How do I stop attracting creepy men?

DarthDickious asks:

The past two men I’ve gone on dates with have been a little off-putting. They seem nice at first but guy A basically told me he wanted a relationship after two dates and a couple hang out sessions spread out over a week and a half.

Guy B told me he wanted to make me his girlfriend the FIRST NIGHT he met me. Long story short I ended up snowed in at his place after a date, and we slept in bed together and he immediately let me know about his fetishes and things he wanted to do to me. I’m actually okay with these things, I’m just like why would you tell me this after the first date…And after our second date, I got the impression he reaaaally wanted to come upstairs to my apartment. Which definitely didn’t happen.

I don’t know if these guys just tell women they want to date them so quickly as a tool to get in their pants, or if they really just like me THAT much. Either way it’s definitely a turn off toward men I would otherwise be attracted to. How can I weed out the men that are like this??

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Demetrius says:

It seems like you’ve just had the bad luck of encountering two men who approach dating in interesting, but not entirely unique or creepy ways.

What these two men were doing is called love bombing. According to Wikipedia, love bombing is “an attempt to influence a person by lavish demonstrations of attention and affection.”. You might recognize love bombing from the times some dude tried to do a grand gesture in the hopes that it would win you over. The best example I can think of is the moment in Say Anything when Lloyd Dobler shows up in a trench coat, outside his ex’s place, playing the song they boned to that one time. In movies, love bombing has a crazy high success rate, in real life it often feels misplaced, manipulative or just plain creepy. The best movie example of a love bomb utterly failing is Duckie doing his big Otis Redding impression in Pretty in Pink. It’s big, it’s flashy, and makes his intended romantic target SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE.  Asking you out on an overly expensive first date (especially if they wouldn’t normally be able to afford it), asking for a commitment before they get to know you, bombarding you with texts/calls, being told on multiple occasions that you’re unique, special, perfect, soul mates etc. I’m sure that you’ve encountered a few of these things, so at least you know that as of right now, it’s not like you’re meeting unique, creepy dudes, just regular dudes who are trying to manipulate you.

I wouldn’t say they’re trying to manipulate you specifically for sex, I just think that on some level, men think that all women are looking for commitment and that by giving women what they think women want, they’ll in turn get what they want. Whether that’s genuinely a relationship, or just sex, who can say for sure. I’m not saying that these guys were trying to love-bomb you specifically for sex, but I’m also not saying they weren’t, you get me? They could both have genuinely wanted relationships and thought that by being gung-ho about commitment that would somehow prove their worth. They could just be looking for sex and think that making declarations about their fidelity and desire for a relationship will get you in the sack. Sad to say this but there’s no way to stop attracting these guys, because what makes you desirable to a quality dude will invariably make you desirable to guys in general.There isn’t a specific way to avoid creeps, the best strategy is filtering.

Being able to recognize things like love bombing, or negging, or any other underhanded attempts at getting someone to become interested is one of the best ways to screen people. When Pickup artists and their methods became common knowledge, it changed how people look at dating, and on a smaller scale, the same thing should be happening to you. If you tried negging someone in a bar today, odds are good that they’d ask if you were purposefully negging them. Being able to recognize the tools people use to try to cheat is a great way to not be cheated. It’s why the most famous debunkers of spiritualists and mentalists, are usually magicians. Houdini spent a lot of his later career debunking spiritualists, for example.  The first step to recognizing a trick and unraveling it is to see it. Now that you’ve seen love-bombing in action, half the battle is done.

You really should consider experiencing back to back love bombings as good fortune. You got a master’s class in manipulation from two different guys, and now you can take that knowledge out into the world knowing that you’ll never fall for it again. I would hope, at least. You can’t stop these sort of guys from existing, but you can make smart decisions when it comes to what you do with them (Nothing, obviously). A little less specific to your situation, but you should try to think of all the things people do in dating that are “creepy” and try to understand why they do it. Some things are power moves, some are test the waters moves, and some are innocent. Enough piling on men though, let’s talk about women a bit. Not as big in scope, but a standard move that straight men encounter is the purposeful leaving of things at their place without being asked. Anecdotally, it’s happened to me quite a bit ranging from the accidental (bobby pins), or more of a test the waters move (leaving a toothbrush) to the very obviously planned power moves (leaving a pair of underwear in a purposeful or conspicuously manner). Just like men get bad advice telling them to neg, or love-bomb,  women are also given some pretty suspect advice as well.

Men, and women, can be a bit creepy in dating depending on the gesture and how it’s received. Some women want a man who will declare his love in a very Nicholas Sparks sort of way, and some don’t. Some men love it when the girl they’re dating leaves underwear at their place, some don’t. Creepy is relative. In your situation, just stop rewarding guys who love-bomb you. You went on a second date with a guy who love bombed you and then he tried to push things to a place you weren’t ready for. Maybe in the future, avoid that second date if you already know a guy has boundary issues. Not blaming, but if you don’t want to deal with creeps who come on too strong, don’t go on date #2 if on date #1 warning signs are there.

What you will never be able to do is to 100% prevent yourself from being attractive to creeps, so early detection of creepy behavior is your best bet.

Good Luck Out There.