Women Share 12 Tricks They Use For Creepy Men That Ask For Number And Don't Understand 'No'

Some people don't know the meaning of the word "no." And that makes them incredibly hard to deal with. Luckily, tumblr user daree-to-dream -- who has had her share of creepy encounters -- decided to share some of the tricks she uses when annoying creeps ask for their phone number. When you think about it, it's sad that things like this are necessary in the first place, but you never know when you might need them. Better safe than sorry, right?

Keep in mind that it's perfectly normal if you do not wish to give out your number. Even if you simply don't feel like doing it. That doesn't make you stuck up or rude, after all, you're an autonomous human being and that includes deciding who gets to be in contact with you.

In a paper published in New Ideas in Psychology, two researchers from Knox College tried to outline a more comprehensible definition of creepiness. After doing an empirical study, they concluded that a person's "creepiness detector" pings when they encounter something unpredictable or outside the norm. For example, someone with idiosyncratic behavioral patterns, unusual physical characteristics, or a tendency to over or under-emote. To put it simply, we get a weird vibe when someone looks or behaves in a way that appears unstable or violates social norms. Usually, because we believe they may pose danger to us.

The researchers got their data from an international online survey of 1,341 people with an average age of just under 30. Participants rated the likelihood of a creepy person enacting 44 different behaviors and one of the top-ranked behaviors was habitually steering the conversations toward sex.