Another Day, Another Post, Another Creep

The other day I posted on Google+ about a somewhat disturbing aspect of Pandora’s account settings (the issue has since been at least partly patched). That generated a fair amount of interesting discussion, which I always welcome, but it also resulted in something not so welcome – creeping. Over the course of the day, I saw all sorts of stuff:

The iffy

At least 3-4 random hangout invitations from completely faceless entities.

No avatar, no mutual friends, no comment, not even a public post, yet you think I want to go on camera for you?

The somewhat creepy

“Joking” comments on my appearance/relationship status.

No, thanks. Among other things, I’m married.

The creepy and objectifying

Comments on my appearance when I’m “using my brain”.

If only he was using his.

The seriously creepy

I have 7 profile pictures. One of them is a stylized “A”, another is Fluttershy, the rest are real photos. This guy +1′d 5 of my profile pictures in a row. Guess which two didn’t get a +1.

No love for Fluttershy?

Okay, maybe he just likes pictures of people… orrrrrr not.

No, I’m pretty sure you’re just creepy.

The obscene

Why bother with real social interaction when you can just proposition random people for sexual acts?

Yeah, that’s a no.

So about that…

While the particular rate of this kind of stuff was much higher the past day or two due to having a fairly widely shared post, it’s not exactly isolated or new. It’s one of the main reasons why the majority of my posting on social networks is done to a limited audience, not publicly; I simply don’t want to deal with the extra hassle of cleaning up or otherwise dealing with this kind of crap.

When I post on social networks, I’m looking for interesting and meaningful discussions, just like most of the people I tend to associate with. Yet somehow, there’s always the people who assume because my profile has “Gender: Female” in it, I must also be wanting sexual advances and/or expressions of desire. In a post about web security.

Yeah, I don’t get their reasoning either.