Wasn't he the Klingon leader in the 4th Star Trek movie?

I wonder if its the word itself. Intimidating sounds so, well, intimidating. Perhaps folks are confusing it with inadequacy or just not feeling like they measure up? I haven't "feared" anyones profile, but have felt like I just plain wasn't compatible.
Not fear but a more realistic thoughtform?

It would be nice if they could call it whatever it really is!

But I think this goes back to personal accountability -- "I'm intimidated by your writing" (or whatever) carries the semantic overtone of this being the fault of the writer. Their being intimidated is somehow my doing.

And yet, they made the choice to be intimidated, wholly and completely apart from any intent I may have had.

I guess I have a hard time taking responsibility for someone else's ill-informed choices.

Lex, I am intimidated by your purply-pinkish artsy profile picture. It's too abstract, I just don't UNDERSTAND it

There are several women on this site, intimidating me.

this kohlrabi looks a little like Lex if you defocus your eyes...

All I can say is never go into a lab where some weird scientist is trying to reanimate a corpse. Lots of strange electrical stuff going on in there.

I think that's a picture of my Uncle Phil from when he was in college.

i think a lot of it has to do with self-confidence.

i'm not intimidated by lex. i might not be able to match him word for word, but i bet i give him a little run for his money.

You've never had any trouble communicating with me, either. You have always just accepted me for who I am and you don't make an issue of it.

Which is really the point of this whole operation -- who am I going to be more likely to want to get to know, the one who shies away and hides behind the I-word, or the one who talks to me like a normal person? It's not really all that hard to figure out!

Or to put it another way -- If someone is intimidated by me, I hate to think about what happens if/when they ever run across someone who actually knows what he's doing....!

well the other thing i was gonna say to it (and i've been trying to think of a semi-tactful way to put it forward) is that since i don't really care who likes me, or who likes what i say, or even what i think, there's much less of a reason TO be intimated.

Awesome! Hopefully next time you can accomplish this with a single lady

Paper, that was indeed semi-tactful and to the point as always. I always like what you have to say and don't care that you don't care.

And Lexicon, you're verbose style can be intimidating to some but I am not one of them. I dream of putting a pink collar around your neck and calling you my goat boy!

Exactly, AND I also think that someone who approaches me from a standpoint of already being intimidated before they know anything about me is probably going to leave a negative impression anyway. Why would I want to be with someone who is intimidated by me?

I'm more or less in the same boat you're in -- I don't much care what people think of me. This is who I am, take it or leave it, it's pretty basic.

Well, that was the whole idea but I don't think they like writers!

That makes a lot more sense to me than someone being intimidated!

I knew it would.

don't you think, though, that if they ARE initiating contact that there isn't intimidation on their part, or at least not to any great extent. maybe they are trying to stroke your ego in some obscure way?

meh, no one intimidates me

It's hard to say -- the ones that are allegedly "intimidated" never contact me directly. They generally have someone else do it -- "My friend likes you but she finds your writing intimidating." That's not really conducive to me wanting to get to know that person -- they've already got a pre-set idea about me, which is about as incorrect as one can be, and is it really worth my time and energy to go about debunking a totally erroneous myth?

The ones who contact me directly are usually just filing complaints about something or other in my profile. Usually, it's because they
don't like my list of preferences, and seem to believe that I constructed that list solely as a way of putting them down, personally, even though, inevitably, I never knew that person existed until the registered their complaint.

Oh well, you can't please everybody....

As for stroking the ego -- maybe it's just me, but being told I'm intimidating isn't the sort of thing my ego thrives on....!