Sunday, 11 November 2012
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The Random Call from an Ex Part II
Over the summer after a coincidental onslaught of unprecedented contact from ex-lovers long past, I wrote this rant/blog, got it featured, and got lots of interesting feedback on the topic (thanks by the way!). Months later, I find myself returning to the same topic because one of the ex-boyfriends in question has contacted me again after I specifically and firmly requested that he not contact me anymore.
Short of continuing to ignore his advances and possibly blocking him from being able to contact me via Facebook, I don't really know what to do anymore. I also don't know what is going on, and though I am sick of dealing with this, I can't help but wonder. Since asking him what this is all about is certainly out of the question, I now open the floor to any speculation to what may be going on here.Here is a run down of the experience:
1) We were friends for a brief period of time (a few months) before we began dating.
2) While we were friends, he helped me through one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, as a friend. We became very close friends and certainly bonded through this.
3) We decided to enter a romantic relationship once we were no longer co-workers when a summer job we worked came to a close.
4) After probably less than a month of being together, while I am out of town, his ex comes into the picture.
5) When I return to town, he admits to being confused now that his ex is back in the picture, and wants to step back to think (okay).
6) He gets back with the ex immediately and completely severs all communication with me.
7) He never even looks at me directly again much less speaks to me, despite the fact that we both live and work as RAs in the same dormitory.
8) Various acts of semi-public humiliation occur, including but not limited to blatant public displays of affection with the new/old girlfriend in front of me and others, an email from him which shows that I am now renamed as "Whore" in his contact list, etc.
9) Two years pass of no contact.
10) Random initiation of email contact from him. VERY light small talk that ends with, "I know I did handle things VERY wrong a few years ago. And, I am truly sorry," followed by my response along the lines of, "Thanks, I don't think about it anymore," and "...I'm honestly not very interested in reliving any part of our shared past either." End communication.
11) Another year passes of no contact. I am contacted again, engage in small talk via email messages, he tries to get serious with personal inquires/conversation, I apologize saying that I am not trying to be mean but that I needed him to not contact me anymore. He doesn't contact me for another few months until....
12) Over the weekend I get a friend request from him and some messages asking why it is too hard for me to at least be his friend on Facebook (god, I am SO sick of all that is Facebook...)
I am very frustrated with this. Our unfortunate run-in happened over three years ago, and though I am completely over it all, reliving the incident is the last thing that I want to do. I have no interest in trying to rekindle a friendship with someone who was this cruel to me, even though we were good and close friends before. I don't know how to convey that fact to him without seeming like I am still tied up in knots about this. I don't want him to think that I have feelings about this anymore, and that seems impossible to do as I attempt to explain that I just can't be in contact with him anymore by any means.And what the heck is going on with him? Maybe he feels bad and wants to make amends? I suppose I appreciate that, but it honestly doesn't mean much to me anymore. From what I know, he is still with the person he left me for. That girl absolutely hated me, and I'm sure she wouldn't be happy to know that he has been pushing my boundaries trying to get in touch with me. If he needs some kind of catharsis, I don't know how to (and I don't really even care to) give it to him.
Bottom line: I don't want him in my life at all. I don't want him to think that I pine over this anymore, and I don't know how to get him to back off once and for all without giving him leverage to think that I still experience emotions over this.
So, what do I do? How do I forcefully communicate "leave me the fuck alone" without leading him to believe that I still experience strong emotions about our past?
Keep in mind that I have already clearly asked that he not try to contact anymore. I don't even want to go to the trouble of writing some long-winded explanation of why I don't want to be in touch with him only to be met with, "Oh, you seem so passionate about this still!" Why is he being so selfish by continuing to contact me against my wishes? Is my best plan to just completely ignore the advances even though they seem to keep trickling in?
How about I just send him a link to this post and leave it at that? (Just kidding, but oh the thought bwhahaha!)
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- From: blonde_vampire@xanga
- Name: Jodie...
- Location: Pensacola, Florida, United States
- About Me: I can't decide if time is linear or cyclical. I guess I'm not supposed to know. I want a sea-space-submarine.
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Comments (27)
You should re-communicate the message to leave you alone one more time (in a very neutral manner) like "Sorry. I no longer want you to contact me." kinda of manner. If he continues, you have to ignore it. What he did in the past was already enough to not talk to him. And I feel that it is in your best interest to not get involved with hi anymore, whether it's friendship or otherwise. Good luck with this.
@laytexduckie@xanga - From a neutral standpoint there is something fundamentally wrong with communicating your wishes to someone else in the hopes of preventing them from doing the same. It's blatant hypocrisy.
Words are the common ground people share. If he's not a physical threat to her, she has absolutely no right or reason to keep him from contacting her, because like so many people have already so clearly pointed out so many times on here, he is not responsible for her mental or emotional health. If she can't handle him contacting her, especially when he is doing so in good faith and wants to be friends, whose fault is that?
@T3hZ10n@xanga - The problem here is that she doesn't want him to contact her. She already said it so many times. Just because he might be wanting to make amends does not mean she has to. She still has the right to decide if she wants him in her life or not. When someone doesn't want to talk to you, you can't make them if they refuse to budge. It would also be his fault for not acknowledging the fact that she no longer wishes to be in contact with him. It's the same thing as this:
Say a guy really likes a girl and continues to buy her presents, even though she clearly states she wants nothing out of it. He continues to call her and talk to her, but she doesn't want to respond. With this scenario and in your wording, are you saying that it is still the girl's fault for not accepting to be his girlfriend?
If she doesn't want to be his friend or want him in her life, that is her choice. Not his.
you should not have even responded to his random small talk emails. or just change your email, which takes like less than 30 seconds to sign-up for a new email account. what I don't like about facebook is that most people put their real first and last names on there. no privacy at all. however, that's the point of social networking and some people are expecting that people from the past find their names and contact them again. that's why I often have alias names. it'll be like one in a billion chance that they find me
nobody finds me, I find them or at least those that willingly put their personal info publicly and want to be found. I've had a few people in the past contact me and I continue to ignore their existence. I think your ex's ego is hurt because he thinks that ex-gfs should still like him and want to be friends since he feels bad for being an asshole before, but nooo...you've had your chance and messed it up. I wouldn't want to talk to an ex either if he was purposely rubbing it in my face with his new gf while still trying to use me as the rebound.
Block him on everything. Change your number. Move on with your life. You owe this person no explanation.
Just keep on telling him to bugger off.
Tell him "I have more respect for myself than to let a person like you back into my life after you were so disrespectful" DO NOT USE THE WORD SORRY.
I agree with Saridactyl@xanga. You owe him no explanation at all. You really can't control his interpretation of what you say to him, so I wouldn't worry about it. If you never want to talk to him again, does it really matter what he thinks anyway? Tell him briefly but firmly that you have no desire to remain in contact with him. If he keeps contacting you after that, ignore or block him.
I actually recently had a similar thing happen...two exes showed up in my life again at the same time. One was hanging around the place I work, trying to pretend he wasn't stalking me. The other kept calling even though I refused to answer the phone. The stalker I just directly told to cut it out (he did). As for the other one, I blocked his number and we're not friends on Facebook. Problem solved. Yay...
I've had an ex-bf texting me a few times a month for the past six months or so. We ended on bad terms and I have no intention of having any kind of relationship or friendship with him. After blowing off all of the text messages, he remained persistent in texting me so a few weeks ago I decided that I would respond only once to him with a polite yet no-nonsense request to stop contacting me.
I texted him back saying "I'm sorry but I do not want to talk to you. Please do not text me anymore."
He immediately responded, "But why?"
I never texted him back.. and I haven't heard from him since! If he were to text me again, I would continue to blow him off. So my advice, even though you have already expressed your wishes to him, say it again to drive the point home that you are NOT budging. Be polite, succinct and most of all consistent!
Also, block him on facebook otherwise his harassment will continue. Don't want him to think that youre still 'passionate' about everything? Let it go. His opinion doesn't matter anymore. Plus hes annoying the crap out of you! Youre better off without any of his drama.
I'd send him this post you posted on datingish. No joke. When things weren't going well, I'd vent on blogs then I'd send it to the guy. We've gotten past everything we've gone through and talked about it. He didn't leave me for another person that's why I still keep in contact with him and we're still friends because similar to your situation, he's been there for me through my traumatic times when everyone else abandoned me (speaking non-family wise). And he was the only one there. We're very close and I am close with some of his family members, too and one of his sister knows all about our troubles.
Tell him since he's still with the true whore (the girl who he cheated on you with), tell him to you leave you alone that you have more respect than his girlfriend to be with somebody who cheated on you. The only reason he's still with his little girlfriend is because she doesn't have enough self-respect to leave him while he made her the other woman. Did she know you were in a relationship with him at the time they got together? Paste him my comment, too. And the other tramp. They both deserve each other in that respect because they're dirty, nauseating people.
Contrary to popular belief, I'm one of the few women out there who doesn't want a guy who treats me like complete dog shit. That doesn't mean I want them to put me on the pedestal either, but still...
Paste him this blog and have him read it from top to bottom. See what he thinks of the responses. Or maybe he might not care, but if he's still contacting you sometimes even while he's with that tramp, there's something missing in his relationship and that's why he's still contacting you every now and then. He's not getting something from his girlfriend that he got from you. Maybe they aren't as close as you two were.
@T3hZ10n@xanga - I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who treated me horribly in a relationship. He cheated on her, she doesn't have to make amends with him especially when he's still dating the skank he cheated on her with. He has no business trying to contact her and he's just wanting the drama and the attention of two women fighting for him.
@xinq@xanga - If she's anything like you then obviously she shouldn't take my advice and she knows better than I do in this situation. I give advice from a neutral standpoint while making only one assumption: that the writer wants advice from a neutral standpoint while making only one assumption. Otherwise why is she writing on Datingish? Just to affirm what she already believes without looking at more than one possible point of view?
@laytexduckie@xanga - OMFG, she can give me the presents if it bothers her that much. I once got a $200 hoodie that way (it's white FTR, so no stalker jokes). People make no sense. She can Criagslist that shit and hire a bodyguard with the extra $ or better yet she could donate the gifts to charity.
White people problems.
Just say something like "I have too much respect for myself than to be around someone who treats people as badly as you do".
Stop trying to be nice. What's the point? Tell him "Fuck off and leave me alone, I don't want to be your friend." You can copy and paste that if you want. Then block him from everything you have to.
Honestly, I'm not sure why this is so difficult. It feels very freeing to do that, believe me. You don't owe him anything. He's not a good friend. You don't have to give someone a second, or third chance. You don't even have to be polite, and I would say, you shouldn't at this point because it's not working.@WaitingToShrug@xanga - Why does it seem like women get off on saying this? You do realize you are so projecting.
"You don't owe him anything."
The exception proves the rule. Who do/did you normally emotionally "owe", or do you just enjoy playing Captain Obvious whenever the opportunity arises to point it out (aka. 'big black women on Maury syndrome')?
@yougivemesomethingtosleepto@xanga - ah! the "leave me alone please" followed by "but why??" is exactly what I have gotten from this situation! So crazy.
And from all of the responses I guess it is safe to say that I will never know what is going on in this guy's head, and since I'll never know, there is no sense in wondering about it or caring what he thinks.
I appreciate all the responses- I was really looking for varying opinions on the ignore vs. "f*** off" solution to the problem and it seems like I have gotten lots of pros and cons for both. I guess we'll see what ends up being the most appetizing!
@blonde_vampire@xanga - There was a girl here not to long ago who had a situation with her co-workers and one of her co-workers was her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend and her boyfriend's/ex-boyfriend's ex. She submitted an entry here and then showed it to him to let him know that she wasn't the only one who would react how she did when she thought he was cheating. I'd give this to him to read it. Maybe it'll give an eye-opener to him as to almost every wrong he's ever done.
You've made your point, so now just ignore him. Don't reply. Replying just gives him back attention that he wants from you. It also gives him hope, twisted hope, but still hope. Ignore everything, don't even read what he writes just delete it soon as you get it.
Blocking someone on facebook is basically just one click, do it heh.
@laytexduckie@xanga - Also, There's (usually) the remedy of civil restraining order, if things reach that point.
But also, there is the "remedy" of just not responding to him anymore. In my experience, that seems to be pretty effective. (And if it's not - and he's contacting you to a point you are genuinely concerned for your safety - look into that restraining order option.)
" I have no interest in trying to rekindle a friendship with someone who was this cruel to me."
that sentence says it all. if you choose to respond, i would suggest using that, then if you truly don't care anymore, delete and block.
Well, here's the thing. If him ceasing to contact you is that important to you, you should just tell him. Whether he thinks it's because you still have feelings or not, is not YOUR problem. He's going to think whatever he wants to think no matter what you say to him.
I like the first response. If you are not interested, let him know clearly. If he continues to bug you, contact an authority figure..like your parents, a teacher, police... to intervene for you.
Good luck.
From my understanding, if you don't respond to his messages at you, then you can file a harassment report against him. From there on if he continues a restraining order, etc. I haven't had this problem thankfully (mega-bitch status has it's privileges! haha), so I'm not entirely clear on how the process works, but I'm sure a quick google search will tell you everything you need to know.
As some people already said, you don't owe this person an explanation at all. Just block him completely and change your number if necessary, then move on with your life.