Do you ever feel as if you're seen as a perpetual predator?

Yes I do ... well. Maybe not "perpetual" but oftentimes.

One time springs to mind. A friend of mine had come back into town for a mutual friend's going away party. Let's start with ... I loved my friend. Not in a romantic way. She was definitely someone I'd consider a "friend" rather than a chum or an acquaintance. On a scale of 1-10 appropriate intimacy with friends scale, she was definitely north of 6.

About four-fifths through the night I had a few drinks and was a little wobbly on my toes. Anyway, she kind of called me over, and I hadn't talked to her in a while... so I saunter up, relieved to catch up, but also more than a bit dissociated with a headful of booze and pot.

Lo and behold ... she looks good. She's always been beautiful. She's an 8 outside and a 9 inside. It wasn't as though I hadn't noticed her physical beauty before, but on that night I decided to get a proper eyeful. So I did.

Holy shit what a mistake. They say a man's gaze is a weapon, and I suppose it is.

She didn't slap me or anything, but she did say "Stop looking at me like a piece of meat." It totally made the whole evening go to shit, and in many ways changed the dynamics of our entire relationship. I felt much more like the creeper hanger on and not merely "just a friend."

What's funny is that while she is clearly physically attractive, I'd never "make a move" ... I'm married ... which might have just as much to do with why she got skeezed out. Married men aren't supposed to find women not their wife attractive. They do ... but we aren't supposed to telegraph that with a drunken ogling of a dear friend.

Another time, likewise involved too much to drink.

My friends (a married couple ... both beautiful people) visited to play some card game, and the wife was wearing one of those shirts that dips to kingdom come. I couldn't figure out how not to look down her shirt from time to time and still play the game, just by the geometry of it all. I was honestly feeling just as awkward as she must have ... but the notice her husband took was kind of like "Is he looking down her shirt?" ... "Oh my god, what a dick ... stop looking down her shirt"

Maybe I'm reading more into it than there was, but I noticed the tension ... for sure.

Anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a handful of people out there who consider me a total skeeze. What are you gonna do. My testosterone isn't going away and my gaze occasionally shifts to flesh when it is bared.

Sorry.

/r/AskMen Thread