extremely fun to talk to. I just wanna be around then and listen to their jokes. But some people are not like that, and this makes social interactions inherently harder for them.

I wasn't thinking of cultural biases (I'm mostly thinking of Bay Area cultural context since this is the one I know but I'm assuming it's pretty much the same in most Western cultures) but I guess you can say something about that too. My main point is: talkign to women is extremely easy for some people, and the hardest thing in the world for other. When you simply can't talk to anyone comfortably in non-work context, it's almost impossible to make friends with them. I honestly do not know how to properly make women friends and I'd much rather not make women friends than make them and myself uncomfortable which for me disproves the whole article.

:(

With that said, I do think there are some situations where physical attractiveness is much less of a barrier. I've seen some friendships grow from interactions on Discord for Pokemon Go, for instance. Those people may interact in person pretty rarely, but seem to have pretty deep discussions online. Same could be said for other online communities, of course.

I mean, I guess I should be glad there's some self-awareness?

Maybe I just can't empathize as a gay man though, but I've never, ever felt this way around a male coworker, gay or otherwise.

edit: To further explain my thinking... what's the alternative? The only way I can understand the comment is "Oh, well this is a witchhunt and I'm afraid of being swept up" ... or else, "I have done those behaviors that men are getting in trouble for and am worried about doing them to a coworker." Maybe there's another interpretation that I'm not able to understand? Trying to understand here. Thanks.

If someone acuses someone else of murdering his neighbour they will have to go to all lenghts to prove it and it's a major moral line to cross.

If someone acuses someone else of sexually harassing a woman, whether they're guilty or not, they'd most likely lose their job straight away and be labelled as a "perv" or something similar.

I can't see how you can compare those.

In your particular case, the equivalent would be a man screaming "sexual harassment" from another man. There's a huge stigma accompanied with that. It's just not socially acceptable on society today. On top of that the homossexual community is another minority with all the weight of discrimination following it.

Let's say that happens. It's easier for you to prove he fired you because of your sexual orientation than for him to prove you harassed him.

I believe there's a reason you don't feel this threatened. It's because unfortunately that's how society works today.

[Edit: grammar]

So, I can't understand as a gay man because I'm immune to accusations of sexual harassment because I can just use my orientation as a discrimination shield? Eh, no, not really. Frankly, it doesn't make sense and er, it doesn't address the fact that the other person could be gay?

While I concede that a false allegation of sexual harassment carries a different weight than a false allegation of murder... false accusations are lies and presumably will happen even if you avoid all contact with someone, no?

I guess I don't know what the alternative is. If I have to choose between ignoring workplace harassment and having folks err on the side of caution in the workplace behavior, I know which way I hope for us to err.

As much as I'd love to live in a world where everyone is truly equal, that's not the world we live in.

> false accusations are lies and presumably will happen even if you avoid all contact with someone, no?

Absolutely true. But lying about sexual misconduct is relatively easy compared to a murder.

If someone does decide to be malicious against you, it's easier to prove them wrong if it's known that you stay away from the other person. Because of gossip and perception if you're close to someone of the opposite sex on the work environment people assume the worst.

People have different interests and it is totally fine. At our place some people are into Fortnite, some people into crypto, some people into playing the piano.

So when Fortnite people stay after hours to put some games in, it doesn't mean I have to stay back and play with them.

Most effective teams are usually ones with least communication impedance. The less you have to judge your words and go through diplomacy/"re-examination" dance in routine conversations, the more time you have to do your job. That's the reason "team fit/culture fit" is such an important criteria when hiring people.

Maybe you mean onus? And no, it isn't because that's exactly the sort of thinking that keeps the field as non-diverse and exclusionary as it is. What you're describing isn't some sort of property of an effective team. It's one of a hostile workplace.

Then I saw the other replies.

For other readers, if you believe that men cannot have platonic relationships with women, or if the idea that women cannot have equal & equivalent beliefs around sex as men is unbelievable to you, you are suffering from an insane social position. Like literally your beliefs are weird & dangerous in ways that should encourage you to seek help.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Consider the same exchange with different subject matter: "A: I don't race my car because it's dangerous" "B: Dude, if you're so bad at driving how do you even get to work? Learn to drive and get onto the track! It's awesome and I had been racing with no injures so why can't you?"

Please, let us not get into bad faith argument even deeper. Nobody here is arguing against talking to people. The question is about the safe and dangerous modes of talking to people.

The original comment I replied to is basically saying that men just avoid women as an "one of the unfortunate unintended consequences of the #MeToo movement." My point is that this is not due to #MeToo, it's due to people with bad social skills who think avoiding women is better than improving them.

Yes, improving your social skills can be damned hard. But that’s irrelevant if you don’t even want to do it. First we need to convince people that self improvement is the solution, not isolation. Then we can talk about how.

Er... your theory is that "too shy/awkward to carry on a casual conversation with a woman" is something that some men prefer? That they could overcome it, but don't want to? That seems more likely to you than "they would like to overcome it, but haven't been able to"?

I’m not saying they’re happy with it, but prefer it over self improvement? You bet. People usually hate trying to change themselves.

You can want something yet fail to achieve it, that's fairly obvious, no? Compare: fat people who want to be not-fat.

Of course, the blatant counter-argument would be that those just don't want it enough; this entire train of thought seems rather damning to me.

I'm saying, if your social skills are so bad that you're risking your job by being social with women at work, you should make fixing that a top priority.

Also, in response to your first sentence, it's about relative risk.

I think this mostly comes from being less than totally confident socially, or perhaps even having some social anxiety.

To my knowledge I've never accidentally harassed somebody and can't imagine it happening. But it's still something I worry about because I'd really hate to do that to somebody.

It just adds another layer of concern onto an already somewhat uncomfortable proposition.

I even found one of my good friends (who is female) by offering help in a CS lab. I still worry about these things, and all things being equal, I know I have and would ask a question of the guy sitting next to me rather than the girl. It's just easier.

Personally, as a male, you have absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose. The most rational thing is to not engage at all.

Having friendly, healthy relationships with your colleagues isn't valuable? Or just with the ones who are women?

Some of my best friendships/allies/contacts have been women who I worked with. I'm very thankful for the opportunities they have provided me and the value they add to my life.

The fact that you see /zero/ value in having genuine connections with women has me even more worried than the fact that the OP was afraid of harassing someone accidentally.

It's not that there isn't value in having friendly relationships with your colleagues no matter their gender. The issue comes up in comparing the value of a specific relationship with the potential costs of it (or attempting to create it).

Right or wrong, befriending a male colleague has virtually zero risk. The chances of anything happening to severely damage your career or social standing are essentially nil. Even in a severe situation, there isn't much you can do to cause a problem without acting in a pretty horrible way that's also documented. There just isn't much you can do there to really provoke a highly emotional reaction or scare HR.

The same cannot be said of attempting a relationship with a woman. People are very sensitive about sexual harassment and HR wants absolutely nothing to do with it. The exact lines for sexual harassment are necessarily a bit blurry. Even if they existed, continually just barely not crossing them would seem like harassment to me.

Is the friendly relationship with a woman coworker so much more valuable than a man that it is worth taking on additional risk? I don't think so.

I don't intend to have a particularly strong relationship with all my coworkers and I imagine most people are the same. This means I get to be choosy about which ones I engage in this way. The risk-reward ratio just doesn't seem favorable to engaging women in this way.

Now, personally speaking I have slightly more female friends than male friends, unless we're counting people I might talk to once every few years. My oldest friend, by far, is female. I would never suggest men should not be friends with women. That's insane. I'm just not sure what the incentives are for me to try to specifically befriend female coworkers.

Just with the ones who are women (from a male perspective). This specific point is because of #MeToo - this movement normalized the fact that "friendliness" and "healthiness" of a relationship is judged post-factum, sometimes years and decades post-factum, and the male perspective is rarely taken into account.

Think about it this way, even if one follows OP advice, and builds what he considers very healthy and friendly relationship, he exposes himself to (based on recent news stories, very real) risk of the relationship being second-guessed by the female, at any point in time in future, with the severe penalties resulting from mere accusations, not convictions, even if not true.