“Excuse me? Are you of Irish and German descent?”
If that was a pick-up line, it was a weird one. And coming from the fifty-something, bad-breathed man who’d accosted me in the Met yesterday afternoon, it was creepy. Really creepy.
Because it only got creepier.
When, “No, I’m neither German nor Irish” wasn’t enough to make him wander away, I was asked my name, where I had gone to school, what I did for a living and where I lived. I danced artfully around his questions, refraining from direct answers.
How many times do you have to say, "Well, have a nice time" and turn away before someone will actually leave you alone? Three. And then you cease all politeness and walk away from him.
Something about him was very predatory, and my friend and I spent the remainder of our stay in the museum trying to figure out exactly what his angle was. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t going to tell the creepy bastard where I lived, and I certainly wasn’t going to be polite enough to belie just how threatened I felt by him.
I certainly did feel threatened. His body language -- the imposing way he angled me off from my friend, his telling me things about himself so I’d feel like we had some kinship.
“He didn’t look at me once,” Elle said.
“I sure did,” I said as we ducked behind a display of amethyst jewels. “I kept hoping you’d say, Listen, Scary Man, we have to go.”
We talked about the experience all the way through an Art Deco exhibit, and then Greek and Roman sculpture. And then outside on the steps while we decided on what to do for dinner, our shudders only momentarily interrupted by a Super Model siting.
I, for one, had been glad the guard in European Decorative Arts had repeatedly flirted with us. You know, so there’d be someone to offer the “Last Seen At” if case we disappeared from the museum and ended up held prisoner in Creepy Man’s cellar.
There are a few places you can always be guranateed to meet a wierdo:
Museums, Galleries, Train Stations, Bus Stations and Taxi Ranks.
Well OK lets be honest flagging a taxi down is asking for your own personal wierdo and allowing them to direct the car. To think our parents told us never to get into strange peoples cars, and then they go and make it a profession and a public service!
Best way I find to discourage a wierdo is introduce yourself as Mr Custar and tell them to shush or the Indians on the ridge will hear you.
Posted by: Charlie at July 25, 2004 01:26 PMMaybe he was part of the museums "Living Sexual Predatory Bum Art" exhibit.
Posted by: Smitty at July 25, 2004 02:05 PMAck! Make sure you tune in to America's Most Wanted and check for that man's face!
Posted by: Kristie at July 25, 2004 02:45 PMWait, wait, wait. Was he sporting a sort of borderline homeless professor look? A old tweed jacket replete with elbow patches? I've run into him both at the Met and a midtown Starbucks. Creepy isn't the word. He normally asks about your college and, oddly, boxing.
Posted by: mrw at July 25, 2004 07:02 PMmy my, museums two weekends in a row. aren't you cultured ;)
Posted by: Big City Gal Pal at July 25, 2004 08:29 PMNot to worry, kiddo. I know a guy works at a dairy. You disappear, we get your picture from Stephanie's site and you're on every milk carton in Manhattan. Wouldn't really help you, of course, but every unmarried man in the City could have breakfast with you for months, know what I'm sayin'? ;)
And next time your school group tours the Met, stick with the rest of the class.
Posted by: Michael at July 25, 2004 10:29 PMEww, some people, I tell you. I once had a creepy experience like that w/a phone call. Guy dials my mom's number and I pick up. I thought it was my uncle at first, but he started asking me where I lived and what I looked like. creepy bastard. Even after I hung up the answering machine kept recording and he started screaming my name. I'll never forget that.
Posted by: Woman of Scorn at July 25, 2004 11:17 PMMajorly creepy!
Posted by: BOB at July 25, 2004 11:58 PMIcky! I swear, men just don't realize what us ladies have to deal with. And then the poor normal ones we meet are put off cause we're cagey and paranoid all the time!
Posted by: whirlygurly at July 26, 2004 08:46 AMI'm paranoid of talking to women at all, for fear I'll come off like one of these guys. Not that I would ever ask for personal information, but I sometimes want to ask really weird questions. (I asked a girl next to me on a plane once what her ethnicity was. But I had already exchanged a few sentences with her about the view out the window, so I felt a bit bolder.)
Posted by: Michael R at July 26, 2004 10:40 AMLook, I was just trying to make conversation. Is that a crime all of a sudden?
I promise, ever since the court-ordered chemical castration, I'm mostly harmless. Mostly.
Posted by: Creepy Museum Guy at July 27, 2004 01:45 AMI was going to make a semi serious comment but I just read the one before me...rofl....
when someone gives me the creeps (besides my ex husband) I just up and walk away. I don't care if it seems I'm being rude, I'd rather feel rude than creeped out. Especially when they have bad breath. Why is it that strange people who start up unwelcomed dialogues always have bad breath???
Oh and I'm still so jealous that you are in New York where they have all those cool places to go...albeit full of creepies...