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Hellin Kay

"That's tight."

"Yeah she looks good."

"I'd hit that."

I was watching as two gentlemen at the table next to me at the SXSW Interactive festival ogled an attractive young woman. They weren't admiring her low cut blouse or a well-filled-out pair of green skinny jeans. Instead they were looking at what was on her face, specifically her eyes.

"Chicks in Google Glass are hot," said the pudgier of the two. His prowess with chicks evidenced by his t-shirt, faded with two cartoon boxes on the front and writing over top. In the first box, a male stick figure is bent over; in the second, he is petting a baby bird. On the top, bubbly writing: "How To Pick Up Chicks."

"What's so hot about it?" I turned around to ask, wearing my own black-rimmed Warby Parker's without the digital enhancement of the Glass.

After 30 seconds of gathering his thoughts to speak to a real live woman, the taller and lankier of the two decided to reply, sweat gathering in droplets around his temples.

"It shows she is into tech. Like really into tech. She is curious about the world. That's cool. She likes science. If she likes those things," and now he was blushing. "She might be into me."

It was sweet and I wanted to put him at ease.

"I guess you could say she's quite the piece of Google Glass," I joked. That fell flat.

There is something of a double standard when it comes to the sex appeal of Google Glass, which are as ubiquitous at SXSW as 3D printers and George Takei. Men seem to think women in Glass are hot whereas women think men in the wearable technology are kind of douchey or, to use the preferred SX term, Google Glassholes.

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Last week on the Daily Dot, writer Nico Lang penned an article entitled "If You're Wearing Google Glass I Can't Have Sex With You." Lang opened with the lines:

"Remember the simpler days when the unsexiest thing a guy could carry around with him was his beeper?..But if there's any group that should be the grouper fish, the lowest of the low sucking the moss of the bottom of the sexual fish tank, it should be Google Glass people….However, there's no looking past a Google Glass device, because its stupidity is ever-present in the middle of someone's face. If you're at dinner, you can't gaze lovingly into his eyes without seeing his creepy Minority Report half-glasses hanging there, as if your romantic Italian dinner has become Lady and the Tracking Device. How can you engineer your touching Disney moment if you're concerned that you're sharing it with 3,000 of his closest Facebook friends—none of which he actually knows in real life. What's even worse is that you can never be sure if he's paying attention to you or trying to figure out what Deadly Historical Plague he would be on BuzzFeed?"

Harsh words, but not altogether uncommon. I can't tell you how many groups of women I heard practically heckling gentlemen in Austin walking by in Glass. To be fair, some of those guys were douchey for other reasons—like they were riding a Segway or asking if they could smell your hair. But plenty of them looked like nice, normal dudes who happened to have around $2,000 to spend on an experimental technology that lives on your face.

The same day that I met the men who thought Google Glass was "tight," a gentleman wearing them approached my friend Mandy in a bar (I am changing Mandy's name because she has a boyfriend, but she likes to flirt with other men when she's in a different zip code).

Mandy will talk to any guy, in any bar, anywhere. She loves the attention. But when this particular dude approached, she actually raised her hand in the air.

"Stop right there. Don't even try it buddy," she said to him. "I don't talk to Glassholes." And that was where I first heard the term Glasshole, which apparently everyone besides me has been using for months. As he sulked off to find another conquest, I asked Mandy what her deal was.

"They look like tools, first and foremost," she said. "But I also don't know what the hell they are doing. Are they taking pictures of me? Are they Googling me?" she downed her beer and began talking to a fresh-faced, Glass-free guy wearing six lanyards around his neck.

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Google is all too aware of these fears and has laid out some helpful suggestions for "Glass Explorers" to navigate Glass social mores:

Among the Don'ts:

Don't wear it and expect to be ignored. Let's face it, you're gonna get some questions. Be patient and explain that Glass has a lot of the same features as a mobile phone (camera, maps, email, etc.). Also, develop your own etiquette. If you're worried about someone interrupting that romantic dinner at a nice restaurant with a question about Glass, just take it off and put it around the back of your neck or in your bag.

Don't be creepy or rude (aka, a "Glasshole"). Respect others and if they have questions about Glass don't get snappy. Be polite and explain what Glass does and remember, a quick demo can go a long way. In places where cell phone cameras aren't allowed, the same rules will apply to Glass. If you're asked to turn your phone off, turn Glass off as well. Breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers."

The man who approached Mandy in the bar wasn't creepier than any of the other guys hanging around the Driskill hotel lounge in hoodies. But when I pointed this out, Mandy got pissed.

"I just don't like what it says about a guy. The Glassholes definitely think they're too cool."

And that seems to be the double standard. Women think Glass make men appear "too cool," and "too into themselves," whereas men see Glass as a sign that women are curious about the world around them and perhaps even more approachable than a girl not wearing Glass.

"I have at least triple the men coming to talk to me when I am wearing them," said Anita, a developer from L.A. who has been wearing Glass for about three months.

Related: Now You Can Wear Google Glass Without Looking Like a "Glasshole"

There is a reason for that.

"It gives me something to talk about," a digital strategy consultant named Matt said to me as we waited in line to hear Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt talk about his new book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. "I'm shy. I don't always have an opening gambit with women. If they are wearing Google Glass I have something to say. I can ask them questions. I've done it a couple of times and it has worked out well. I don't know why, but I'm not afraid to approach women when they are wearing it."

"But what do you think about your fellow dudes in the head-mounted optical computers?"

He thought a minute before he replied. "Oh. Those guys are all probably Glassholes."