fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1951 ]

[ SECRET POST #1951 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1951 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 102 secrets from Secret Submission Post #279.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You mean when you hero worship someone and put them on a pedestal, they don't like it?

And if you casually go up to a random stranger and start in on conversing with them as if you were already friends, they think you're creepy???

Who'd have known!?

Yeah, this. "Normal person" does not mean your bestest best friend. Approach as you would a "normal person you don't know."

I hope for the OP's sake that let me tell you all of my feelings about some mutual interest is not how they approach people IRL.

Telling people how I feel about a mutual interest has worked pretty good at cons for me. Which is where I've run into the BNF's I've ever seen outside the 'net.

And on the 'net, it's usually a mutual interest that even creates the point of contact. It's not like you're going to say, "so what did you think of the weather today?" right?

Maybe instead of automatically assuming "creepy", if you're a BNF you should look at someone who is enthusiastic about your work the way you wish that the people who create your fandom would look at you. As someone with more to say, but someone who is trying to stay on a mutually interesting topic in order to get the conversation started.

Who says it's at a con? Obviously if it's at a con the whole point is the fandom. If it's on their personal LJ or anywhere else, not so much.

I don't think it's what they talk about so much as how they do it. Anon's point was that "treat me like a normal person and don't glorify me" =/= "treat me like somebody who is already your friend or automatically interested in what you have to say." There is a huge difference between those things. People who act too friendly and buddy-buddy with you, regardless of topic, when they don't know you, ARE creepy as fuck.

Judging from the OP's drawing, the situation is one try at worship, one try at connection, and one sharp rejection. And it does look like a face to face interaction (although I expanded on that to the internet.) That's not anywhere near the level of acting "too friendly" or "buddy buddy".

It is possible to extract yourself from an awkward conversation gracefully, without telling the person that wants to speak to you that they're being creepy. Especially when the level that we're seeing in the OP's post doesn't come anywhere near the level of creepy.

C'mon, we were all newbies at least once!

Of course the OP doesn't think they're creepy and the secret portrays it that way. Nobody would go be creepy on purpose.

If the person they're talking to thought they were creepy though they're perfectly in their rights to state so and disengage. Would you insist the BNF continue talking and being friendly toward someone she feels is creepy? How is that fair at all?

Come on, haven't you had any practice at all at dodging a guy who wants to "buy you a cup of coffee?" The last thing in the world you'd say is "try asking me if I want tea instead."

Disengaging is fine with me. Saying "you're creepy" when you're disengaging, on a first encounter, especially when you've just said something that invites further interaction, is not so fine. I don't blame the OP for being crestfallen.

You're arguing that the BNF should be nicer. I agree with that. OP is arguing that they shouldn't disengage when they feel s/he is creepy. I disagree with that.

How many of those guys who offer to ~buy you a cup of coffee complain that "she never gave me a chance!"? Would you argue that the girl in question should give all those guys a chance? That's what OP seems to want, after the BNF has clearly stated the find OP creepy.

Go look at the cartoon again. OP isn't saying that people shouldn't disengage, OP is saying that they wish they could talk to the BNF's without getting shut down.

First attempt is worshipful. Cartoon BNF says "treat me like you would another fan".

Second attempt is the way OP would treat another fan -- in fact, it's exactly how OP is treating another BNF in the next panel after shutting down the OP character with the accusation of creepiness.

You'll notice that the OP character doesn't make a third try.

Sure, OP would probably be a lot happier ignoring whether or not someone is a BNF in the first place, but the Cartoon BNF's behavior doesn't leave any options for a conversation at all. And I wouldn't have jumped into the comments (probably) if they hadn't made me feel like OP was getting jumped on for even trying to talk to a BNF at all.

Haven't you ever had anyone you really wanted to talk to for more than a couple of sentences? How do YOU do it without getting being called a creep?

But how long did these separate tries go on for? One conversation? Weeks? Months? You have no idea. They represent different situations but OP might have attempted #1 or #2 for weeks. You can't tell.

Neither can you. All either of us have to go on is the scenario which is presented in the cartoon, which gives us only the two interactions. Without further data from the OP, that's all we've got to work with.

And the other BNF might be their actual friend.

I'm in no way a BNF and I'd get away ASAP if someone approached me in the second way, even if it is at a con. I hate and am incredibly creeped out/uncomfortable with people being overly familiar with me.

Yup, this. I'm online friends with BNFs in both of my main fandoms, and although I did mention at the time of our acquaintance that I felt a little shy because I was talking to someone whose work I liked A LOT, they gave me a chance and from there, we've come to have more conversations about topics outside of those fanworks than we have conversations about the works themselves.

Maybe instead of automatically assuming "creepy", if you're a BNF you should look at someone who is enthusiastic about your work the way you wish that the people who create your fandom would look at you

DA

You're heavily implying here that BNFs, because they are BNFs should give multiple chances to people they feel are creepy and ignore that they're creeped out by them. WTF.

No, I'm not. The OP is clearly talking about a first encounter, possibly a second one (which the Cartoon BNF invites by saying "treat me like a normal person". In fandom, what normal person wouldn't want to talk about the latest canon?) That's not multiple.

What I'm saying is that the people jumping on the OP for the sin of trying to talk to a BNF are missing some of the equation here, and defending behavior I see as discourteous and ineffective on the side of the Cartoon BNF. What's wrong about advising people to take the compliments of fellow fans the way the very nicest of actors and authors and creators take ours? I don't condone stalking of actors, etc., and I wouldn't condone it for BNF's either, but one conversation is not stalking, no matter how awkward it starts out on one side.

In a real world situtation if your creep meter is going off, it's better to get out of a conversation as gracefully and courteously as possible anyway, because the real creeps get angry when you call them creeps.

Isn't the first encounter one chance? They did get a chance. I highly doubt the conversations went exactly as recorded on this secret with OP saying one brief line then getting shut down immediately. You're calling out the BNF for being mean but that's tangential and doesn't directly address the OP whining that they want a chance to talk to people. They already got one. Sometimes people don't want to be your friend and it sounds like OP can't deal with that.

During the first encounter the BNF tells the OP to treat them like a normal fan. They are making a request that the OP treat them a different way during future conversations. This is effectively giving permission for the second conversation to happen. Now, we only know what the OP tells us, but if all they did was try and talk about new canon this is not particularly creepy. If the BNF didn't want to talk to the OP they didn't have to call them a creep - they could just not reply back.

>the real creeps get angry when you call them creeps

angry enough to make a fandom secret complaining about it?

seriously if somebody tells someone that they're creepy, THEY PROBABLY DID SOMETHING THAT CAME OFF CREEPY TO THEM. the thing for OP to do to prove they're not creepy is apologize and say they didn't mean whatever the BNF thought they did then back off, not make a passive aggressive fandom secret complaining how they "won't give you a chance (implied: that you totes deserve)"

nobody just thinks you're creepy then tells you so for no reason or because "they're people that don't give chances ever"

Angry enough to make a fandom secret? Possibly. Or sad enough, if they're not a creep. Since the secret gives us absolutely no data about which fandom or BNF we're talking about, the one is as likely as the other.

And if you've told someone to go away and they try to come back and apologize for being creepy (when they don't know what they did that was creepy) doesn't that make them creepier? OP appears to have gone away when told to go away, which is my preference when I've asked someone to back off. (And yes, I've been in the position where I had to do that. Not in fandom, but I do work with the public.)

We've only got a minimum of data from the secret, so I suppose we can spin all sorts of possibilities to justify the Cartoon BNF's behavior (or the OP character's for that matter), serious or silly. BNF has stalker! BNF has Mood Swings! OP is wearing BNF's exact same outfit! Whatever...

Wanna write a fanfic about it?
;)

you're the one judging the bnf to be mean and less than classy when you admittedly have no idea whether the bnf was justified or not. i'm making no judgments here other than what the op said which was bnf called them creepy so somebody thought they were creepy

but w/e hf

The Cartoon BNF is mean and less than classy. We don't have any data about the situation that inspired the cartoon. I don't know, and neither do you, whether or not there was more to the story. I'm just taking the Watsonian view instead of the Doylist view and working with the bit of story we've got.

But really, do we know that OP is talking about a first encounter? All I gathered from the secret was a short illustration of two situations where (I'm assuming) two different BNFs rejected the OP for two different reasons, but I'm not aware whether or not it was in the very first conversation, or how many convos there would have been. I usually take these things with a grain of salt. There's no way to know if the OP isn't leaving information out, so there's no way to know if the BNFs in their fandom really are snotty brats or if OP him/herself really is being unintentionally annoying and creepy.

It's not that I don't sympathize with the OP. I think that everyone deserves a chance, but I don't think it's fair to blame someone else for rejecting a friendship if they feel they have a legitimate reason either. Some people aren't gonna leave a conversation as gracefully as you or I would like, but that doesn't give them any less right to get out of a conversation that makes them feel uncomfortable.

As far as OP's situation though, if they are being unintentionally creepy, I don't think it's such a bad thing that someone brought it to their attention. You can't fix it if you don't know it's a problem. If there was an actual problem, then those BNFs probably did the OP more of a favor than they intended by bringing it up. And if it wasn't, then the OP just needs to find friends who are more worthy of their time and effort and learn how to enjoy fandom while being themself.

We don't know. A first encounter is what the cartoon depicts. I certainly have heard the "treat me like a regular person" advice given (fortunately by someone who was quite happy to continue the interaction), though. And I felt like the first few comments were kind of harsh (and I'm killing time, waiting for Sherlock to start) so I got entangled in the comment thread.

As for someone acting creepy -- getting away from fandom here, because the people who pop into my head are folks I know from work situations -- just saying "you're giving me the creeps" is usually an ineffective way to instigate behavior change. "It makes me nervous when people loom, please stand back a little farther" or other concrete suggestions tend to work better. Since at work I don't have a choice of whether or not to interact with that person again, and would be unprofessional to attempt to drive them away entirely, I try to make specific, positive suggestions. (If you say 'don't run', then most people hear "Run" -- if you say 'Please Walk'," they hear "Walk".) It's taken me a while to realize that there are people who genuinely don't understand why what they're doing is objectionable, but who are nice enough to try to stop if you give them a different suggestion.

I also, at times, fib. Especially for that "do you want to go for coffee" line, where my answer is, "thank you, but there's a lovely person in my life who has first dibs on my evenings." Yeah, sometimes it's Sherlock Holmes... But he is quite lovely, yes?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #1951 ]

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