The average man will spend
almost 43 minutes a day staring at ten different women, according to
researchers at Kodak Lens Vision Centres who polled 3,000 people. This means
that over the course of a year, men spend up to 259 hours checking out women. Over the course of their adult life, this
makes a grand total of 11 months and 11 days. A year of their life is a long
time to spend with their eyes fixed on the opposite sex.
So, the question is why Men stare at women so much like they are looking at them for the first time in their life. What do they think they can achieve by it? We have been living together on this planet for thousands of years, why are we still such a mystery to them?
I remember being stared at since the day I became conscious of myself, now I am
37 years old and it still hasn’t stopped. At this point I have to say that I
really got bored with it, it has become quite a turn off now. If you want to
talk just talk, we don’t bite. We will certainly think of you as a creep if you
are going to spend eternity staring at us without uttering a word. Has any girl ever ended up being in a
relationship with a guy who was creepily staring at her? I don’t think so.
I once went to admit my
mother to a hospital. I was wearing a completely opaque net top because I came
straight from somewhere else. The doctor was explaining me my mother’s situation
and suddenly I caught him staring at my top. You would think that someone whose
job is to operate on other people’s body, must be more subtle about these
things but the doctor wasn’t. I caught myself thinking what does he think he
can see, the top was completely opaque then it occurred to me maybe he was wondering
why can’t he see a damn thing, nets are supposed to be transparent.
Whatever, I think it’s
not about clothes, I remember being stared at when I used to drive my scooty to
work wearing summer coat, scarf that covers almost whole face and neck area,
sunglasses to cover eyes, stalkings to cover feet, cotton gloves to cover arms.
Even I could not recognize myself. But Men were still staring, again might be
wondering why can’t they see a damn thing.
And few years back I had
an upgrade and I started using the car to get to my workplace and now men peek
through car window just because it’s a cinema and they got the balcony seat.
It is bad when you are
being stared at by strangers and worse when you are being stared at by someone
who you see on daily basis, with random strangers you at least don’t have to
ignore the same person every day. But suppose you are at the gym or office and
you notice someone who is constantly staring at you every day, you try to avoid
the uneasy feeling by giving them a small smile and trust me this is the most
unfortunate thing you would do. Don’t ever give a small smile to a creeper
thinking that it would make them less creep, if you do that you are entering a
series of very uncomfortable and meaningless conversations. You won’t be able
to make head or tail of it.
Obviously, it has
happened to me on several occasions but this one is quite recent. I started
going to the gym and there was one man, who I found creepy since Day 1. He
would just keep staring at me like he was a 3-year-old and I was Ice Pops. I
thought maybe if I would return the smile, he would believe that I was real and
would become less creepy.
That’s the most
regrettable thing I have ever done. He still kept staring at me and now the
stare was accompanied by series of infuriating questions – What’s your name?
What do you do? Are you married? What do you eat in the morning? Why do you
have a personal trainer? When finally, the interrogation stopped, he said
to me the strangest thing. He said I think you are very fond of hair. I
said, what’s that supposed to mean and he said this is my observation, you
like long hair but your hair doesn’t grow fast.
I already had waist
length hair. I didn’t know I was aspiring to be a middle-aged Rapunzel.
And finally, to the
point, you already have great figure. And I was back to avoiding him. One
day it was very difficult for me to ignore him, he took advantage of the
situation and said – looks like you are angry about something. Well take
the hint.
Now I am the one who is
observing if he is anywhere near by, if he is, I bury myself in my phone.
Thousands of years of
evolutions and still people can’t keep their shit to themselves.
Please just understand,
you don’t say these kinds of things to someone who you are talking to for the
first time. You should know that if the other person is ready to give you the
consent to get personal or not?
Here is the thing we
like getting complements, everyone does, but not in this creepy way. I will
tell you what happens when we hear these kind of complements, it feels like you
are living in someone else’s skin and both you and that someone else is feeling
uncomfortable.
When you are a student,
you don’t mind these things much because you are mostly surrounded by people of
your own age or maybe you don’t have the sense to understand what is happening
but when you are at a work place, things can go really weird because the age
group you are surrounded by is quite diverse. I have been working at the same
place for about 10 years now. When I first joined, I was younger so I was being
stared at by seniors and peers, now I am older and being stared by seniors,
peers and juniors. Anyway, Once I had to work at a different location for a
couple of months for a project. Those were the most awkward couple of months of
my life. I was mostly surrounded by Men and since I was there for only a short
period of time, I did not want to interact much with them, but I didn’t know I
would become such a mystery to them. If I shifted in my chair, they would stare
at me, if I moved my head, they would stare at me, if they were talking to each
other, they would stare at me, if someone was talking to me, they would stare
at me, if they were having a private joke, they would stare at me. I spent the
couple of months keeping my chair low, and head down all the time. I felt like
I was some endangered species, locked in a zoo.
By staring you may
think that you are appreciating how we look but it makes us less appreciate
ourselves. If you want to appreciate us, just say the words but yeah...without
being creepy. Because of all this ogling, now I have adapted a habit of
ignoring everyone and I am pretty sure, I have lost at least a couple of good
prospects because of my habit of ignoring everyone.
I guess we are all
waiting for the day, when ogling would go out of fashion.
As always crisp and relatable 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
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