A Question

I was reading an article today about Sunday Star Times about ADHD and someone was quoting as saying "I come over as a bit weird. I don't htink I'm sleazy though, which is an issue with some of us, we're too full-on. We stand too close, we don't know the social cues."

Now I often feel uncomfortable around men who are really socially awkward (and I'm talking about people who have something seriously physiologically or psychologically wrong with them, not your common or garden, 'oh my god why is my life so much worse than everyone else' - that we're all pretty much trying to grow out of). It made me wonder about the politics of that uncomfortableness. To what extent is it just prejudice against people who don't fit the social norms, and to what extent is it an actual awareness of danger?

I don't really have any answers to this. I certainly don't want to make women feel guilty about their spidey sense for danger (because I don't think we trust it enough - and I've been right about a socially awkward person).

But I think it may be an example of us making the wrong things seem unsafe. Just like we're in much more danger in our own homes than we are in the dark alley at night. We're probably in much more danger from someone who doesn't intimidate us, who doesn't make us feel creepy when he looks at our bodies, who knows what to say.