John Scalzi has a good post on how not to be creepy, especially (I take it) if you’re a geek.
There are ten rules.
4. Acknowledge that other people do not exist just for your amusement/interest/desire/use. Yes, I know. You know that. But oddly enough, there’s a difference between knowing it, and actually believing it — or understanding what it means in a larger social context. People go to conventions and social gatherings to meet other people, but not necessarily (or even remotely likely) for the purpose of meeting you.
It’s funny, in a way, reading the rules, because I think I must be the inside out of the kind of person who needs to be told all those things. I always simply assume people are not wherever it is for the purpose of meeting me, and that meeting me won’t change that, so I kind of do the opposite of rules 5-10, which are about not touching and not crowding and not boxing in and not trying to be funny and not following and not staying around when people want you to leave. I avoid, and stand far away, and say nothing, and leave.
I exaggerate, but that is my instinct, and my default mode.