The other day, over a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, Jeremy and I had a serious conversation about what it means to be a creep. "It's like those moments when someone holds your gaze just a little too long," he said. "Only instead of one moment, it's forever. All the time." I thought immediately of the trumpet player in our high school band, a staple in the theater orchestra, whose instrument only left his mouth long enough to sigh "wow, BLUEBIRD GIRLS" every time we walked by in our skimpy chorus costumes. I thought more recently of the man who, after subletting a room in our house, made a habit of showing up at odd hours and cooking himself food, all the while using his cell phone to snap pictures of my roommate's butt. "Did you ever think I was creepy?" asked Jeremy, allowing me just enough time to swallow my mouthful of pancake before I answered with the obligatory "no, never!"
But then I thought about it. I remembered the kid who walked around barefoot in the high school halls, dragging a baby palm frond behind him for no particular reason other than he got a gigantic kick out of it, and frequently broke into the theatre to play Beatles songs on the ratty piano. The reason Jeremy and I started dating in the first place was because he snuck into my front yard and left a mix CD on my porch. At the time, of course, I found it overwhelmingly romantic--but truth be told, the very gesture that won my heart is the same that places many a prowler on the neighborhood watch list. Which got me thinking: what exactly makes a creep, if not breaking and entering? It seems that it has to do with intention--a flighty concept in itself, and one that is impossible to pin down without significant evidence. When it comes to creepiness, many of the qualities that I find endearing in one person are the same ones that make me cross the street to get away from another. If it's all right for me to talk to Estiké as though she is a human being capable of rational thought, but not okay for the woman on lower State Street to walk her cat on a leash and talk to the person that lives in her hand, is it simply a matter of confining your creepiness to places where no one can see you? What qualities do a creep make?
Two weeks ago, I began work as a hostess at Aldo's Italian Restaurant. Essentially, this means that I stand in front of the entrance with a stack of menus in my hand, staring at people until my overly-friendly smile frightens them into asking for a table. This level of creepiness on my part has proven to have its benefits--I once convinced a family of seven to eat lunch simply by commenting on the fact that their identical hue of ginger hair is a dying breed. Day in and day out, I smile at everyone who passes by the restaurant until my cheeks ache and I can no longer genuinely recommend anything on the menu because it all tastes like minimum wage and a wasted liberal arts degree. (Though you have to admit, "would you like an order of garlic bread?" is still a gigantic step up from "would you like fries with that?"). Anyhow, the flip side of staring down everyone that passes by is the fact that it is a two-way street: in my vulnerable position in front of the restaurant, only two doors down from Subway, I am a sitting duck in a highway of creeps. Just the other day, a portly man in a backpack--whose rainforest-themed t-shirt, I'm sorry to say, ended a good four inches above his bellybutton--walked straight up to my face and stared at my left eyebrow. "No one will ever love me," he told me, "so all I can do is drink. Will you help me with that?" I muttered something about it being my first day on the job, which it was, and continued to shuffle the menus. He eventually walked away, but not before leaving me with a knot in my stomach and the distinct feeling that ants were crawling all over my body. That same weekend, I had a Vietnam vet tell me that he "didn't want to hate me," but clearly did; sat a couple who requested a separate seat for their leather-bootie-wearing dog; and served calamari to a man who, sitting alone, declared "we'd like iced tea, thank you very much" and proceeded to sing opera at the top of his lungs.
What accounts for this rise in creepiness? Has it always been there, and I've just been sheltered beneath the Scripps elm trees--where people are more likely to ask you for your preferred-gender-pronoun than your phone number? After I got off work last Saturday, I made my way to a social dance event at SB Dance Center, where--surprise!--the average age was approximately 70 years old. Tessa was already there, dancing with someone who looked like he could be her family's witch doctor, leaving me with a man whose garlic breath was so strong that even our disparate heights--about a head's distance apart, with him being the shorter--couldn't shield me from its potency. Later that night, while we sucked down beers that cost approximately 25 cents per sip, I asked Tessa what she thought about our creepy dance experience. She stared into her cup, and sighed: "Was it bad that I had a moderately good time?"
So I guess this is what is has come to. I consider it a good day at work when I'm not verbally harassed, and our college dance careers have fizzled into West Coast Swing nights that feature Enya on the playlist.
Just as soon as I'd resigned to this thought, however, a perfectly un-creepy-looking man asked if he could join our table. "You look like you're having an interesting conversation," he told us--and I resisted the urge to tell him that, in actuality, we had devoted the last half hour to unpacking the bisexual escapades of one of our college acquaintances. Instead, we said "why yes, we are," and spent the rest of the night talking about everything from David Lynch to Infinite Jest with our new friend Joe. He had seen us across the bar, decided we looked like we were capable of holding a decent conversation, and approached us in a way that wasn't creepy in the slightest.
What was creepy, however, was invading our new friend's place of business on a day that I knew he was scheduled to work. First of all, I knew he'd be there because I asked him for his schedule and, while pretending to record some deep and meaningful thought, wrote it down on my polar bear-themed notepad. Second of all, even after going to all the trouble of driving to the bookstore where he works, I couldn't bring myself to leave the classics section long enough to say hi. And you know what? I don't even like classics. I spent twenty minutes pretending to flip through Frankenstein, a book that I would rather use as litterbox liner than read one more damn time, deciding whether I could safely make a beeline for the exit without bumping into Joe. What actually happened was this: I walked through the section he was organizing, turned beet red, and took up a sudden and all-consuming interest in a workbook on small-business finance. When he asked me if he could help me find anything, you know, the reason people come to bookstores in the first place, I mumbled something about Frankenstein and scuttled toward the check-out line. Whoever put fluorescent lighting in bookstores clearly had no thought in mind for the creeps out there, those of us who would go to such drastic measures to make a new friend that we'd buy a set of greeting cards just to avoid leaving empty handed.
Well, at least I got my thank-you notes done.
When it's said and done, I think we all have a little creep in us--some more than others. And here's the thing: it's not all bad. In fact, sometimes it leads the Joes of the world to take pity on us and buy the first round at Elsie's.
"We'd like an iced tea, thank you very much."
Last Sunday at work, an Irish couple walked into the restaurant and asked to be seated. I immediately knew where they were from, but restrained the creepiness that was dying to burst out of me by engaging in the social rituals that I knew would keep from leaving the restaurant and taking out a restraining order. I asked them how their day was going. "Where are you from? I can't quite place your accent." (Lie.) We're from Ireland. "Oh, really? I couldn't tell!" (Lie. Lie lie lie.) Truth be told, I left their table looking like somewhat less of a creep than I felt like on the inside, but with no less of the benefit of being slightly creepy. In a world where most people would rather let a potential interaction walk by than chase it down the street, it feels good to be one of the chasers. I can't say I've broken into a full-blown jog yet, but who knows--if I ever break down and get a leash for Estiké, there's no telling what side of the street I'll end up on.
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