oolong Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Okay, so I'm a bit conflicted at the moment. I escaped from a creepy, manipulative guy who was obsessed with me--but now he's targeting one of my coworkers. I'll give some details to better explain the predicament. Sorry, it's gonna be a long explanation! ----------------------------------------- I met this guy online--just a casual online acquaintance. He told me he was going to be transferring to x university, where I go to school, so I told him I would give him a tour of the campus once he moved there. We exchanged numbers, and he'd initiate text conversations every once in a while. There was this weird red flag going off in the back of my mind that something was not quite right about the guy. If only I'd acknowledged that gut feeling. The text messages increased in frequency, and I started ignoring them, hoping he'd get the hint. He didn't. I just ignored him more and more. He started getting really manipulative, trying to make me feel guilty if he found out I went out with friends or got an award/recognition for something--because HE wasn't included and it wasn't fair HE couldn't get the same experiences. It pissed me off, but being the indirect, non-confrontational person that I am, I just continued to ignore him as much as possible. I think it's important to mention that most of our communication was through text messages, as I avoided meeting him in person as much as I could. After about a year and a half of knowing the guy, he caught wind that I was dating someone. He asked me out on a date. I politely declined and asked him about his girlfriend, who he's been seeing for a year. He said he'd make sure she's "out of the picture first" and asked me out again. I said no again, this time less politely. He asked again and again, until I was fed up and told him to leave me alone and never contact me again. Good riddance, I thought. ----------------------------------------- Phew, sorry for that long ramble. That all happened last summer, and he's only tried to contact me a handful of times since then. But here's where the problem gets rekindled. I was hanging out with one of my coworkers/acquaintances outside of work, and she admitted she knew the guy. She said he had been utterly obsessed with me--talking about me all the time, getting into the hobbies I like, even TRANSFERRING TO THE COLLEGE AS ME. Holy hell. I'd had no idea. She assured me that now he has gotten over me and refers to me as a "backstabbing bitch" for whatever reason. I reiterate, good riddance. But apparently, he has started pulling the same text message/guilt-trip bull**** with her, and she wants out. She's going to block his number/social media accounts tomorrow. Hopefully the issue will be resolved peaceably enough. And apparently he did this to one other girl, too, shortly after I cut off communication with him. My coworker said he's even still dating the same girl he said he'd take "out of the picture." Who's to say he won't do this again to someone else? I really want to do something about this…tell him he needs to stop (via a fake Facebook account or something). But I don't want to initiate contact with him and possibly give him any ideas or excuses to contact me. At the same time, I don't want to stand by as he finds another victim. Sorry for the long post. I'd appreciate some advice. Link to post Share on other sites
acrosstheuniverse Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 He sounds mentally unstable. There is literally nothing YOU can do in this situation except protect yourself. Telling him he 'can't do this' will not have the effect of stopping what sounds like very longstanding ingrained behaviour of obsessing over women, it will only stoke his fires for you as he's hearing from you, thinks you're interested in him, and he'll start it back up with you. And as he hasn't actually done anything illegal, it's not like you can report him to the police (although if it had gotten to the stage of harassment/stalking you'd have been within your rights to). The only correct course of action here is to do nothing. Keep him blocked. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author oolong Posted February 17, 2014 Author Share Posted February 17, 2014 He sounds mentally unstable. There is literally nothing YOU can do in this situation except protect yourself. Telling him he 'can't do this' will not have the effect of stopping what sounds like very longstanding ingrained behaviour of obsessing over women, it will only stoke his fires for you as he's hearing from you, thinks you're interested in him, and he'll start it back up with you. And as he hasn't actually done anything illegal, it's not like you can report him to the police (although if it had gotten to the stage of harassment/stalking you'd have been within your rights to). The only correct course of action here is to do nothing. Keep him blocked. I wish I would have told him off properly instead of just ignoring him. I thought that maybe being told how messed up his behavior is would help him--and more importantly, the people he does this too--but...you're right. It would do far more harm than good. I did tell him I'd call the cops if he tried to contact me again, and although he has made some attempts, I opted to ignore him instead. I knew the cops wouldn't be able to do anything in this situation except maybe give him a good scare, anyway. I feel bad standing by and doing nothing for others, but once again, you're right--it wouldn't do anything but throw me back into the pit. Thanks for the advice. Link to post Share on other sites
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