I don’t think most women with half a brain are really sweet and polite all the time, but I think being told that being creepy is bad and other people shouldn’t have to put up with our off-putting narcissism is a lesson that sticks with most of us. I don’t look at a random attractive guy on the street and think “That’s a walking cock. I don’t think of him as a person, but as a sex object,” and have to restrain myself out of politeness from insulting him. I daresay most women don’t feel that either, which is why guys who insult women they don’t know are fundamentally baffling to us. We actually believe that other human beings are real people with dignity, and I would grant that creepy men are equally genuine in their feelings toward women. I think a lot of men would benefit from getting the same conditioning women get, in that they would actually be happier and respect themselves more, as well as annoying fewer people.

Or by your boss’s boss, who’s a VP of your company…you’d think he’d be glad that one of his engineers looks “so SEEEEEErious every time I walk by your cube!” but no.

So, does that mean women really are “sweet and polite” (’cause they’ve been forced to be and now don’t know anything else)? Or have they just learned to cover it up better?…

Privilege. Men don’t get nearly as many cultural messages telling them they’d better be sweet and polite and not scary or they’ll never get anyone to love them. It’s the same reason most women would be ashamed to whine and carry on like Nice Guys do about how little sex they’re getting and how unfair it is. We’re more likely to anticipate other people’s reactions as “Ew, obviously” if we acted that way.