Hacker News Reader

Comment by mvarner | Hacker News Reader

I mean, there's a difference between looking at someone because they're talking or you're engaging in the meeting with them and staring directly at their boobs. I've been in situations where people are obviously gawping at me and it's incredibly uncomfortable and it's a much, much different experience than when they're idly looking around a conference room because they're bored.

View on HN

Looking someone continuously in the eyes can also be judged too intense and uncomfortable, and the most natural reaction, at least to me, is to lower your gaze momentarily. This is the thing that (to me, at least) seems least like I'm bored or checking out of the conversation.

It is unfortunate that when talking to females, this puts your eyes in the region of their chest, and there have been instances where I've found myself with my eyes locked on someone's chest and it's really not the intent.

  It is unfortunate that when talking to females, this 
  puts your eyes in the region of their chest, and there
  have been instances where I've found myself with my eyes
  locked on someone's chest and it's really not the intent.

I get it. This was totally me in high school. Probably in college and beyond a bit, too.

But there are objects in the room besides her eyes and her breasts. Make eye contact, look at something else, eye contact, etc.

Honestly, if all else fails, watch how other people do it. Find a guy who has found a happy medium between "intense and unbroken constant eye contact" and "staring at breasts" and just copy that. I'm not even being sarcastic.

For many engineers this stuff doesn't always come naturally but on the flip side it's all pretty learnable.

> people are obviously gawping at me and it's incredibly uncomfortable and it's a much, much different experience than when they're idly looking around a conference room because they're bored

One thing that makes this challenging is that most men don't know what it's like to be looked at. It's obvious to you because you've likely been a recipient of lots of different kinds of gazes throughout your life and, for better or worse, are calibrated to be able to rank them.

But people almost never look at men. When you're a man, people look you in the eye (but not too much) and that's it. Unless you're a model, abs rippling in the wind as you effortlessly chop lumber, you're never the recipient of any kind of gaze.

This makes it harder to know what a "good" or "bad" look feels like since many men have never experienced either.

Of course, this doesn't justify at all a man giving someone a look that makes them uncomfortable.

But when I hear women say, "Yeah, he gave me this creepy stare," I sure as hell don't want to be that guy, but... I also don't really know how to tell if I am either.

I think that's why this issue will never go away. There are a lot of men that would very much like to be looked at, but unfortunately it seems the genders are wired so fundamentally differently that this problem will always be with us, likely forever, and the best we can do is try to get people to behave "acceptably", often against their natural impulses.

I'd be curious to read if a genuinely honest study has been done in variances internationally - do women in Asian or Latin countries feel as bad when men look at them? Serious question.

> I've been in situations where people are obviously gawping at me and it's incredibly uncomfortable and it's a much, much different experience than when they're idly looking around a conference room because they're bored.

it is your internal interpretation. It may be true or may be not. The point here is that actions - specifically eyes movements - of one persons are supposed to be judged based on interpretation by another person. Thus the same actions with different person doing interpretation may result in different judgement.

To "Frondo" below: "incredibly uncomfortable" - is an internal interpretation as well as "gawping". Objectively there is only one physical fact - physical configuration of the eyes of the person resulting at some points in time in the girl's image on the retina with that image being transferred/processed through visual cortex. Everything else is interpretation. It is just common knowledge, which we use to generate the interpretation, that a heterosexual male would supposedly "gawp" - well, for such an interpretation to have minimally valid basis one would, for example, have to establish that the male is heterosexual to start with. Without asking directly the sexual orientation is again best guess and interpretation of clues. So one interpretation is based on another...

To "zem" : exactly my point. We can only believe in what she says about her feeling. "Believe" in "feeling" - the basis of judgement in these cases. To me such basis seems to be too weak vs. actual practical consequences to the people the judgement is passed upon.

The particular instance I was thinking of when writing my response was pretty blatant! I was around 15 or 16, and sitting on a public bench at the university I was taking classes at. A man sat down at an adjacent bench. He was literally turning his head 90 degrees to stare at me for minutes at a time, and whenever I would make eye contact he would immediately look straight ahead. He started inching towards my bench. I inched away. He tried to talk to me, and I politely excused myself and went to go study somewhere else.

If the lady says people are staring at her boobs, why are you dismissing it with a wave of "internal interpretation"? Why wouldn't you take her at her word?

We can't just dismiss people (people) and we can't just take them at their word, either.

Why would he take her at her word?

To have diversity we have to have more than the white-knight (that takes all accusations made by females at face value).

I've often glanced and looked downwards when talking to someone (or standing close to someone) for a few seconds at a time - just like 100% of us that don't continually stare people in the eyes like a crazy person.

I'm sure that a "lady" that reports that people are always stating at her breasts is either misinterpreting that downward looking action for something it's really not, or is dressing specifically to show off her goods - which will meet with the other person's eyes inadvertently for a second or two.

I think your bias is showing in your choice of words--"white knight" is never used (outside fairy tales) as anything but a pejorative.

And I'm all for taking everyone at their word until it seems suspect for some reason. Why not?

But the broad pattern you see in web chats like these is, a woman says something (e.g. the kind of thing that could make men feel badly, if they realize they've been making people uncomfortable through their actions), and invariably one or more men step in to tell her how she's wrong about it, no, that's not how it went at all....when these men weren't there, have no skin in the game, and these remarks are just more of some "women aren't to be trusted or listened to" general pattern.

Does everyone do it? No, of course not. Does it happen all the time? No, of course not.

Does it happen enough that we now have a pejorative dedicated to men who listen to and believe women's stories first, and are skeptical later? Yes, you used it: white knight.

>and invariably one or more men step in to tell her how she's wrong about it, no, that's not how it went at all....when these men weren't there, have no skin in the game, and these remarks are just more of some "women aren't to be trusted or listened to" general pattern.

i didn't say that she was wrong. I'm pretty sure that she is telling the truth about how she _felt_ and what was her _interpretation_ of the other man's eye position and movements. I don't doubt her account of her feelings and interpretations.

On the other side - why should we trust her interpretation (which i trust she had) about the state of mind of the other man - "gawping" - if she wasn't in the man's head. One thing to say "he kept his eyes on my boobs for 5 seconds for 3 times" - statement of fact (though precise knowledge of direction of somebody eyes may be questionable) vs. "he was gawping" - interpretation about the man's state of mind.

It's true that it is mvarner's interpretation, but once you have something to stare at, it is obvious when people are looking in your direction, and staring at that.

so here's one concrete thing you can do - when a woman says she can tell that someone is staring at her boobs (versus just happening to be looking in that direction), believe her! don't immediately start looking for all the reasons she might be mistaken.

In think the person doing the looking has a better idea of what they're looking at than another person.

yes, but i think someone with a lifetime of picking up on subliminal cues has a better idea of who is staring at her than an uninvolved third party

I have a tendency to focus on people who are talking to me to the point that the eye contact makes them uncomfortable. It's a really strange feeling having to remind myself to look away in appropriate intervals.

And boobs ... yes I am a human male in his sexual prime and not glancing at boobs is literally impossible. It's like asking me not to breathe.

I have recently been informed that human females have a similar problem with bulges. Not glancing is impossible.

you can train yourself to not do this.

i consider myself generally quite misogynistic and horny as hell... so take my word that it is possible.

> It's like asking me not to breathe.

Bullshit.

Not glancing is possible, if you use that as an excuse, you're lying to yourself.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com