I fucked Joe once, two or three months ago. Met him that day, had a nice little roll in the hay, said bye. And I gave him my phone number and email, in case he wanted to do it again sometime.
He texted me that night. Did I want to come back out? It was a half hour drive and I was tired, and besides, sheesh. So I said no.
He texted again the next day. I had stuff to do; I said no.
This is where I fucked up. He kept texting, wayyy too often. He's not a bad-looking guy or a bad fuck, and he seemed normal in person, but he got real creepy real fast. I said no several times, I told him he was creeping me out, then I just stopped answering Joe's texts. Saw the phone number and hit delete without reading. He called and I didn't pick up and erased the voicemails. But I should've given a firm "don't contact me again," and I wussed out on that. I just didn't respond at all.
He stopped for a while. I figured he'd gotten the message and given up.
Then today I got a barrage. I was at work (in the middle of a fairly serious emergency, actually) and Joe texts and calls and texts again and emails. All to the effect that he understands if I'm busy, but I'm being rude and we should at least just talk.
So I finally gave the "no, not now and also not ever, do not contact me" speech (by email; I really don't want to talk to him) and I haven't gotten a response yet. Hopefully I'll never get any. But I'm weirdly fearful. He doesn't know where I live and he doesn't know about any of my online personas, but he can be a pretty significant pain in the ass electronically. I really hope he gets the message.
Bleh. He's never been threatening, he has no way to reach me in the real world, and he may very well get the picture and go away. Nonetheless I've got the heebie jeebies.
UPDATE: He sent me a two-page-long email to the effect that he doesn't understand why I'm being mean out of nowhere, but he'll go away, and I should be flattered dammit, but he'll go away, and he thought I liked it, but he'll go away. Uh... good, I guess? It certainly assuages my concern that I was being a jerk to a sane person.
I have a pretty firm policy of trying to reach someone three times. If, after that, they don't call (or text, or e-mail, or put up a smoke signal, or send a carrier pigeon, or whatever), then I never initiate contact again and get pretty selective about whether I respond to their attempts to contact me. On the one hand, it shouldn't be a big deal to tell someone that you don't want to see them again (or that you don't want to see them /constantly/). On the other hand, I'm not the confrontational type, so I understand when someone might not want to come out and say that to me. Some folks just can't take a hint.
ReplyDeleteBrock - This wasn't in the "ordinary misunderstanding" category--I told him "no, I don't want to see you" (but not "never," and not "don't even contact me") about six times and ignored something like thirty messages. It was fairly excessive.
ReplyDeleteOh yes. The instincts sorta kick in and tell you when someone is a creep, don't they! Had a couple like that, and any response of any kind after the initial No I don't want to hear from you ever again they just take as encouragement. But they do eventually die off, and though it is horrid and creepy they stop in the end. I've had two, so far :(
ReplyDeleteYeah, once you tell someone that they're being creepy, they should get a clue (unless, you know, they're creepy). He sounds a little stalkerish for sure, especially considering that whole e-mail thing. I've heard that the best thing to do in those situations is to break off all contact of any sort. As Mab said, they might take a response as encouragement. Hopefully, he'll just disappear.
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of a song by Poe (Trigger Happy Jack)...
ReplyDelete"You can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being"
Nothing says "Love" like a restraining order...
ReplyDeleteSome people need a little 12ga persuasian to get the hint.
ReplyDeleteyou could send it to psychotic letters from men, the blog is
ReplyDeletehttp://psychoticlettersfrommen.blogspot.com/