i feel bad if i stare at someone for more than 3ish second, if i don’t have a more intimate relationship to the person. it is pretty creepy for the person on the receiving side.
to stare at someone you’re not intimate with (not necessarily someone you’re in a relationship with, friends and family members too) for more than 3 seconds is at least weird.
take one’s secretary for example. theoretically the professional relationship is the biggest part of the someone’s relationship with their secretary, which is definitely not intimate enough for one to stare at that person for 5 seconds. and the secretary is theoretically the coworker one’s the closest with, so this definitely applies to the rest of one’s coworkers.
but the quintessential example is someone staring at someone in the bus/train/whatever. pretty weird.
I agree with all of this. My problem is that anyone that stares at an innocent person for prolonged periods of time are beyond saving. There’s no help for them. I don’t think we should start restricting ourselves based on those people’s defects.