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benrleeusa · 7 years ago

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[Eugene Volokh] Can you be prosecuted for repeated unwanted emails to government offices or officials?

If I keep phoning you to say offensive things to you, I might be prosecuted for telephone harassment (especially if you’ve told me to stop calling). Similar laws in many states apply to unwanted email; sometimes, you can get a restraining order against me to stop talking to you. Some “harassment” and “stalking” bans likewise restrict unwanted in-person speech. These laws have generally been upheld by lower courts; and in Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dep’t (1970), the Supreme Court upheld a law that let anyone basically order any mailer to stop mailing them, and if the mailer continued, that would be a crime.

Offensive speech about people is generally constitutionally protected, unless it falls within one of the narrow First Amendment exceptions, such as threats or defamation. But offensive speech to people can generally be restricted.

But what if the offensive speech is to a government office, to a government official or (sometimes) to a candidate? Let’s set aside speech that falls within an existing First Amendment exception, such as true threats of criminal attack, or so-called “fighting words” (face-to-face personal insults that are likely to start a fight). Can calling government offices or officials to insult them — especially after being told to stop — be punished the way that calling a private individual to insult them might be?

I think the answer should be “no,” and the lower court precedents on the subject seem to agree; but in two recent cases, government officials seem to think that such speech can indeed be criminalized.

1. Ion Popa left seven messages containing racist insults on the answering machine of the head federal prosecutor in D.C. — Eric Holder, who eventually became attorney general. He was convicted of telephone harassment, which banned all anonymous calls made “with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass.” But the D.C. Circuit (1989) expressly held that the First Amendment prevented the statute from applying to “public or political discourse,” such as condemnation of political officials (even left expressly for that official).

2. Darren Drahota sent a couple of anonymous insulting emails to William Avery, Drahota’s former political science professor, who was running for the Nebraska Legislature at the time. (Avery was eventually elected and served two terms.) Drahota was convicted of disturbing the peace for sending those emails, but the conviction was reversed in 2010 by the Nebraska Supreme Court. (I have a soft spot in my heart for this case, because it was the first First Amendment case I ever argued in court.)

3. William Fratzke was convicted of harassment “because he wrote a nasty letter to a state highway patrolman to protest a speeding ticket.” The Iowa Supreme Court (1989) reversed, on First Amendment grounds.

4. Thomas Smith was convicted of disorderly conduct and “unlawful use of a computerized communication system” for leaving two vulgar, insulting comments on a police department’s Facebook page. A one-judge Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision (2014) reversed. (Note that such insults aren’t unprotected “fighting words” because they aren’t face-to-face and thus aren’t likely to lead to an immediate fight.)

5. Harvey Bigelow sent two letters to Michael Costello, an elected town council member; both were insulting, and one was vulgar. Bigelow was convicted of criminal harassment, but the Massachusetts high court (2016) reversed: “Because these letters were directed at an elected political official and primarily discuss issues of public concern — Michael’s qualifications for and performance as a selectman — the letters fall within the category of constitutionally protected political speech at the core of the First Amendment.” And this was true even though the letters were sent to him at home:

It is true that the letters were sent to Michael [Costello] at his home, a location where the homeowner’s privacy is itself entitled to constitutional protection. Cf. Rowan v. United States Post Office Dep’t (1970). Cf. also Cohen v. California (1971) (“[T]his Court has recognized that government may properly act in many situations to prohibit intrusion into the privacy of the home of unwelcome views and ideas which cannot be totally banned from the public dialogue”). But Michael was an elected town official, and as Michael himself testified, receiving mail from disgruntled constituents is usual for a politician. A person “who decides to seek governmental office must accept certain necessary consequences of that involvement in public affairs … [and] runs the risk of closer public scrutiny than might otherwise be the case.” Here, given Michael’s status as a selectman and the content of the letters, it cannot be said that Michael’s “substantial privacy interests [were] invaded in an essentially intolerable manner.”

Other letters that Bigelow sent to Costello’s wife, however, were found to be properly treated as true threats of criminal conduct (because they went beyond just insults and vulgarities), which could lead to criminal punishment, though the conviction as to those letters was reversed on other grounds.

And these are just the appellate cases; for federal district court cases, see Barboza v. D’Agata (S.D.N.Y. 2015) (disagreed with on appeal by the Second Circuit as to qualified immunity, but not as to the First Amendment) (writing “f––– your s–––––y b–––––s” on a traffic ticket is protected by the First Amendment against an aggravated harassment charge); U.S. Postal Serv. v. Hustler Mag., Inc. (D.D.C. 1986) (sending Hustler Magazine to congressional offices is protected by the First Amendment, even when the recipients demand that such mailings stop, though sending material to ordinary citizens after a demand to stop is unprotected).

6. The cases that I’ve seen that allow punishment for such speech fall into two categories: (a) Offensive phone calls to government officials’ homes (see, e.g., Hott v. State (Ind. Ct. App. 1980)), so the protection there is not as clear as for speech to the offices or email to an account used for professional as well as personal correspondence. (b) Extremely frequent phone calls that have the potential to tie up phone lines and thus prevent real calls from getting through reliably ( (N.Y. App. 1977) (upholding conviction for calling police department 27 times in 3½ hours to make a complaint, despite having been told that the matter was civil rather than criminal); City of E. Palestine v. Steinberg (Ohio Ct. App. July 21, 1994) (upholding conviction for calling 911 eight times in half an hour for nonemergency purposes after having been told to stop).

* * *

But, despite the precedents given above — and despite broader First Amendment principles of freedom to criticize government — some government officials continue to think that offensive speech to them (and to their offices) can indeed be criminalized, at least in some situations. Two current controversies illustrate this.

A. The Brown family, Northern California constituents of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, received this letter:

I tried to figure out the backstory behind the letter, which seems to have been prompted by contacts from Joshua Brown, the 13-year-old son of Robert and Lillian Brown; but I couldn’t get enough details on the record other than to say that (1) Joshua had indeed contacted office staff often, and (2) there’s a dispute about some of the details of the contacts. Here’s how an article in the local newspaper, The Record Searchlight (Amber Sandhu & Jenny Espino), summarizes it:

Joshua, by his own admission, called LaMalfa’s office a lot, Brown said. He also had contact with Erin Ryan, LaMalfa’s district representative, who made her cell phone available, Brown said.

Ryan said her cell phone number is readily available on her business card, but refused to comment on this story.

Mark Spannagel, LaMalfa’s chief of staff, signed off on the cease-and-desist letter sent to the Brown family. He said he was unable to go into detail about what caused the U.S. Capitol Police to issue the letter, but clarified his stance that the letter was directed at the Brown family, not just Joshua himself….

“Due to privacy we cannot get into the full details of the situation. These constituents are always welcome to have written communication. The extreme volume, tone and physical actions led the Capitol Police to recommend that it was best to limit communications to only the D.C. Office and via writing,” Spannagel said in [a] prepared statement.

Spannagel said this is the third time a cease-and-desist directive has been sent from LaMalfa’s office and this was a “very, very, very rare exception.”

But Brown argues there was no “physical action” as Spannagel states, and that he and Joshua had been to LaMalfa’s office only once.

Yet whether or not the contacts with office staff might justify a demand that the Browns not physically approach them, it’s hard for me to see how there could be any basis for criminally punishing the Browns for sending any further “emails” (even if communication by letters to D.C. were still allowed). A congressman and his staff have no legal obligation to pay attention to constituents’ emails; they could delete them unread, if they’d like. Threatening criminal prosecution for all such future emails, though, strikes me as unjustifiable (even if the plaintiff is allowed to use a more expensive and time-consuming process such as sending a letter to the main office, a process that LaMalfa’s own site says “is the slowest method for contacting me”).

B. In Ohio, though, such a criminal prosecution actually seems to be happening: Jeffery Rasawehr is being prosecuted for, among other things, sending eight messages to the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office over the span of eight days (apparently using the online form at http://www.mercercountysheriff.org/home/contact-us), with statements such as,

I have been reading your legal work—-are you really this stupid—-damn you are pathetic—-if you were in the real world you would be an absolute failure good thing you can hide behind a badge like the little man you are.

Rasawehr had apparently contacted the sheriff’s office many times before then and was instructed not to contact it further except in an emergency. (Rasawehr is also being prosecuted for several phone calls to the office, as well as online social media postings sharply criticizing his sister, mother, ex-wife and others, plus some unwanted messages sent directly to those people; I’m focusing here on the prosecution for emails to the sheriff’s department.)

The government’s theory is that the unwanted emails constitute obstructing official business:

No person, without privilege to do so and with purpose to prevent, obstruct, or delay the performance by a public official of any authorized act within the public official’s official capacity, shall do any act that hampers or impedes a public official in the performance of the public official’s lawful duties.

As I understand it, the argument is that the sheriff’s department has to monitor messages that come in, since there could be complaints of real crimes (including emergency complaints). Indeed, I take it that the department probably couldn’t, consistently with its duties, just categorically block all emails from Rasawehr, since maybe the 30th time the boy cries “wolf,” there really will be a wolf there. And, the theory goes, processing insults from Rasawehr — even just to recognize them as empty insults — takes time that should be used to deal with real crime.

But I don’t think this can be enough. First, I doubt that Rasawehr was speaking with the purpose to prevent, obstruct or delay the sheriff’s department in performing its duties. “Purpose” requires a “specific intention to cause a certain result.” Merely being “aware that the person’s conduct will probably cause a certain result” doesn’t itself qualify as “purpose” (under Ohio law, it’s labeled “knowledge”). Rasawehr may well have had the specific intention to annoy his listeners, but there is little reason to think that he had the specific intention to prevent or delay them from handling other matters.

Second, even if one does think that sending a message to a sheriff’s department knowing that the department will need to take time to read it should qualify under the statute, consider just how much this would criminalize. The statute applies to any public official, so any time someone sends an insulting message to a public official, he would be committing a crime. (Indeed, a message of praise would equally qualify, since that message, too, would distract the official from his normal duties.)

Recall that each message to the sheriff’s department is being treated, under the criminal complaint, as a separate crime in itself. But even if Rasawehr was prosecuted for the entire course of conduct, on the theory that eight messages is too many even if one is protected, I think that can’t be right. Having to see the public’s views, even harsh views, has to be a part of public officials’ job, at least in a democracy.

Now, one can imagine situations where the volume of messages is so vast that it could be criminalized, not because of the content but precisely because of the volume: A denial-of-service attack, in which people send thousands of messages to a computer precisely to keep it from handling ordinary traffic, may be made illegal. Excessive phone calls to 911 lines, or in-person communications with a police officer who is handling an emergency, might also potentially be punishable, because the very fact that they have to be dealt with immediately makes them especially distracting.

But Rasawehr’s messages, submitted through the website, didn’t tie up an emergency line, or even use a channel designed solely for emergency use: The Sheriff’s Office main page links to the contact form with the description, “We want you to use this site as a direct link to us. Therefore, if you have questions, comments, or suggestions we want to hear from you. Contact us page.” Nor did Rasawehr’s messages block the arrival of other messages, the way a denial-of-service attack would.

And I don’t think that an email to a government agency, or even several emails in a day, that can be read in than a minute or less — without distracting from any pending emergency — and that can be immediately recognized as general criticism rather than as evidence of a crime or a call for help, can be properly punished. As the sheriff’s site implicitly recognizes, part of the government’s duties is to accept “comments” from the public, even comments that are insulting and repeated.

The Iowa Supreme Court acknowledged this in Fratzke, “Our Constitution does not permit government officials to put their critics, no matter how annoying, in jail,” including when the critics write messages directly to the officials. And, the U.S. Supreme Court said the same in City of Houston v. Hill, even with regard to in-person speech:

[T]he First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers. “Speech is often provocative and challenging…. [But it] is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest.”

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nancyedimick · 7 years ago

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Can you be prosecuted for repeated unwanted emails to government offices or officials?

* * *

A. The Brown family, Northern California constituents of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, received this letter:

Joshua, by his own admission, called LaMalfa’s office a lot, Brown said. He also had contact with Erin Ryan, LaMalfa’s district representative, who made her cell phone available, Brown said.

Ryan said her cell phone number is readily available on her business card, but refused to comment on this story.

Spannagel said this is the third time a cease-and-desist directive has been sent from LaMalfa’s office and this was a “very, very, very rare exception.”

But Brown argues there was no “physical action” as Spannagel states, and that he and Joshua had been to LaMalfa’s office only once.

The government’s theory is that the unwanted emails constitute obstructing official business:

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/13/can-you-be-prosecuted-for-repeated-unwanted-emails-to-government-offices-or-officials/

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wolfandpravato · 7 years ago

Text

Can you be prosecuted for repeated unwanted emails to government offices or officials?

* * *

A. The Brown family, Northern California constituents of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, received this letter:

Joshua, by his own admission, called LaMalfa’s office a lot, Brown said. He also had contact with Erin Ryan, LaMalfa’s district representative, who made her cell phone available, Brown said.

Ryan said her cell phone number is readily available on her business card, but refused to comment on this story.

Spannagel said this is the third time a cease-and-desist directive has been sent from LaMalfa’s office and this was a “very, very, very rare exception.”

But Brown argues there was no “physical action” as Spannagel states, and that he and Joshua had been to LaMalfa’s office only once.

The government’s theory is that the unwanted emails constitute obstructing official business:

Originally Found On: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/09/13/can-you-be-prosecuted-for-repeated-unwanted-emails-to-government-offices-or-officials/

#Law #Lawyer

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amazingviralinfo · 7 years ago

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Found on AskReddit.

1. He was pissed that I wasn’t dating him so he told everyone I had AIDS.

I went to a pretty small college in northern Colorado. My freshman year I befriended a nice guy named R. R ended up pledging with a fraternity. I went on a couple of dates with a guy from R’s frat I thought things were going well then the guy I dated just stopped responding to me. A bunch of other people involved in the Greek community and lots of people in my dorm started giving me funny looks or conversations would end as soon as I came in the room. Apparently he was pissed that I wasn’t dating him so he told everyone I had AIDS. I ended up transferring schools because of that guy.

2. He broke in my house to steal my medication and left a note saying that he hoped being off it made me kill myself.

Was friends with a guy for years, and then he asked me out while I was in a relationship. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t reacted to me saying no by going on a tirade about how ungrateful I was because he’d been my friend for so long, and he’d been so nice to me, and no one else would have stuck around when I’d been so crazy.

He finished up by breaking in a few days later to steal my medication and left a note saying that he hoped being off it made me kill myself.

3. Three years later he still shows up to my places of work.

Dude I dated for while always complained when we first started going out about how girls always screwed him over, nice guys finished last etc. etc. He told me his stories and I felt so sorry for him. After a few months together he turned out to be the most possessive irrational person I’ve ever encountered. I couldn’t hang out with my friends, not even girlfriends, he even flipped on me for hanging out with my BROTHER and giving him a hug. Wtf?? I finally dumped him when I got my first teeny tiny tattoo and he slut shamed me for a few days straight. He told me how if I chose to be a pierced and tatted person (I had plugs and nose piercings when he met me) that I was choosing a promiscuous life and he finds that to be the most unattractive thing in the world. Yeah okay buddy, buh bye. Three years later he still shows up to my places of work. He showed up at my current job two days after I started working there

4. He just drops my crutches on the floor and walks away.

A random guy held my crutches for me as I walked down some stairs at uni. He seemed nice and joked about how he once broke a foot, it’ll get better, etc. etc. We get to the bottom and he asks if we could get some coffee. I thank him, but tell him I’m seeing someone so he just drops my crutches on the floor and walks away.

5. Emails would generally go like: paragraph about how I’m a whore, paragraph about how nice he is, paragraph about how lonely he is.

Harassed me for 6 months after we stopped talking, was verbally abusive and called me every gendered slur in the book and kept making new email accounts as I blocked them to inform me he was a nice guy and asking me to help him find a GF because nice guys deserve GFs.

Emails would generally go like: paragraph about how I’m a whore, paragraph about how nice he is, paragraph about how lonely he is.

I’ve never really told anyone about what happened and it feels healthy to get it off my chest. The whole thing reeks of 4chan, obviously. as long as I’m oversharing he also posted a revealing picture I sent online ok bye.

6. It really hurts to realize that some ‘friends’ are just sexually frustrated animals.

I’ve always been a tomboy and grew up with a lot of male friends. Since reaching adulthood, I’ve also grown some breasts. This combination of things has led to most of my best guy friends asking me if they could finally see my tits “since we’ve been friends for so long.” and subsequently vanishing when I said no. It’s depressing enough when I realize that a guy I’m into just wants to bang, but it really hurt when the guys I thought were actual human beings, with whom I’d developed deep multi-year friendships, were just sexually frustrated animals. So yeah, I’ve got some trust issues now.

7. I called the cops and now I have a restraining order against him.

Pretended to be interested in me, we developed a great friendship 3 strong years at the time. Then I met my future husband, he noticed that I have never been so interested and in love with someone. He would comment sarcastically on our pictures on Facebook. He then confessed his love for me and begs me to leave him by saying that he has put up with my shit for so long. In my defense, he never showed romantic interest. He lived in Texas, he drove all the way to California to bombard me at 3am, threatening to kill himself If I don’t ever love him back, threatened to hurt my husband and such. I called the cops and now I have a restraining order against him.

8. He tried running me over with a truck when I was on holiday

That one time he tried running me over with a truck when I was on holiday.

9. He didn’t give up. For FIVE years.

I went to an extremely conservative and small college. Our freshman class was pretty tiny as in you would know everyone by name in your class.

There was a guy I met on the first day of class and he seemed nice. We had a usual conversation (nothing out of the ordinary). Two days later, he texted me. I never gave him my number and the only person who had my number was my roommate and she swears she never gave him my number.

Cue the constant messages asking me how my day was and if I wanted to meet up or hang out. I politely told him that I didn’t want to date anyone at the moment and I was focused on school.

He didn’t give up. For FIVE years. He messaged me with different numbers, emails, and send me letters. He would threaten every single guy who would talk to me.

Worst part was when I learned that he and his frat buddies had announced to everyone in the first week of freshman year that I was his girl and that I was off the market.

Pretty much ruined my college experience in terms of having a social life.

10. I beat the shit out of him.

I knew a guy in college that took the fact that I was sexual with some other men to indicate that I wanted to be so with him.

I let him know in no uncertain terms that I didn’t like him, was not attracted to him, did not want to fuck him, or be in any sort of relationship.

He kept sticking his toe over the line though, not enough to warrant a major response, but still pushing it.

One night at a party he tackled me onto a bed and started groping me, trying to take my clothes off, etc.

I’m not sure what he was thinking, given the differences in our sizes and temperament.

I beat the shit out of him.

Due to the pain I’ve seen sexual assault cause some of my very close friends in the past and the greater than average dislike of rapists I have as a result, I likely went way too far.

At least from a legal point of view.

However, that ended the problem.

11. The guy kept sending me e-mails well after 3 years.

Pretty much any guy who turns aggressive after you show them you’re not interested.

At least in my experience, when men are interested they try to be friends with you thinking you’ll change your mind at some point and then get really weird when that doesn’t happen and terminate the friendship. It sucks. When I say I’m not interested, I really mean it. I don’t like to be led on so I wouldn’t do it to others.

I got into a stupid situation when I was a kid and the guy kept sending me e-mails well after 3 years. It’s been over a decade now but whenever I set up a new social media account I always look up his name and block him.

12. He texts to ask if I thought he was nice, then proceeds to send 4 dick pics and asks me to come back.

Where do I start?

Met a guy online dating (his profile actually started with “nice guy”) and chatted for a few weeks before meeting up. Had made it exceptionally clear that I wanted to see if our chemistry existed in real life but wasn’t going to sleep with him on first sight. Met up with him and he talked incessantly about how he hadn’t had sex in weeks and needed to break his drought. I leave, he texts to ask if I thought he was nice, then proceeds to send 4 dick pics and asks me to come back. Gets so offended when I said no, calls to beg me to come over for sex so I can help him with “his situation” because he’s a nice guy.

13. He was so nice he tried to rape me.

He was my college apartment-mate and a friend of a friend. He seemed OK, but he was a little strange.

He would come to my bedroom door and talk to me. He’d hang on the door and smile and tell me that homework was for losers and I should hang out with him. When I asked him to leave me alonewhen I asked for anything, reallyhe’d push back a liiittttle bit more and more, until I started to feel upset. Then he’d make a joke and leave.

He did unsolicited things, grand gestures. Write a sweet poem or put an outrageous amount of work into a present or favor.

He’d tell me we needed to talk. That he felt like he was putting all the effort into our friendship, and it really hurt his feelings. I felt after each of these, somehow.

He would make challenging comments about everything I did, always with enough plausible deniability. “Whatcha doing?” “Why are you doing it way?” “That’s stupid. Why don’t you do it this way?” “Well, you suck.”

There were many jokes at my expense that were juuust harmless enough to tolerate, and many conversationsin big groups, particularlythat he would steer to use peer pressure to make me talk about my personal life.

TL;DR: He was so nice he tried to rape me.

14. I remember him saying, ‘say my name,’ and I would. Over and over, until I blacked out.

We were hanging out and he gave me a cranberry-and-vodka with three more shots in it than I thought. Then he gave me two more. I remember throwing up. I remember him saying, ‘say my name,’ and I would. Over and over, until I blacked out.

When I woke up, he was fondling me. I lay there for a moment and let him touch me because I was so tired. After about 5 seconds, I got out of bed and told him he needed to leave. He asked why, and I told him that I didn’t remember anything since the bathroom. He pushed, like he always does, but I pushed back and he walked out. THAT’S when the apologies started.

First, he didn’t know what he was doing. He’d been drinking! Later, he said he knew what he’d been doing, he realized, and he was very sorry! When I realized I couldn’t sleep, I texted my best friend, asking her how I could have led this guy on. What I had I done wrong? I texted pretty much continuously for the next few hours, but she was asleep and never picked up.

Friends helped me move out. Some of them asked me what I’d done to lead him on, which made me doubt myself more. I was afraid to be alone and afraid to bathe, but I always felt dirty and desperate to get clean. After a few days that went away.

I talked to other friends, who told me about their own, previously unrevealed, experiences. I was blindsided by these. Some implied that because they got through it ok, I’d be fine, nbd. Eventually I mostly forgot about it.

And in writing this, I only just realized he wasn’t too drunk to know it was wrong. He actually planned it. I wish I’d pressed charges. (Yes, I am an idiot.)

15. He switched schools for me, wrote songs for me, cried for me, threatened me when I had a bf, and tried to kill himself.

There was a guy who was in love with me since high school, I’m not sure if he still is today. Basically, he switched schools for me, wrote songs for me, cried for me, threatened me when I had a bf, and tried to kill himselfthis part, I’m not sure if it was for me, or for his dad, still makes me feel really guilty even though we were never together.

I just hope he moves on and finds someone nice.

16. He acted like I was being a stereotypical ‘crazy bitch’ sorta person for cold-shouldering him.

He mopes, tells everyone we know I maliciously broke his heart, but still tries to hang out with me. At first I do attempt to be friends but the repeated guilt trips prove to be too fucking annoying. He also apparently is seeing some poor girl who ‘hates me’ because he CONSTANTLY TELLS HER HE’S NOT OVER ME. He seems to get satisfaction out of telling me this. Last time I saw him, after telling him I couldn’t talk to him anymore, he acted like I was being a stereotypical ‘crazy bitch’ sorta person for cold-shouldering him.

And that, my friends, is the most garbagey NiceGuy I have ever encountered.

17. He seemed weird but nice at first, but then he would talk about murdering people.

When I was younger there was this kid that no one would talk to, so I decided to be a nice person and be his friend. He seemed weird but nice at first, but then he would talk about murdering people, stories about celebrity women getting raped and liking it (all false, I even Googled it to give him the benefit of the doubt). He would switch between talking about how it’d be so nice to have me take his last name and threatening to rape and murder me. Eventually it went too far and he chased me into the road after he was not allowed back in the school for harassing me. I nearly got hit by a car but I literally ran into the side of my mom’s car before I could be seriously hurt.

18. Upon politely declining, I was subjected to every sexual slur you could think of whilst being told what an idiot I am for passing up such a stand-up guy.

I’m paranoid about leading people on. I’m petite with large breasts and doe eyes so I seem to give the ‘young exploitable anime girl’ vibe. I hung out with a guy (we watched and chatted). Before he came over I literally said ‘I am not looking for a relationship. Please don’t ask to be more than friends’ as I had recently gotten out of a long-term relationship.

Of course that apparently translated to him asking me out via text as soon as he got home. Upon politely declining, I was subjected to every sexual slur you could think of whilst being told what an idiot I am for passing up such a stand-up guy.

Thus began his two-year campaign of stalking.

19. I came out to find a 12-page letter pinned under my windshield wiper, detailing all of the ways I failed.

Senior year of high school, I dated a guy who was awesome on paper and all that, but we seemed to not really click. Like, I got the sense he actually liked me but wasn’t particularly attracted to me (we’d make out, but basically were in a holding pattern from about date #2 on, he’d seem happy to see me but at the same time never once told me I was pretty–not even when we went to prom)… Anyway, senior year is winding down and I thought, this is clearly just some school thing and we’ll be broken up before I go to college, so I might as well end it before he gets invested. I tried to be as kind as possible, explained all the reasons he was great, detailed my reasons for ending it, and that I sincerely hoped we’d be friends. He proceeded to:

Show up at places he never went to, just because I’d be there.

Leave little notes, drawings, flowers he picked, etc. on my car (things he never did when we were actually dating, BTW).

If I didn’t immediately greet him when he arrived somewhere I was, he’d come over and interrupt any conversation I was having, just repeating, ‘Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello’ until he was acknowledged. He would also wander off, then return to do it again at least a few more times if I stayed there.

We never talked about birthdays while we were dating, but apparently, I missed his. I know this because I came out to find a 12-page letter pinned under my windshield wiper, detailing all of the ways I failed as a friend (item number 3 was ‘friends give birthday cards’).

He petitioned my friends to tell me how sad he was and how I had broken his heart. Sometimes I’d meet a friend of a friend who would suddenly get this horrified look on their face and say, ‘Oh, you’re THAT girl? {ExBF} has told me a lot about you.’

When I finally confronted him and said, ‘You know, we could have been at least friendly acquaintances, but the notes and you talking to my friends, and that ‘hello, hello’ stuff just killed it for me. So leave me alone,’ his response was, ‘I should have known. Nobody will ever love me. You just showed me I’m unlovable.’

Between summer and the start of college, he did leave me alone. Five months post-breakup, Thanksgiving weekend, I had university friends over at my family’s house. At midnight, Thanksgiving night, my ex walks in the front door without even knockingwhich he’d never once done while we were dating. He’d had a huge fight with his family, and for whatever reason decided to come to MY house. I didn’t want to freak out my friends OR wake up my parents, so I made him a turkey sandwich, put it in a paper bag, and told him to get in my car. I drove him to another friend’s house and said, ‘I’m trying to be kind because you’ve obviously had a bad night, but if I ever see you again, I’m going to call the police. Do not come back. Do not contact me again. Do not go to my parents’ house again.’

Even worse? The next summer, my high school best friend informed me that they were ‘in love’ and moving in together. I had told her everything that happened between us, but she just knew she understood him better and could give him the love he needed. Her happily ever after included:

Excessive crying jags and raging tantrums (all his)

Having to pay his bills so he could afford prescribed lithium pills

Coming home to their apartment to find he’d not only destroyed all of their furniture but also done structural damage to the building

Having him disappear without a word for weeks at a time

Having him take all of her money and only months later find out he’d reconnected with some ex-girlfriend who was in Germany–manufacturing LSD and planning great mountain biking trips

My (former) friend did not appreciate my laughing about how she was right, she definitely wound up knowing him better than I ever did. She thought I’d be sympathetic, but that’s not really how I roll. I basically said, ‘I told you I wanted him out of my life. I told you he was a psycho, but you told me I was wrong. Why would I want to talk to you about him now?’

tl,dr: Senior year boyfriend went from not particularly involved while dating to semi-stalking, showed up in the middle of the night months later, and ultimately went completely nuts after moving in with my former best friend.

20. He sexually assaulted me. He forced me to take off my bra and then pegged me underneath him on the couch.

He was my best friend since the age of like 4 or 5 (same age) and practically family. I had a shitty adolescent time, drank too much way too young and hung out with bad people, I lost almost all of my friends except this guy who stuck by me through thick and thin. Called me to check on me, always invited me to game nights, told me I was okay, made me feel alright again. He never pressured me to do anything with him, nothing like that at all even though there were plenty of other guys who did. We’d talk on the phone several times a week until the end and I was adamant we were only friendshe was fine with this and was dating and all of that. Cue a few years ago.

I had a mental breakdown one night and he came over to help me out but started acting weird. Wanted me to cuddle in bed next to him to feel “closer to each other” (he had a steady girlfriend and I’m not okay with this either way) and gets upset about it, all while I’m crying and shaking uncontrollably on the couch.

We have a weird relationship for a few months where I’m not comfortable seeing him anymore but we still talk. One night I decided to invite him over to watch a movie like old times.

He sexually assaulted me. He forced me to take off my bra and then pegged me underneath him on the couch. Did it matter that I said no, and did he care? No, he deserved it and he had been a nice guy, a friend, for so long. I said a loud no and it didnt matter, he wanted to do it again sometime, maybe regularly if I didnt mind.

I havent talked to him or you in years. I’ll never forgive you.

21. He lost it. He began insulting me, telling me I led him on.

I was 16 and quite lonely so I posted something on Tumblr so people would message me. I added a 26 y/o guy from NY (I am from Switzerland, so time zones are different). In my mind it was clear and it seemed obvious that I didn’t want anything romantic as we had 10 years of difference and I TOLD him that I only wanted a friend.

Well, after messaging for a while he told me he had to go to sleep and made me promise to continue to talk to him once he woke up. Weird but whatever I thought. Few hours later he messaged me and talked about how he wanted me to be his girlfriend and so on. I told him again that I was only looking for a friend.

He lost it. He began insulting me, telling me I led him on (even though I told him I was only looking for a friend when we first talked). I ended up having to block him because I couldn’t get him to calm down or to understand that I didn’t want to talk to him anymore.

I never made another post to meet new people online after that.

22. He flat-out screamed at me ‘FUCK YOU! You’re just a cold bitch! I bet your boyfriend’s an asshole anyway!!!’

I was friends with this guy for a couple years but was never interested in dating him. I was fairly certain he was aware of that, and since he never said or did anything that seemed to me like he was interested in me either, I assumed we were legitimately friends. He never asked me out, he never made any comment even suggesting he wanted anything more. We were fairly close and had a lot of mutual friends. I never thought anything else was going on.

Apparently, this was not the case. A couple days after I got a new boyfriend, I update my relationship status on Facebook. My ‘friend’ calls me within like…2 minutes of this update, and immediately starts shouting at me, demanding to know why he ‘wasn’t good enough for me’ and why my boyfriend ‘was so much better than him.’ I tried to get him to calm down, but he just kept yelling about how he was a ‘nice guy’ and how he had ‘always been so nice to me, why didn’t I ever give him a chance?’ I calmly tried to explain to him that I never got any signals from him, and I didn’t think I ever did anything to lead him on or anything, and he shouted that ‘he’s such a nice guy and doesn’t deserve to be friend-zoned like this.’

I made one final attempt to salvage the conversation and tried to explain that I was sorry if he felt deceived, but it also really hurt my feelings that I thought he legitimately valued me as a person and wanted to be my friend, but now he’s just mad I won’t sleep with him. He flat-out screamed at me ‘FUCK YOU! You’re just a cold bitch! I bet your boyfriend’s an asshole anyway!!!’

I hung up on him and he never spoke to me again. Two years of relatively close friendship down the drain in one phone call. It felt pretty shitty.

23. When I read and didn’t respond to his message, he texted me ‘whore’ and ‘fuck you I’m a nice guy.’

When I read and didn’t respond to his message, he texted me ‘whore’ and ‘fuck you I’m a nice guy.’ The irony…

24. He says he’s fine with friendship and says he understands me so much.

I haven’t had many, but I had a recent one. Met a guy at work briefly, later see that he friended me on Facebook and asks me out. I said I wasn’t looking for a relationship, especially with all my work troubles. He says he’s fine with friendship and says he understands me so much.

Over the next few weeks he sends me messages about cats or the weather, stuff like that. Usually about four in a row, all about an hour apart. I don’t really respond much.

Then the other day I wake up to a text that says, “hey” so I write “hey what’s up.” I didn’t see that the first text was from the previous night. He next text I get back says something like, “well I WAS going to invite you to a party last night but I see you were hanging out with other people. It’s too bad, I guess I’ll just delete your number. I could have loved you forever.”

I text back basically saying what the hell is that all about?? He then says that he couldn’t stand that I was with someone else and could I please understand.

I thought the messages were mean because I met him once, never hung out with him, had good reasons for not starting anything, and yet he tries to make me feel bad when I’m already not doing well.

25. He flipped his chair over bolting up and started yelling about how I was a slut and wasted his time.

Met on a dating site between relationships. Described himself as nice and respectful. ‘What a woman wants is important!’

We met at a seafood restaurant and he was really nice and respectful. He tried to pull my chair out but I’d done it myself. I jokingly offered to pull his chair out. We’d had a nice dinner but didn’t really ‘click.’ He seemed perfectly fine. After the scallops we talked about life goals and then wrapped the dinner up. He asked me when he could see me again and I said “I had a great time, but I am not sure a second date will work out. Good luck dating!” and put my half of the dinner tab down. He’s been honest and so had I that we’d had a couple of other people “on deck” and were just testing the waters.

He flipped his chair over bolting up and started yelling about how I was a slut and wasted his time and if I wasn’t going to put out then I could have at least paid for my meal (as my money and a tip were already on the table?)

I walked away and stopped doing dating sites.

Another ‘nice guy’ held me hostage in my bathroom at knifepoint because I broke up with him, but the other guy was by far the worst.

26. He was pretty sure I was the girl that his mom prayed for him to marry.

Oh, man. In the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, I came home and volunteered to help my parents’ church out because they were down a singer. The guy playing drums that Sunday asked for my number. He was kinda cute and seemed shy, so I said yes.

So we go out for coffee, he invites me to his house, and it’s early so I go with. It’s really awkward, but I felt bad for the guy because he wasn’t unattractive so he obviously just had really bad social skills. At his house, he introduces me to his parents, whom he lives with. He tells them “This is the one from church I told you about!”

Then after his parents go to bed, he tells me how his mom had been ‘praying for me to meet my wife at church,’ and then the next week he did!

He then drove me back to my car (Nothing happened, of course, I felt too awkward to even sit on the same couch as him after he accidentally told me).

I stopped talking to him after that, and he sent me some really sad messages about how we had such a good connection and yadda yadda yadda. I started dating someone not long after that and he sent me a message about how upset he was, because I obviously wasn’t “ready for a relationship” and how I had “lied to him,” which I never did. He then proceeded to block me on Facebook and Instagram. From time to time he’ll read me, and I will ignore him.

He didn’t get very harassing but that’s what I think of when I hear ‘nice guy.’

I’m a Christian, and I’m all for praying with your spouse, but this is TOO FAR to go on a first date. So crazy.

27. He proceeded to act like a victim of ‘the friend zone’ and complain that she didn’t like ‘nice guys.’

A friend of mine thought he was the ‘nice guy.’ He was pretty smitten with a girl he’d met on the school bus. Over the course of the school year my friend:

*Would lick his lips violently and bang on the table whenever he saw her from a distance

*Tell everyone around when she would wear yoga pants in the most obvious way possible (loudly saying ” look at her ass!”

*Routinely thrust his hips towards her whenever he stood behind her

*Get visibly aroused when she sat next to him on the bus

*Constantly go into her class for our photo class and take pictures of her cleavage/ass on the teacher’s camera and not even bother to wipe the SD card. Tried to get upskirt creep shots and got caught by the teacher

*Constantly tell us how he would masturbate thinking about her

*He stole someone else’s photo of her, made several copies of it in the dark room, and showed people one of the pictures encrusted in his cum, including a friend of the girl

*Called her a bitch behind her back when she wore jeans because “he couldn’t get a good look at her assets”

*Asked her to prom, and when she obviously said no, proceeded to act like a victim of “the friendzone” and complain that she didn’t like “nice guys.”

28. He had me by the front of my shirt up against a wall laying down the law about how things would be from now on.

Met ‘Bill’ at a friend’s party. There was definite attraction so we started dating. We really had funit seemed like we could make a good life together. After a year together he asked me to move in with him and it looked like a good idea. The first night in his house he had me by the front of my shirt up against a wall laying down the law about how things would be from now on.

It’s like the niceness was a front to get me exactly where he wanted meunder his roof and his rules. He seemed to think that he now owned me. That sure didn’t work for me. I packed up and got out within days.

29. He’d pursued me for over five years. When the time came, I gave it a go. He became my stalker.

The thing that made him a ‘nice guy’ was that he was adored and highly respected professionally by his circle of friends. So sweet, thoughtful, well mannered. Extremely handsome and talented. Fascinating life, blue chip circle of friends (I don’t want to give too many specific details). He’d pursued me for over five years. When the time came, I gave it a go. He became my stalker.

Quickly discovered he was an emotional infant with airs of superiority, viewed himself as the intellectual counterpart to my silly head, liked to “air conduct” classical music in front of his stereo (I had to include that one), turned down any sexual advances I made, was the worst lover I ever had (he had a reputation as an amazing lover mostly promoted by himself)…I came to believe he was a deeply, deeply closeted homosexual but that’s a whole other post. He was also mildly homophobic which he only expressed in private with me.

There was a lot more I won’t go into. If I was ever upset about anything, however mildly, he was emotionally incapable of discussing it without becoming extremely defensive to the point of sabotaging the gentlest of conversations about my feelings with him sobbing and throwing himself on the floor. Literally pushed me away from any sexual advances. Once I was cuddling up to him and placed my hand on his thigh. He pushed me away and explained that hey, that was a huge turnoff. Pillow talk might send him out of bed, pacing the floor yelling at me and jabbing his finger in the air. There was more of this sort of thing that happened but not much because…

I ended it abruptly. I was of an age where I was not going to fucking waste a minute of my time on it. I tried to discuss our relationship, mostly with regards to the sex, which was not going well. It tried to talk to him multiple times, in person, on the phone, via email. Like grownups do when a relationship starts to have bumps. Because it was impossible to talk to him, and he wouldn’t listen to me, I spelled out the end our relationship in an email. So, he told his friends I “broke up with him in an email.” Of course, these were all his friends I had been brought into, not mine.

I began getting mildly threatening and very creepy ‘anonymous’ letters that were obviously from him. He began enlisting people I’d never met, and even someone he’d just met, to harass me on his behalf for the next year. I started to document it and tell friends. He did some big, showy confrontational things in public places where he knew I’d be, and also enlisted other people. That’s when I contacted the police. I’m trying not to be too detailed, but he got a phone call (this was done as a personal favor to me) from a police officer that scared the shit out of him and it stopped. He was in his late 40’s when he was doing this.

And I know, that all of his friends think I’m some terrible bitch and that he’s this nice guy that can’t find the right girl.

30. A few days later he sent me a picture of him pissing.

So many come to mind but these were the first two I thought of:

1) Old guy who was the dad of an acquaintance. The guy must have been in his 60’s. We ran into each other often in social situations and he was always really friendly (in a fatherly way I thought). One day he needed to have dental work done and wasn’t able to drive afterwards and offered me some cash to drive him. I needed the cash and I figured why not? A couple days later I ran into him again and he asked me if I would be interested in being his ‘lover’ in exchange for money and that he was a nice guy and would treat me nicely. Whut. I don’t even know how the conversation got there but it was clear he had been planning on asking me this. Extra gross because I knew his daughter, like dude wtf. Really old dudes can still be creeps, lesson learned.

2) This guy never actually said he was a nice guy but his actions said enough. We went on a date, had stuff in common and got along, but I just didn’t feel anything romantic. I told him this at the end of the date when he tried to kiss me and he kept going on about how he didn’t understand why I would even “let the date continue” (like what was I supposed to do, just bail halfway through?) and how he thought everything had gone well. I said sorry I’m just not feeling it and we ended the date. He texted me the next day apologizing and asking if I wanted to just be friends because we did get along and have a lot in common. He seemed genuine so I said sure. Over the next 2 years we’d occasionally hang out, meet up for lunch and chat. He had a girlfriend for most of those 2 years but they eventually broke up. Then one day he tries to give me a massage, but I was uncomfortable with it and cut it off. A few days later he sent me a picture of him pissing. Yes, you read that right. I was like dude, why would you send me that? I know you have a weird sense of humor but don’t send me pics of your piss, I don’t want to see it. He BLEW UP. He must have sent me about 30 texts ranting on and on about how he didn’t understand why I would make “such a big deal out of it” and he was just trying to be funny and that he didn’t want to be friends with me anymore if I was so uptight. I kept saying “ok that’s fine please stop texting me then”, to which he would reply with another 10 angry texts. He clearly had been hoping that someday he could still get in my pants and when he realized I really wasn’t interested he picked a fight over something stupid to end our ‘friendship”. Super weird dude.

31. He kept trying to put my hand down his pants. I kind of just froze. Then he backed me against the wall and kissed me.

When I was about 16, an older female friend of mine was dating an even older guy. So she, myself, and another female friend went to his apartment one night to hang out. It started out with pizza and a movie, and the guy my friend was dating started telling a story about a guy friend who apparently had a huge penis. My friends and I joked about how we wanted to see it. Little did I know, the guy telling the story texts his well-endowed buddy about how there’s a young blonde who wants to see his junk, I guess. At any rate, the guy shows up and starts hounding me all night. He’s much older, and I’m woefully inexperienced and intimidated. He corners me in the stairwell and proceeds to tell me how lucky I am he came to see me. He said there were several other parties and girls waiting for him, but he wanted to be nice and come meet me. He kept trying to put my hand down his pants. I kind of just froze. Then he backed me against the wall and kissed me. He had a large nose and I just remember it pressing into my nose bone painfully. I finally just had to shove him off and stomp upstairs while he called me a bitch. I still cringe about how I just froze like an idiot.

32. A guy once PM’ed me, ‘Hey girl, you’re so beautiful. You look like you know how to suck a good cock.’

A guy once PM’ed me, ‘Hey girl, you’re so beautiful. You look like you know how to suck a good cock.’ So I asked him how he’d feel if someone spoke to his sister like that. He immediately blew up and told me he’d kill me for talking about his family like that. Makes sense.

33. He posted my nudes on 4chan and insisted he was doing me a favor.

A guy I dated for a year once posted my nudes on 4chan and insisted he was doing me a favor. If he weren’t so proud of how I look, he wouldn’t have posted them. He was being a “good boyfriend.” Why. Why why why.

34. He left me a voicemail telling me what I was wearing that day and then going into detail about how he wanted to kill me and assault and also end my young childs life.

So my best nice guy experience was a guy I actually did try to date.

We went out once, he didnt have a lot going on (no job, no college, pending assault charges in another state for a 17-year-old girl) which he let me know on the first date. I decided that maybe now wasnt the best time for him to be dating but he was funny and nice so I said lets stay friends.

He agreed at first but then…

He started calling and texting me constantly. Whenever I didnt wanna hang out with him it was because I was too busy ‘being a slut and catching chlamydia”. As soon as I would respond he would apologize and be nice…for like 5 seconds. This continued, got worse, and I eventually just blocked his number.

He of course just started calling and texting form random phone numbers. One night when I had ignored him all day he left me a voicemail telling me what I was wearing that day and then going into detail about how he wanted to kill me and assault and also end my young childs life.

I had to change my number and file a police report to get him to leave me alone. That’s what I get for trying to find love on OKCupid.

35. He spends like 3 weeks messaging me just really mean, vile shit all the time.

I had a crush on a dude in high school, he was part of my BFFs circle so we were together a lot. I’m upfront so I was pretty clear that I had some feelings for him, but he was uninterested in being anything more than friends, whatever, I had another boy kinda chasing me so I gave him a shot and we start dating, and I kept the friendship with the Nice Guy.

Flash-forward a year, Nice Guy has become one of my closest friends. We eat lunch together, hang out like every day, and my boyfriend is often included, although they weren’t close at all. Then a week before Nice Guy leaves for college, he confesses that he’s totally in love with me, my boyfriend will never fully understand me or treat me right (it’s been 4 years and we are still together soooo), and I pretty much owe it to him to dump my bf and fuck him before he moves to school. I said no, obviously. He freaks out and tries to make me pay him back for all the money he spent on me, which I had never liked in the first place and was always done sneakily, like putting movie tickets on his card before we got to the theater or paying for our food when I was in the bathroom.

He spends like 3 weeks messaging me just really mean, vile shit all the time, including some deeply personal stuff he was aware of due to our friendship. It hurts a lot to really regard somebody as a good, close friend and then be dropped like a hot potato when he realizes you still won’t put out. He still messages me occasionally, usually to try to hit on me and get pissed that I still love my boyfriend, then complains about being single. Gee motherfucker, I wonder why?

36. I finally had to threaten to tell his mom he was harassing me.

I’ve had some bad experiences with ‘nice guys’ including two harassing me to the point I dropped out of schools for the semester, but the most recent one was such an oh-my-heck-really that it’s almost funny. Almost.

The very first date we went on was a double (don’t trust guys much anymore, sorry) with my obviously gay best friend who is SERIOUSLY like my twin brother. Naturally, when everyone was leaving I hugged him.

My date put his arms around me and started barking like a dog. Like, straight up ‘ROWF ROWD ROWF RRRRRRR MINE!’ I sat there in shock for a few seconds trying to process what had just happened, but my best friend looked the guy dead in the eye and said ‘She is not a tree, you did not pee on her, never do that again.’

Bark Boy took offense to that. He still hates my best friend, but wasn’t dumb enough to mess with him, so that’s something. Instead he complained loudly about the guy every time I saw him because I was stuck at the same small college as him for a year and he was determined not to give up after that.

It’s a long, long story, but after almost two years of him “not giving up that easily!” I finally had to threaten to tell his mom he was harassing me. I wish I was joking. It worked, though. He believed all governments were evil, Feminism was the work of the devil and unfair to men, gay men are handy eunuchs to protect his harem, and the world will end but he’ll survive with his friends and his katanas. He is afraid of no man or authority, but terrified of his mom.

TL;DR Dog Boy tried to make me his fire hydrant.

37. His rationale was that he was a nice guy, the ONLY nice guy in fact, was trying to protect me from other dudes who only wanted to rape me.

I made enough mistakes in my youth that I can generally spot them and run from a mile away but my ex got his friends to report back if they ever saw me in public with another dude and would flip out. Or things like, “I walked back to my dorm from rehearsal with a dude from my band.” Anything involving another guy, I got screamed at and sometimes beat up. His rationale was that he was a nice guy, the ONLY nice guy in fact, was trying to protect me from other dudes who only wanted to rape me. (He himself raped me a number of times while we were together.)

He did this shit for six months after we broke up too.

38. Suddenly I was a wanton whore who destroyed men, and he spent six months actively trying to get my boyfriend to break up with me.

Was a friend of ten years when I started dating a guy in our mutual social circle after my divorce. It was like a switch had been flipped. Suddenly I was a wanton whore who destroyed men, and he spent six months actively trying to get my boyfriend to break up with me. He told my boyfriend that ‘women can hurt you’ (no shit…my boyfriend had just been through an awful divorce), tried to set my boyfriend up with a friend of his who would be just ‘perfect’ for him, got mad at my boyfriend for not going out to strip clubs and living the bachelor life with him every weekend. Keep in mind, my boyfriend is a father of two and hadn’t lived the ‘bachelor life’ in well over 10 years. He told my boyfriend that I had a ‘secret’ that would completely change his mind about me and reveal my true self. Turns out the ‘secret’ is something I’d mentioned to my boyfriend offhand before we’d even started dating.

It was not clear to either of us whether the Nice Guy wanted to date me or my boyfriend. Either way, he was salty as fuck about our relationship.

39. He ghosted on me and the kids (ages 6, 4, and 1) with my best friend.

My high school boyfriend said all the right things, made me fall in love with him, made my family fall in love with him, married me, gave me the white picket fence house, three kids, typical American Dream. Everything was perfect. Or so I thought. Fast-forward six years…he ghosted on me and the kids (ages 6, 4, and 1) with my best friend. They’re now married and he signed away his parental rights to the kids. He just straight up dumped us all to start a new life with my (now ex) best friend. He sees the kids just often enough to open the wounds when they heal. He claims he’s a nice guy, but he had to follow his heart and she just didn’t want kids, even though she has one of her own.

40. He’d constantly text me, make incredibly sexual comments and look at me like a piece of meat.

I have a pretty horrific nice guy story. When I was 18 I worked in a kitchen as a sous-chef with a big group of friends I had known since childhood. I was in a relationship with my first love. I loved it. We got a new kitchen porter, who immediately expressed an elaborate crush on me. At first it was funny, he was over the top in a jokey way, but I never ever expressed and interest in him and turned him down repeatedly, which everyone found hilarious. It became a running joke at work and at first I didn’t mind.

Then he started to take things too far. He’d constantly text me, make incredibly sexual comments and look at me like a piece of meat, I couldn’t bend over to pick something up without him making a comment. He’d start to just hang around me all the time, following me when I was trying to get stuff done, telling me that my boyfriend wasn’t good for me. All of my ‘friends’ at work (all male, by the way) just laughed and encouraged it. I got really angry one night and told him sternly to fuck off. He said “challenge accepted”. I didn’t really bring it up with my manager because he was always there witnessing it anyway and found it funny too.

Then me and my boyfriend broke up, and he went full-on fucking stalker. He knew where I’d be in the evening and turn up at the same place acting like it was all a big joke and we were practically together I was just playing hard to get. He would literally pin me up against the fridge and try to kiss me, all the while laughing at our coworkers who laughed, too. Nobody seemed to be on my side that this was just fucking horrible behavior and that it actually hurt me, especially after my first brea up. Everyone told me to “just go for it”, and “he obviously really likes you”. Blurgh.

The peak (or trough) of this story is when we all went to the staff party. I avoided him like the plague, but rashes stick. My big brother, who knows all my coworkers too, turned up and I sighed with relief as he visibly backed off. We all got very drunk and he kept his distance. Then I went out into the garden and he followed me. He had me cornered into a wall just now straight pleading. I said no, for the thousandth time, and he stepped forward and grabbed my crotch. He rubbed it for a bit and then said “you like it just admit it” and that “we’d always had people rooting for us”. I was just pushing him and he pushed my knickers aside and just shoved his fingers in. I punched him then, and he just sort of giggled and ran away. When I came in he was giving my “friends” his fingers to smell and everyone was laughing and high fiving him. I went home cried myself to sleep and quit my job the next day. Everyone then thought I was a massive bitch for ‘toying with him’ by supposedly letting him finger me. Fuck him and fuck them. Thankfully I don’t know them anymore.

41. He called my house at 2am repeatedly until I answered and told him it’s too late to talk.

Met a guy in high school who was really nice. We would talk and hang out at lunch. One day, he called my house at 2am repeatedly until I answered and told him it’s too late to talk. After about the 3rd time he called again and my sister (my guardian at the time) answered and told him to stop calling. He called her a bitch and he stopped calling. The next day at school I avoided him and he followed me around. I made sure to be around someone at all times and he would harass another guy and say “why are you trying to steal my girl?” Then when I was sitting at my desk he sat on the ground by my feet and kept trying to slide his hands up under my clothes. After about a week of this he finally left me alone.

42. He spent most of his time badmouthing me to whomever would listen.

We met in a group in undergrad, became friends. Slowly we became closer, I developed a crush on him, started hanging out more on our own, and one night after some drinks it escalated to kissing/cuddling.

I messaged him later letting him know that while I enjoyed what happened, I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to keep it up, as I had feelings for him, and wasn’t interested in a Friends with Benefits kind of setup.

He told me that he kind of had feelings as well, and that it might be nice to see how a relationship developed. So we do. We start datingdinners, movies, all the physical stuff that comes with a relationship. When he was briefly hospitalized, I spent every night there with him. I opened up to him over time and told him about my history of sexual abuse, family history of substance abuse, etc. He opened up about his history of being used by his exes, how they were all horrible and had treated him horribly, how he’s just always been so nice that everyone takes advantage of him, that all he wants is to find a nice girl who will love him for who he is and that he can treat like a princess.

One night (probably about 4-5 months in) we’re laying in bed together watching a movie and I started telling him about a funny conversation I had at work, “So then I was saying, my boyfriend…” and I feel him stiffen up, and he kind of awkwardly says, “You know we’re not dating, right? Like, I thought we just had a fun thing going…”

So, apparently we’re FWB. The exact thing I told him I didn’t want. I asked him if we could start dating then, and he said he was just too busy for a relationship (even though we were basically in one), blah blah. I told him I was hurt and felt used, and that I wasn’t interested in being anything more than acquaintances in the future.

After that, I slowly started seeing someone, a guy who was actually pretty great and had actively pursued me, and guy #1 FLIPPED OUT. Apparently, even though he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me, I wasn’t allowed to be with anyone else.

For months afterward, he spent most of his time badmouthing me to whomever would listen, talking about how I used him, how I’m just like every other slut who thinks she’s too good for everyone, how he had treated me so well and I had ripped his heart out. The worst part, though, was that he told numerous individuals and groups of people all about my personal history. Apparently, a couple of times, after a couple drinks, he would even start to cast doubt on it, comparing what I “did to him” to my past abuse, stating that it was surprising to him that an alleged rape victim would “rape” the feelings of innocent men. We no longer speak, but I still hear about things he’s said about me a couple times a year.

It really made me wonder about all those “terrible” exes he had, and made me put more faith than ever into the thought that the way people talk to you about others is the same way they’ll talk to others about you. What a nice guy.

TL;DR- “Nice�� guy starts “relationship” with me, I leave when I find out it’s FWB. Start dating a new guy, “nice” guy flips out, badmouths me to everyone, and betrays my trust. But the horrible one.

43. He was splashing me, sort of aggressively flirting, dunking me, so I get out of the pool and he pins me down to kiss me.

A guy friend in junior high. We had several classes and sat next to each other, platonic, loyal friends for 2 years before he got weird. He was hilarious, we could talk about anything. His house had a pool, so during warm weather a bunch of us would swim at his house after school. One day he invites me over to swim after school, when I get there, no one else is there, which was weird. He was splashing me, sort of aggressively flirting, dunking me, so I get out of the pool and he pins me down to kiss me. So I play it off as joking and leave. I give him the cold shoulder after that and he was pissed. Two weeks later and at a different friends’ house he and I are both there for a swim-birthday party and he and another guy give me a simultaneous front and back “seesaw” which is like a horrible double-wedgie in the pool. My swimsuit cut me so badly I bled.

44. He sent a HUUUUGE rant about how I was too afraid to date someone who might be worth it in the long run

I had two obvious ones from OKCupid when I was still dating. Most guys I went out with were self hating and self absorbed, but primarily socially adjusted hipsters, but these guys jog my memory as the proverbial “nice guys”

The first was a guy I had great conversations with online, stayed up until 3am talking, couldn’t wait to meet him. We meet up in person and I immediately got a different vibe and wasn’t remotely attracted to him. We got on a bus together and he started loudly talking about his BDSM experience; I tried to steer the conversation towards something else but he kept going on about how I would benefit from being with a good dom and stuff and it was pretty uncomfortable. Our date was walking through the city and he mostly talked about his fanfiction ideas in a rambling way, putting no effort into getting to know me (which at this point was fine because I didn’t really want to talk much). In the end, I told him upfront I wasn’t really feeling it and I was sorry it didn’t match up to our online interactions, he guilted me into giving him a hug, and then made some comment about me missing out on his trust fund.

The other guy, I’m not sure why I even agreed on the date, but it was early in my online dating adventure and I guess I was guilted into it a little. I sat at a Mexican restaurant listening to this guy talk about how super obsessed he is with Rocky Horror in great detail, and at the end of dinner he said he loved how much we had in common. I think he had never met an attentive listener in his life, and I felt kinda sad about it until after gently putting him down he sent a HUUUUGE rant about how I was too afraid to date someone who might be worth it in the long run and that one day I would wake up and realize what I’d missed. I remember very little of it except the strange mixture of dread and pity I felt.

I think many insecure people, such as these “nice guys”, think they’re being judged and condemned as a horrible person when someone rejects them, instead of seeing it as part of a complex journey towards discovering what both involved parties want in life. It makes me sad to think about until I actually remember the sort of weird and often dangerous entitlement and degradation of women it breeds.

(In the end, I did find someone on OKCupid and we’re getting married next week! So, my online adventure worked out very well. My fianc said I was one of very few women he actually went out with from OKC;

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