#btw I had forgotten how truly unwarranted the “she sees more in me than I see in myself” stuff was. dude you barely know her what r u on abt | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

goddess37 · 8 years ago

Text

Today I had to report harassment

The worst part is that I was too uncomfortable with the idea to even do it myself.

Last spring, I met a couple of guys at work. I’d been working there since the end of the previous summer, but they worked at the plant across the street and the only real overlaps were smoke breaks and I don’t smoke. When I finally made it outside last year I mostly scrolled through Pinterest or joked with the girl I work with and let everyone ignore me. Eventually though two of the guys, Brandon and Jordan, started talking to me here and there. Jordan even added me on Facebook.

It was kind of cool to have friends again. I’d been living in this state for about a year with no friends except for my boyfriend of a few months, now a year and a half. Brandon is pretty laid back, but Jordan seemed to want to talk all the time. It was fine at first and I would always oblige by discussing at length whatever subject he wanted to “debate” that time. Inevitably, we found ourselves on feminist topics. He identifies as an egalitarian. I don’t remember most of what he said anymore as this was almost a year ago and there were many “debates,” but one thing has stuck in my mind and marked the real beginning of our problem. We were discussing rape and he decided to argue- no, debate- that it wasn’t really such a big problem. I remember he made the “not ALL men” argument and I told him that no it wasn’t all men but it was enough. Apparently, the obvious response here was, “Who decides that it’s enough?” I guess even just one wasn’t enough for him as he then told me all of my examples were anecdotal. These examples included me, one of my mothers, and two of my closest friends, but these weren’t enough for him.

After that I started ignoring most of his texts, of which there were plenty-sometimes nineteen in a row. At first he asked why I never responded anymore and I always brushed it off, blaming it on my anxiety. In part, that was the reason. I was anxious talking to him. What core value or traumatizing experience would he try to diminish this time? As long as we only talked when people were around I was mostly okay. Whereas I would get angry and exacerbate the situation, others would distract us both. Conflict averted. We could make small talk at work or on the way to the theater with Brandon, but never alone or he would “debate” again. I tried even to never be too near him. Stand with someone between us, turn my body away from him, sit across from him at breaks instead of beside him. Eventually I quit going to breaks other than lunch at all and blamed it on the cold. It was fall by then and I’m from warmer climates so this was easily believed.

One day Brandon asked me to play Dungeons and Dragons. He wanted to be DM but needed a group. He told me there were a few people from his plant who were supposed to play, including Jordan, and we’d meet every Saturday. It was a group of several people so I thought it should be fine. No. When I got there I found out everyone had bailed. Everyone, that is, but Jordan and me. It turned out to be a lot of fun despite this and I still really enjoy playing. Our characters got along no better than we did in real life. His half-elf monk Noveon was argumentative and started fights with almost everyone we met. My tiefling druid Relentless Madness, Mad for short, was quiet, “spunky,” and tried her best to stay out of trouble. She even had to talk down the god of death after Noveon picked a fight with him. The god of freaking death—that’s unrelated.

Anyway, we still didn’t get along, but those texts never stopped. Day, night, weekends, before, after and during work. I still ignored the vast majority. I was afraid to confront the situation, because that would only spark some long drawn out conversation in which he had to be right. He always has to be right. I just ignored it and brushed it off and played D&D and tried not to let our conversations get to deep when I had to get rides from him when the roads got icy. I was always nervous since it’s a 30-40-minute drive to get to D&D and yet another on the way back. If he felt there were any issues between us he always tried to discuss them then and we almost always had some kind of issue. Those rides were so exhausting I almost quit D&D, which I really love to play.

Christmas came around and he got me two presents. I thought it was weird that he got me anything at all and I told him several times that he really shouldn’t get me anything, that he didn’t need to, but he still did. He got me a hair dryer and a set of make-up brushes. Neither gets much use, but you’re supposed to be grateful for gifts so I gave him a hug. I regret that deeply. I found out recently that he talked about it a lot after. He told me often that I’m one of his best friends, even if I don’t feel the same about him. I always ignored that.

When January hit us he wrote me a suicide letter through text. I had no idea what to do. This had never happened to me before and I’m ashamed to say I ignored that too. By that point I was constantly angry with him and the responsibility this text laid on me made me even angrier. So I ignored him. Nothing happened, thankfully.

His texts became more insulting afterward and he was clearly more and more upset that I never respond to him, though he always claimed he was joking.

In February, he blew up on me for the first time. For days he had been poking me, in the shoulder, the arm, the side, every time he passed me and I had had enough. I do not like to be touched. I can count on one hand the people who I am truly comfortable enough to let touch me. He has never been one of those people. He was aware of this, though I understand that for people who don’t have this aversion it can be hard to remember. When I confronted him I tried to be calm and nice about it. I walked up to our lunch table right after he had poked me again at the microwaves and said, “Dude, you need to quit touching me.” He made a face that was just so full of shock and hurt and told me he was sorry. I lied and told him it was okay and proceeded to pull out my phone and eat my food just like I do every day.

Six minutes after lunch ended he texted me to say again that he was sorry, to explain that he was only trying to show affection, and to promise that it would never happen again. I was working at the time and didn’t see it, though if I had I probably wouldn’t have responded. He’d said what he felt he needed to and I had already told him it was okay. Twenty minutes later he sent me this.

“I also, promise the next

time you text me, no matter

how important, save life

threatening situations, I’m

going to be ignoring that text,

since that seems to be a thing.”

Out of pure spite I ignored that as well. It was rude and unwarranted, but apparently he wasn’t done. About an hour after every one got off work I received a 48-page text message. It took a whole two minutes for it all to come through. I had to just silence my phone and walk away from it. These texts told me that he was very upset by our confrontation not because of what I said, but how I said it and the fact that I didn’t change the topic after so he wouldn’t feel as bad… I’d been dealing with very unwanted physical contact for days and had tried not to say anything so I didn’t hurt his feelings, but somehow I was the rude one. That makes sense. He went on to say that I had just ignored him for the rest of lunch. For once, I hadn’t ignored him. At lunch, I generally don’t talk to anyone unless they talk to me. Everyone pretty much accepts that except for him. He told me that I had been harsh, distant and unfriendly. I even said “Dude” to try to soften the blow. He told me again that he had forgotten about my aversion to touch and that he felt as if I had slapped him across the face. Then he confessed how he had been having a bad day at work I “put the icing on top.” He felt that I really didn’t want to be friends with him (Shocker!) since I really only talked to him when we play D&D and he had no idea why I would feel that way. He told me how he would’ve handled the situation by texting back because that’s what friends do when they have a concern or problem. The rest of this book of a text he tried to tell me how good of a friend I am and that he isn’t trying to manipulate me…

For the next few weeks he tried to get me to go eat with him a few times and criticized my boyfriend for not cooking for me on Valentine’s Day when I said that I would be the one cooking. Other than that we were much more civil to one another though I still tried to keep my distance. He even fixed my computer and put the movie Moana on it as I had been dying to see it.

Last Thursday it started getting scary. The previous day he had sent me a picture of him wearing a leprechaun hat and beard with the words “Oh yeah!” over Messenger. I looked at it and then promptly went to bed. I woke up to three videos from Facebook, I think they were supposed to be funny but I didn’t watch them, and a message saying, “Btw, that pic of me deserved an lol!!” I still didn’t reply. Then as soon as I got to lunch he joked that I should have at least laughed at it. I told him, “I’m sorry I don’t feel the need to respond to all of your texts.” He shut down and pouted for the rest of lunch and didn’t say ‘bye when he left. That was essentially the same thing he didn’t back at the beginning of February.

Over the next week there were so many texts I can’t remember what all he said. After work he sent texts to Brandon and me saying that he wouldn’t be at D&D because he didn’t want to be around anyone. Then he sent another text complaining about me that was only supposed to go to Brandon. He apologized of course and I told him I understood that sometimes people need to blow off steam, but I was annoyed and needed sleep so I was done talking. He was angry after that and sent me a book complaining that I wasn’t being understanding of his feelings since he had had a bad night, I’d been rude to him and now he was embarrassed about accidentally sending me that text. The rest of the morning he continued to tell me how I’m terrible and insensitive and that I needed to call or meet him so we could talk it out. I told him no multiple times and that he needed to back off. He didn’t.

That afternoon, he apologized. That sets the pattern for the rest of the week. Constantly insulting me, then apologizing and praising me, often from one sentence to the next. On Monday, he told me that this had all been because he was not taking his depression medication regularly. He also told me that the side effects of them were “related to erections, numbing in the penile region, and [his] libido.” That was much more information than I wanted, or had asked for since I hadn’t communicated with him at all since Friday morning. He asked me to talk to him on last break, saying that I owed him a face to face explanation. I got angry, angrier than I’ve been in a long time. I marched into the break room and told him I owed him nothing. I told him he had been harassing and bullying me all weekend and that I was done. I had hit my breaking point. He tried to explain it away, saying that he hadn’t meant to, that it hadn’t been his intention to do that. I told him again that I was done and I left. He didn’t come to work the next day.

When he did come back the following day he had shaved his head. As in, Brittany Spears meltdown, it was all gone. I didn’t speak to him and did my best not to even look at him. It was quite peaceful until the end of the day when he texted to ask if I minded if he still attended D&D. Brandon and I had discussed it that day Jordan was absent and we were both of the mind that we didn’t want him there. When he wasn’t harassing me, he was harassing Brandon about me and, according to Brandon, it was getting obsessive. I told Jordan I didn’t want to be near him. He didn’t say anything more until I got to work Thursday.

I pulled into my normal spot, on the phone with my mom, when I see my boss walking up to my car. He told me Brandon had mentioned something was going on with Jordan and me and he wanted to hear my side. He then realized I was on the phone and said he’d come find me later to discuss it during actual working hours. I had about twenty minutes to fret on the phone with my mom. If Brandon had said something it must be worse than I thought. I had been more worried that he’d hurt himself than me, but obviously Brandon was concerned. That was alarming to me. Then I got yet another text from Jordan that dwarfed the others not only in size but in malice. This alarmed me too. Not long after work began, my boss found me and I told him everything. I let him look through all of the messages, though nobody really had time to read ALL of them. He said he would let HR know and that it would be taken care of. I never heard more about it from him, but Brandon told me yesterday that he’d told Jordan not to talk to me anymore. Jordan apparently complained for the rest of the night that I had filed harassment against him because I couldn’t admit that I was wrong… I’ve been warned by a couple people now to be “…cautious.”

I haven’t seen or heard from him since then, although Brandon says he’s still harassing him about me. Mostly, I just want to be left alone. The more I think about this, the scarier it all gets.

#harassment #workplace harassment #workplace #stalker #creepy

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