Dr. Frank McAndrew

from guys who are worried about exactly this thing.

They're starting to think now that people think they're creepy and they find this very troubling.

I don't think we're very good at detecting it in ourselves.

We seem perfectly normal to ourselves, right?

I think a lot of people who just send out the wrong vibe are very lonely people, right?

Because people kind of run away from them.

They don't want to form a close relationship with them.

And then the whole thing kind of snowballs.

You become creepier because you become more desperate.

And then in your interactions with people, your desperation is unusual and it just kind of feeds on itself.

Well, now this had never even crossed my mind when we were doing the original creepiness stuff.

If somebody is neurodivergent in some way, autistic or whatever, if you don't know that,

and you're interacting with the person, you're trying to figure out what's going on there.

On the other hand, if you understand where the person's coming from, that puts you at ease because now you have an explanation and you're not worried.

But when you think about the modern world...

Snakes and spiders, things like that are not really a threat to most people most of the time, and yet people are still terrified of them.

But think of the things that are really dangerous now, guns, electrical wires, automobiles.

I mean, these kill people all the time, but we don't have phobias about them.

I think that's more likely.

Okay.