What makes one person hinky and another not?
I checked the definition of this slang word, which means, as a an adjective, nervous or suspicious. The problem with this definition is that it's not correct. A hinky person may not have a case of the nerves or be or act suspicious at all. A hinky person makes YOU nervous or suspicious of them. You think that the person is up to no good. And now that you "know" it, you are somehow involved because they involved you. Involved because they know you know - somehow.
It could be how they look but I think it's more than that. Few people on this earth are beautiful or handsome, which is why we notice those who are and why there is so much emphasis on being one of them.
I once saw a gallery of old photos on the internet, in which a number small time criminals from a hundred years ago or so had been photographed for an exhibition. These were not arrest photos or prison photos but simply portraits, each man's true nature explained - a pickpocket here - a con artist there. The question I had was if their looks - their faces - had made it difficult for them to find honest work, forcing them to go into crime. They appeared to be an inspiration for the no-good characters in a comic strip such as Dick Tracy. Had these photos been taken for some Nazi-like purpose? To prove genetic misfortune predicted psychology? Eugenics? For each person, called hinky, was a slight bit unusual looking or hunkering; no 100,000 dollar big smiles here. What of that big slouchy hat? Did hinky people also dress different?
In today's world in which there is so much sexualization, it can be confusing about what is healthy and what is not. Hinkyness has something to do with sex but yet is not just about sex. it's perhaps more about feeling a person is somehow predatory.
When it comes right down to it, who is or isn't hinky might be something that is self- determined, something without anything close to universal agreement. Does a person make you uncomfortable? To the point where your skin actually crawls?
Having a reaction to another person that causes me to think they are hinky is to have a reaction that is a bit different than that they made me feel uncomfortable. I feel the need to find a way to get away from them or to avoid further encounters with them or to at least be very cautious with them. I have a feeling of regret that I ever spoke to them or was in some situation where I met them. While being uncomfortable can happen simply for lots of reasons that are generally inconsequential.
Lots of people are a bit eccentric, or artistic, or nonconforming, or "odd" or thought to be by others and are not hinky. Maybe it's because I've experienced city life, but I take a lot of different people in stride without suspicion.
For instance, a small town overly protected woman I met would actually whisper to her husband that she needed protection at the sight of a man walking down the street who was tattooed or pierced or who sported a rock and roll effect, while seeing such a person has no special effect on me. But the small town woman would hold herself back and stare and mumble and take a breath in and say "Look at that. Oh my God!" First of all, the man was simply walking down the street and not having a personal encounter with her. If he was also bulked up and walking towards me in a threatening way, I would be concerned that I not get cornered by him. Otherwise it's just another person doing their own thing with their appearance. And as for the rock star effect, I'd probably think "But he has no interest in me so what's the point?" (I would hire such persons qualified for a job - with a couple exceptions. I cannot stand piercings through the nose that appear to be something forced upon a cow so that it could be lead by the nose.)
People can be called or considered odd just because they have a lifestyle you don't have or you don't understand. It could be as simple as that the person never married. Or that they love dogs more than people. Or, that they eat meat.
***
I strained to think of women I've know through the years that I could call hinky.
Men? I could think of several I met who I determined were hinky. (I could write a book on a hundred bad dates.)
As an example:
I can't remember where or when I met a particular man that I went out on a date with at this point or how it was that he asked me out. But I do remember that the one and only date was uneventful, nothing glaringly obviously wrong except that he attempted to impress me that he was a Rich Preppy - except that he was Jewish and not a WASP - and at that time even construction workers in their dirty uniforms were throwing sweaters from L.L. Bean over their shoulders in bars. Maybe we went to lunch on a Sunday in Pasadena...
He referred to going to polo matches and talked his investments. He was arraying his feathers as a peacock, showing off. He didn't seem much interested in me. I wasn't the self expresser I am now in those days. I was just supposed to sit there and be impressed. Be pretty. However, I started feeling that I wanted to go home already. I also felt myself feeling wary of him physically on the way home, even though I was in the passenger seat with a seat belt on and he was in the driver's seat with his seat belt on. He had not reached across the table to hold my hand. He had not tried to play footsie with me under the table. I should've felt safe.
As we pulled up to the curb, I already had my hand on the door of the car, ready to get out and go. I said a polite goodbye - with no wish to linger, talk, discuss a future plan to get together, or invite him up for coffee. No, this educated, clean, employed (we speculate monied) gentleman, though a pathetic snob, had not said or done anything that was obviously hinky, But then he did it, as I went for the car door, my head turned towards the window, I felt a tounge go for my vulnerable left EAR, which by the way held an earring! We had never hugged or kissed. We were not having sex. Yes, he was doing that. He was using the last few seconds of our encounter to taste my ear wax. To really stick it in there. Did he think he was turning me on? I needed to shower ASAP.
I pushed the car door open, got out, and slammed it. I keyed the security gate and ran up the stairs. My phone was ringing. I answered. It was him asking me if I got into my apartment OK? Was this just to show off that he had a cell phone and could call from the car? He did not call again. HINKY.
Example:
One of the men I think of, as hinky and hinkier, I still encounter once in a while due to his current job. But I also encountered him at the job previous to that one and the job previous to that one. He's young, trying to string jobs together to come up with a career like a lot of people. From this I learned he has a history of "falling in love" with women who are here, there, and everywhere, often much older, and often otherwise unlikely. He seems to me to be stuck in the phase boys usually go through, not lingering, in which a person is infatuated with another from afar. Like junior high school.
I now suspect any such person as likely having a rich fantasy life and being a porn addict and either avoidant of real relationships or unable to conjour any. (For the record I see nothing wrong with NOT being in a relationship, in not being married, or celibacy, as a life style choice. These conditions are a lot better than being in a bad relationship. Take it from someone who has had a number of women friends in bad relationships with men.)
That's NOT it!
A few years ago when I first encountered him, I believed that he wanted to meet someone likely, I invited him to an event where a woman I'd met was working, telling him that she was nice, smart, pretty, and available. (And they were close in age.)
I clued her in too and she was into it. At the sight of him she flipped her hair. Unlike the gallery of cons previously mentioned, this man is actually very good looking. You would think that he had women throwing themselves at him but that's not the case.
I call this a soft meet. I will not match make or specifically introduce anyone for the purposes of a match up and the event meant they were simply in the same room together. He could decide if he found her attractive and go from there, make his own moves. Afterwords he said he did find her attractive but he did nothing about it. That's OK.
However, I came to think that he had agreed to attend this event for another reason. Because we had planned to take a walk together afterwards to get some exercise.
We took the walk after the event, a couple miles. At that time he did not know where I lived. As we clearly entered the next town, he suddenly said "We passed your house. Where is it?" So, he was wanting an address.
"Oh we passed it a while back," I said. And let that go.
But then came the day someone wanted to put a camera in my face, take a photo, without first asking, which I hate and which happens way too much now. All these people who need content, who want you in their film or on their web site. I don't like it. I told one person NO PHOTOS so she published one in which the back of me and my dog was showing, as if the back of me is not me. NO PHOTOS! (The beginning of the end to that friendship.)
I had a long day and was feeling tired and I did not want a photo taken, so I spoke up. And damn if this man told everyone there it was because I thought that a photo would zap my ENERGY, like my anti-photo stance had something to do with an esoteric idea, an ethnic religious thing. They believed him. What bullshit!
Pain in the ass.
Does everyone look everyone up on the internet? That was next. He was trying to find out other information about me that would clue him in so he could be the Mr. Know It All about me. I happen to know there has been and is misinformation related to me or other people with the same name or close to on the Internet. Including someone who was supposed to have been arrested at my address who was not living there and who I never met - an ex tenant who was clearly still using the address months after I moved in. And years ago I actually shut this blog down for some time because some woman who was not me had her picture exposed on Yahoo and under it was a quote that was from me - from my blog. Good luck to her finding a job!
Does anyone remember when we thought that Russia - the Soviet Union - Communists - did the kind of spying on their neighbors that people are now thinking of as "transparency" in the U.S. ??? Well, tell me you have Facebook and there is not much of a chance that I'm actually going to look at it.
The more this man wanted to know about me, the weirder I thought he was and the more uncomfortable I got with him. He didn't just want information for himself, but to give to others, to show off to them or be in with them and to REPORT into them.
Then one day he asked me if I would like a little free-lance work. I thought this had something to do with the job he had but he revealed no, it was for him personally. I said what I usually do. Well, let me see what you've written so far, and I'll let you know if I can do it. I mean if I want to do it. He said he needed editing and a rewrite. It turned out he had invented a game. Two pages into his writing, which was incredibly screwed up for a college grad, I realized the game was a game in which women were sex trafficked.
I was appalled.
I'd started editing and wrote notes on the first few pages. But when I realized what was what, I wrote an angry feminist diatribe all over the papers.
One day he caught up with me and asked me what I thought.
I said something like As A Woman I Cannot Put My Energy towards a project like this. It took courage for me to say that and it should not have. I let him know I did not approve. I was not going to be involved in a game in which women as objects were to be traded back and forth among Mexican Mafia drug lords as prizes and the object of the game was to own the most women.
He suddenly realized I was not compliant. "Where are my papers he asked" and I knew he was afraid I had shown it to others. I had not. "Oh, I can't remember where I put them," I said, honesty. *Maybe I had shredded them? I I'd spared him my critique of outrage.
From that point on, this hinky character has made it a point of involving himself in my life in some way, in particular when it comes to more free lance work; leads that are always a waste of time - jobs that really do not exist - to the point where I will not follow through if the so called lead is from him. He has presented himself to OTHERS as a person who gets me work but he never has. He just wants to appear to be so HELPFUL to me to impress them. Being in situations in which I can't entirely avoid him without carefully planning not to, I see him and hope he is too busy to be friendly. I caught him watching what I was doing on a computer screen more than once, walking behind me to look. I think of him as a spy. A gossip. As up to no good.
At the time of the sex trafficking game he invented, which he said was "just a fantasy" (Yea well, raping babies just starts with a fantasy too...) I spoke with a friend of mine who became a Fundamentalist Republican Christian. Her church prides itself on attracting men from the local drug and booze rehab and I conclude that people who are out of control need the strict rules of a church like that, but...
She thought I should tell on him. I was torn up. Who would care or listen? Was there any reason to think that he himself was at all involved with sex trafficking? Or the Mexican Mafia? There was not. (Was he going to market his game on the Dark Web?) Did I want to create a situation in which he might loose his employment? I tend to not want to effect anyone's employment, to go that far. What it came right down to was that I did not trust the people I would have told to have my point of view or my back.
I chose not to get into it. I hoped that my reaction to his game had put a stop to it.
****
Hinky...
The skin crawl.
Some years ago when I was writing with a partner, he had a friend, a man who was a regular at the public library, a man who was supposed to be so rich he never had to work. Had he ever tried to? I had seen him around at one branch or another for a few years and well, I was also a regular at libraries at the time, using the public computers, researching for a writing project, and so on. His apartment, dinners out, car, basics, were all paid for though he did not seem to be living lavishly. On the basis that he did not have to work, rather than that he was a homeless hanger-outer, he attracted a group of men who liked to small talk, tell jokes...bad jokes. I stayed on the outskirts of these men when they were in a group, knowing if I ever wanted to be one of the boys it would not be one of these boys...
Well, came the day when the rich kid proved that he was either mentally ill or the ultimate spoiled brat. He took off in his SUV to parts unknown. His dad did not know where he was except when, after a month, the bill for his charge card came in and he was able to see that he had already spent about $10,000 and had stayed at exclusive resorts as well as what could be considered skid row adjacent lodgings. He was driving all over the state, not leaving the state, spending like he could. He was on the run. But who from?
I recalled the day when I was out front of the library taking a break and some men with cameras showed up. The men were taking photos of the new architecture but this rich kid hid behind a pole. He was showing signs of paranoia.
I was enlisted to try and "talk" to him and I had tried. The story went that he had witnessed an auto accident that was probably a set up. A friend of his, much older, had been run into, and was now being sued. He had testified and as a result the criminals were after him.
My writing partner called the Senior Lead Officer who came out and investigated. He even talked to the person who had been accused of the deliberate auto crash, their family, and there was no reason to think he was the member of a gang or after the man. He had, however, been seen in the park where the rich kid took morning walks. Reporting this in to the rich kid made no difference.
Weeks went by and then one day the rich kid showed up at the library. We all went over to talk to him, to figure out if he was OK by now, and to hear about his trip. But there was now something amiss with his eyes which appeared blank. He was clean yet there appeared to me to be a thin coat of grime on his skin. And then I felt it and saw it. The skin crawled on my left forearm. This was the first and only time in my life that I experienced that.
Later I told another woman writer who used the library about this experience and she said, "He has ALWAYS given me that feeling."
We do not know this to be a fact, but we both wondered if he had been up to no good while he was gone. Did he harm someone? Did he rape? Did he assault? Was it even possible he had murdered? We were being fantastical in our thinking but the skin crawl says a lot - if not it all.
C 2023 Christine Trzyna
