How to Become Creepy

Hey guys!

How was your valentine's day?
Last year I posted about valentine's day and how it is all about marketing scheme and we are all victims of marketing master minds.

But I still love valentine's day. I just like festivities in general. Or just excuses to consume alcohol perhaps.

ANYWAYS, today I am going to write about ways to become creepy.
There are creepy people everywhere I realized.
But then, it got me thinking, "what exactly defines creepy for me?"
So I went through my memories and thought about some creepy people I have encountered and before and tried to dissect the Creepy-ness, in my 20 minutes of bath time I just had. So this guide is probably going to be quite incomplete but hey, what was ever complete in my past blog posts, what the heck.
So here we go!

1. Completely believe that you are totally desirable by everyone and act as if you are doing people favor by showing you are also interested in them. 
 - What does it mean? It's easy. Believe that the person you are hitting on (or harassing them) are also totally in love with you, without any plausible evidence. What? He/she looks like they are denying you? No, no, no way. They are just shy. Keep doing that, no worries. They are getting red-faced... ohhhh maybe you are turning them on too. Yikes for creeps!

2. Be obsessive about someone in "out-of-norms" manner.
- It's hard to define what out-of-norms are. But maybe something like, collecting his/her strings of hair and keep them into your wallet like a lucky charm. Or steal their dirty sock (somehow) and sleep with it, next to your face. Or go through their trash and re-chew the gum that they chewed and spat out. Yes, it's kinda like a cult. Of course, you can do all these things in a secretive or non-secretive, or perhaps the most difficult semi-secretive manner. Semi-secretive manner is that you are not doing these acts in broad daylight for everyone to notice, but just bold enough so that the person of your obsession sorta realizes. Way to go!

3. Make us think (imagine) what you are thinking (imagining) about, when you are imagining something that should probably be kept as a secret. 
- Perhaps somewhat similar to the first one. Yeah tell us your dirty fantasy. Tell us about OUR baby's name, though we only spoke to each other only once before. Tell us how you want to put life-size dolls that look like us which you can talk to and eat with everyday. That's pretty damn creepy (wink).

4. Be obsessed with violence. 
- Everyone likes a little bit of violence. We are human. It's our nature. But no, BE OBSESSED. Like your daily morning routine should include watching a horror (really gory kind) movie just to get you started. When you watch it, you shouldn't be able to help but smile watching all that blood and disfigured corpses.  And of course, be so obsessed that you tell everyone that you one day want to try the movie scene yourself. When you tell that to people, don't forget to look dazed, to slightly smile, to use really low or hyper voice, to make your lips tremble with excitement, and to describe in details how you would. That's out of the world creepy. Maybe more like dangerous. You might have people calling cops on you. That's the down-side.

5. Look dirty and proactively approach people in a really uncomfortable way
- Get your hair greasy. Wear some dirty clothes. Don't brush your teeth or wash your face. Approach people panting. Stand to them really close, as you are panting. With the stereotype "creepy-ness" so deeply imprinted in us through media, this is an easy way for you to get labeled as "that creepy person."

These are all I could come up with during my 20 minutes bath time. It may not have covered all the qualities of creepy-ness, I think practicing these will definitely get ME to think that you are creepy.

I think definition of creepy differs from person to person. I don't immediately think of a physically unattractive guy hitting on a girl at a bar as "a creepy guy." It's when he is completely in belief that the girl is loving it though she is saying "fuck off" that makes him "creepy" to me. Or I don't immediately think of a girl stalking a guy on facebook being creepy. It's when she prints out all the conversation history on his facebook wall and make it into a book so that she can read every night that makes me kind of label her as "creepy."

It's all subjective right. It's all subjective and a very obscure line. We all are creeps in some ways or others. We all fantasize or do things that you may not want everyone in the world to know.

But, it comes out creepy to me when people are in utter belief that other people totally agree or approves whatever you do / say / think. Maybe it is a combination of ignorance and self-centeredness mixed in with adult desires that create creepy-ness... Still can't put my finger on it.

What is YOUR definition of creepy?

Word of the Day

Hey guys-

One of my colleague left the company for another company.
It was for good and I am truly happy for his advancement in career but at the same time, I was quite sad to see him go, as he was kind of like a big brother in the office for me.

Before he left, earlier in the week, he taught me one word that he thought was so important and captures the beauty of Japanese language, which hit me as well so I would like to share that with you.

The word is "お陰さまです," (Okagesama Desu).

The word "Kage" means "shadow" in Japanese. So the directly translation would probably be like "your dear shadow."

"Shadow" in Japanese can mean a lot of things. like we use idioms like "he was supporting you in shadows," meaning "he was supporting you secretly or quietly or unnoticeable ways in the back."

But this idiom is used more as "thanks you" or "fortunately." It's not even a big word or anything special. In fact, it is used in a pretty light way a lot of times.

"Okagesama Desu." The mentality of this word is more for showing gratitude for those who have been supporting you in very non-obvious ways.

There are a lot of people who support us in very un-noticeable ways.

I think when we achieve great things or accomplish something, we are often tempted to credit ourselves.
True, in a competitive place, you have to find a way to shine and beat the race.

But this simple word, though people use it as a "thank you" linguistically, has its beauty in its mentality to remind us that we can never accomplish anything ourselves.

Yes, if you are a project manager, you should be the one in the spotlight. But when you are making a big presentation in front of these clients or management board or something, probably you are not the only one who worked on that presentation, especially if you are in a corporate setting.

You may have 3 bar charts in your slides, which 3 different people took 3 hours to come up with using complicated database.

In the eyes of audience, these may be just 3 bar charts. But you should never forget that these people also took time and effort to complete your slides.

It is quite easy to forget that there are army of people who are behind your back, when you are so blinded by the bright spotlight to make you shine.

"Okagesama Desu." That's what my colleague taught me.
And I will be forever in his debt to be reminded that I should never forget the fact that whatever I achieve, I could not have done it alone.

Oh there's also great read if you are interested in the relationship between "shadow" and japanese culture. It's called "In Praise of Shadows" It is a beautifully written essay and I highly recommend it!