brendan halpin

Something for the men in the audience because I think a lot of us don’t necessarily get explicit training on this.

I was fortunate enough to be trained as a high school teacher, so I did get explicit instruction on this: I was told to not be alone with students with the door closed, to not touch or hug students, and to be constantly aware of, basically, the worst possible interpretation someone could put on your conduct.

“But I’m not a teacher!” you say. Okay, but the same rule applies. You’re gregarious and social and want to talk to people but have no creepy intent? Sorry, but creepy guys have ruined this for you.

“It’s not fair for people to assume I’m creepy!” That is true. It’s also not fair that women get sexually harassed. They’re playing the odds here, willing to forgo knowledge of you personally in order to protect themselves from potential creeps. You don’t want women to consider you a potential creep? You need to go out of your way to show them that you’re not.

Let’s start with physical space. If possible (obviously if you’re jammed into a packed subway car it’s not, but otherwise), give women more space than you think they need. And if you’re walking in the same direction as them, maybe cross the street or slow down to give them space or speed up to get past them. Just send the message that you are about your own business and not trying to interact with them. “Geez! That seems like a lot of work!” It’s not actually that much work. It’s just a small exercise in empathy. Now obviously if you’re on a crowded street it’s different, but if you’re the only ones on the block? Especially if it’s nightttime? Give her some space. Now give her some more space.

Now on to conversations. Again, you need to remember that every time you open your mouth to talk to a woman you don’t know, you’re setting off her creep alarm. Perhaps your intentions are innocent, but what’s happening here is especially unfair because you get to be relaxed and she gets to be tense, waiting for the conversation to take a turn, or just resentful because she doesn’t get to decide whether she’s having a conversation on this flight.

“But people like to talk to me!” Do they, though? Because you should know that most women are very good at humoring men. Perhaps they’re like the woman I saw on a recent train ride who spent the entire length of Connecticut being regaled by a guy, said, “it was such a pleasure to talk to you!” to him as she got off the train, and then slumped, laughing and exhausted, against her companion as soon as she was off the train and out of sight.

Now if you’re a gay man or a trans man, do these rules still apply? Yep! You still need to give women personal space and assume they don’t want to talk to you.

But what if you’re neurodivergent? Irrelevant! Giving women extra space and not forcing conversation on women are within the capability of every single neurodivergent person I know. Except for the ones who use their neurodivergence as an excuse for being an asshole. Don’t be that guy.

But how will I flirt and find a romantic and/or sexual partner? By meeting someone at a party, or being introduced by friends, or because you’re both working in your community garden plots or because your kids are in the same first grade class or whatever! Demonstrate that you are a person with interests and not just a random perv, and then women will talk to you! If they feel like! And not if they don’t! And that’s okay!