Am I Creepy?: A Guide For Furries

As a furry, I've learned it's a universal fact that, sooner or later, everyone in the furry fandom will have a run in with a "creepy" furry. In most cases, this will take place at a furry gathering or a convention. Perhaps it will be a furry who goes barefoot in the hotel lobby, has a visible (and olfactorial) lack of hygiene or injects awkward subject matter into conversations with complete strangers. These are the furries the media look for to shock and awe their audiences at the quirky nature of the furries. The ones who, by no real fault of their own, can turn a social situation into an uncomfortable experience for those they're interacting with. When we call a furry "creepy", what we're really saying is that they're socially awkward -- they don't recognize or are unaware of the usual social clues and etiquette.

The problem many of us experience with these "creepy" furries is that they simply don't realize they're creepy. To them, they are behaving just like everyone around them. If they were aware of the social awkwardness they were stumbling over -- well, they probably wouldn't be doing it. Unfortunately, informing these furries that they are creepy, even in the most benign of situations, can still hurt their feelings and be very uncomfortable for the one informing them.

Now, here's the part that might be hard to believe. That furry could be you, dear reader. It is the goal of this post to try and help you realize if you are a "creepy" furry and, if so, what you can do to prevent those around you from feeling uncomfortable. I intend to be as honest and forthcoming as I can.

Let me start with a recent personal experience...

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I was at a dinner with another 20-or-so furries. My table was the one the celebrities had clumped up at (there is a reason for this, but I'll talk about that sometime in the future -- perhaps my next entry). Amongst the people at this table were friends and colleagues I've known and worked with for more than a decade and, in general, we were discussing convention business and musing over events that have happened in our pasts.

Suddenly, I noticed the conversation at the table fell silent, and I saw a furry standing rather uncomfortably close to a friend of mine seated at the opposite end. I'm unsure of how his line of dialogue started, but he appeared to be lecturing my friend on some of his accomplishments in the scientific field. (I'll admit, I don't remember exactly, but I'm fairly sure none of us were discussing science at the time.)

He didn't notice the fact that the people at the table had gone quiet, or that they were either looking away from him or staring down at their hands. He didn't catch the facial expressions and social gestures from my friend that he was uncomfortable with the situation. And if he did see these things, he didn't know how to interpret them. It appeared that he'd just walked up and began discussing his life in the middle of our conversation and none of us had ever met this person.

After a moment of awkward silence, I could see my friend trying to respond in the nicest way he could and stumbling a bit. I thought the best thing to do would be to try to turn the conversation to something everyone at the table could relate to.

"So, where are you from?" I asked. The response I received from him was a pause-less, somewhat frightening torrent of words I will try to render thusly:

"Well I was in western Canada when I was younger but then I moved south for a while and I've been to the Los Angeles area before and around the southern California area but then I moved away from there and why would you ask something like that?"

I was a little taken aback. "Uh. This isn't a hard one, man. Where are you from?" After a couple more tries, he finally told us that he lives somewhere in silicon valley. Wonderful! Something we could grab onto and interact with him about. And, as another person at the table began to remark on someone she knew in the Silicon Valley area, the man vanished without so much as another word! Dissipated back to his own table, I assumed.

A few minutes later, as I was eating the dinner that had been brought out and talking with the friend in the seat next to mine, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a rush of breath on my neck from behind. I shivered, disconcertedly. I turned around and there was our new friend, his face just inches from mine.

"So I couldn't help but notice that question you asked earlier back when you asked me where I was from, I didn't know if you meant the place I was born or the place I live right now but I was just curious if that's what you meant because if that is what you meant then it seems like a strange thing to ask and why would you ask something like that?"

My mouthful of food sat there, terrified and unchewed. The friend who'd been talking to me had been cut off mid sentence by this and could only stare at me with an expression both concerned and relieved that this was happening to me instead of him. I tried my best to speak around a mouthful of steak.

"I was just curious," I said. At this point, I was becoming worried that he might have thought I was a secret agent or an alien trying to discover his home address. I'd never been told that asking a person you've just met where they're from was a strange question.

"Okay, because I wasn't sure why you'd ask a question like that and I didn't really know what you meant so I'm sitting at that table over there and I saw you were sitting here and I thought I'd just come over and say hi."

"Hi," I said. I had no idea what else to say!

"So all right, I'll go back to my table now I guess and I just wanted to stop over here and say hi so I'll go back to my table now and I hope I didn't upset you or anything."

"A little bit creepy, actually." Maybe I shouldn't have said it. Maybe it would have been better if I'd just smiled and nodded and let him go. But I tend to treat people the way I would like to be treated, and if I was doing something socially awkward and didn't know it, I'd want to be told about it.

He paused in thought and then looked at me. "Really?"

I nodded, "Yeah, that was a bit creepy." For a moment, it seemed like he might actually have been interested and appreciative of the feedback.

But then, all at once, he said, "Oh. Sorry, then." He got on his hands and knees and crawled across the floor, between the legs of a large horse statue behind me and back to his table.

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Almost everyone reading this will understand that this was a creepy experience. This person was socially awkward and uncomfortable -- even a little frightening -- to be around. Do I hate him? Of course not. Was I trying to hurt his feelings? Again, no. He just simply does not understand that the way in which he was behaving was strange and uncomfortable to the people around him. He doesn't understand that it's awkward to crawl on the floor of a restaurant or that there is a certain, generally accepted physical distance at which it becomes distressing for a stranger to be within. He doesn't understand that it's important to have met a person you wish to engage in casual conversation first, or that speaking in barely controlled barrages is very difficult to interact with. He doesn't understand, but this does not make him a bad person in any way.

 Unfortunately, once he returned home, he began to raise holy hell on the social networks, claiming his character had been publicly and ruthlessly attacked.. Ironically, if he'd wanted to prove I was wrong, that would have been the first thing he wouldn't have done. If not for the public self-crucifixion, he'd have probably been able to approach me again in a few months and I wouldn't have even remembered it. Now, of course, he's burned in my head for good.

What does this mean for our creepy friend? Well, it simply means that I will be making a point not to be around this person in the future. It's an unfortunate way to start out what could have possibly been a friendship with someone. Though I don't blame him for his lack of social skills, I'm still going to avoid him in the future. He has likely missed out on other helpful or important interpersonal relationships for the same reason.

In the end, he had (and still has) no idea that he was behaving in a creepy way. It's even likely the description of what happened that night will be completely different in his perception. And that's where this blog comes in. If you are a creepy furry, you likely don't know it. So, to prevent you from causing people you might like to know better to flee from you, and to help stop others around you from taking on the uncomfortable task of informing you that you're creepy, I have put together some guide lines to help you realize when or if you're being creepy and what to do about it.

Keep in mind - It is far beyond the scope of this journal to explain every unspoken social rule, why they exist and how to deal with them. Many of these rules are instilled into people from early childhood and on through their lives. What this journal can do is help you recognize if you're breaking those rules and offer some easy ways to react.


AM I CREEPY?

Focus on the actions in which you are currently engaged and the other people around you and ask yourself these questions (note: these conditions apply only to actual events and not necessarily internet experiences):

1. Have you spent 20 minutes or more focused on or following a person whom you've never met or been introduced to?

2. Have you spent 30 minutes or more focused on or following a person who is not interacting with you socially?

3. Are you sitting with a person or group of people who did not invite you to sit with them?

4. Are the people you're with repeatedly attempting to excuse themselves and go elsewhere?

5. Has it been more than one day since your last shower?

6. Look at your current attire (with the exception of costumes). Do you feel you would get in trouble if you were wearing your current attire at school or in a shopping mall?

7. Have you spent more than a few minutes having a conversation with someone who is rarely responding and/or responding in short, passionless replies?

8. Are you sharing more intimate details of your life, relationship(s), job or fantasies with someone who does not know your real first and last name?

9. Does the person you're talking to appear to be frightened or disconcerted by your presence?

10. Have more than a few people told you that you were creepy or socially uncomfortable?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then it's possible that you are socially uncomfortable for some people to be around. If the answer to more than three of these questions is "yes", then you are certainly socially uncomfortable to be around. And if you answered "yes" to all of these questions, then God just spent a lot less time on you.

Now comes the important part -- what to do if you *have* answered "yes" to any of these questions. The easiest solution is in the question(s) to which you answered yes. Simply stop doing it. Remember, if you have goofed when it comes to a social rule, then you've just goofed. It's very unlikely that anyone will hate you for it. However, unless you stop yourself, you may wind up with a person or group of people who will never want to be around you again. If you recognize that you are behaving in one of the ways listed above, simply say goodbye and leave the area -- or, if it applies, reconsider your hygiene. If you're interested in meeting or talking to someone, perhaps it might be best to do it later. And it definitely wouldn't hurt to read up on social etiquette, specifically how to meet someone or have a meaningful conversation.

In the end, if you suspect you are a creepy furry and you can follow these guidelines, your social interactions with others will likely be much less uncomfortable for you and for them. And ultimately, you may have a much better chance at meeting and talking to people you're interested in.