Let me preface this by saying that my thoughts are convoluted on the matter, but bear with me. These days, women, especially high school and college girls, like to throw the word creepy around when talking about guys. Back in the day, creepy was a word used to describe rapists, pedophiles, drug addicts, people with serious mental conditions, et ceterea. It is defined as something strange or scary: causing people to feel nervous and afraid. This defintion hardly describes the shy, unattractive or awkward men that are being labeled with this term today.

Many people contend that creepy is a euphemsim for unattractive. They claim that girls will call a sexually assertive handsome guy confident. If an unattractive guy displayed the same behavior then it is creepy. The big quesiton in all of this is why do girls call these men creepy? Why don't they just be honest and say that they are unattractive instead?

The answer to this question lies in gender norms. Men are supposed to the ones who are shallow, and women are the ones who are supposed to care about personality, while in reality both sexes are equally shallow. So when a woman finds a man unattractive, she says he is creepy implying that something is wrong with his personality not his looks and social status.

This is very damaging because it ruins a man's social confidence. A man may not have been remotely creepy, but is labeled as such because he is unattractive. This may result in the individual trying improve his personality when there is nothing wrong with it, constantly second guessing himself, and thus ruining his social competence.

Furthermore, all of this time a man may now spend on "improving" his personality diverts attention away from the real issues regarding his rejection. Maybe he is overweight, or doesn't have a good social circle, or doesn't have a good income. But he won't focus on these issues because he is told that he is creepy, implying that something is wrong with his personality. A young man who is called creepy may start focusing on the wrong issues and stunt his development in the process.

Another facet of this issue that needs to be discussed is that shy men are often called creepy. In reality, there is nothing inherently creepy about being shy at all. When women are shy, it's perfectly normal, hardly behavior that causes people to be nervous and afraid, the real defintion of creepy. So why is it different for men? Again, the issue reverts back to gender norms, men have to be confident while women are the shy ones who have to be swept of their feet. If we are moving towards equality, the other side of the coin, the men's side, needs to be addressed.