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This is a long one, so bear with me.
There's a certain annual event that I attend every year I can. In 2013, I went to it for the first time in years (due to a poor financial situation). I love going there, especially seeing the friends who also attend it. Usually, I meet someone new each year.
2013 was no exception. I met several new people, one of whom is the focus of this story. I will call him A. We hit it off, hung out between activities, then went our separate ways after the event.
I need to stress here that I do not view A in anything even remotely resembling a romantic light. He is considerably older than I am and married, but even if he were my age, single, and far more attractive, I still wouldn't be drawn to him. Friendship only, and (in my view), there's nothing wrong with that.
Right. In 2014, I went to the event, he went to the event, we hung out, the event ended, we both went home.
Last year, he encouraged me to attend a similar event a few months before the "main" event. I agreed. We ended up sharing a rental, to save on costs. Plus, he's not in good health, and needed someone to remind him to take his medication, which I did. During that time, I mentioned that there's a certain item of information about myself that I don't like to share. It's nothing important; I just don't like other people knowing it, and other people don't have to know it.
Well, he perked right up and asked for the information. I didn't give it to him. A day or two later, he tried to trick me into telling him. I didn't tell him. The event went well, we went home. Fine, or so I thought.
The "main" event came a few months later. One day, A walked up to me with a smirk on his face, and said, "I've just found out [information that's none of his fucking business]."
The area was full of people, so I couldn't do much. The event ended a few days later, and we went home. I didn't say anything about it later. We hung out, as we usually do, went to the airport at the same time, and went to our respective destinations.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I am. This guy asked me for information that was none of his business, and when I didn't want to tell him, he tried to trick me into telling him. When I refused to tell him, he turned to the Internet. Between the two events last year, he actually found my high school yearbook photo online and sent it to me during a Skype call! The night I met him in 2013, he Googled me and talked about the information he'd found the next day.
You're probably wondering why I wasn't pissed off before. The first time (in 2013), I didn't think much of it, because people often Google those they've just met and know very little about. The digging for information last year - yes, that was creepy, and I don't know why I ignored it. I hoped he would just drop the issue. Why on earth he would care about that information was beyond me. It still is.
But now, as I said, I am fucking furious that he did all this shit. Fortunately, I haven't heard much from him since the last event. I am just fine with this. I hope his wife read him the riot act, especially if she found out he'd been stalking me online. I will go the "main" event this year, but not the other one.
I had agreed to work with him on a project that (he claimed) is very important to him. Progress made: None. He wants me to do all the work except one thing, which he wants to do. I talked to a friend who agreed to be a part of this project, but I haven't heard anything from that friend in a couple of months. Other friends know about the project and are enthusiastic about it.
Recently, I sent an email to A and two other friends about this project, saying that I didn't feel we were getting anywhere. A said that of course we were, because Persons X and Y were posting about it online. Yeah, right.
So, I doubt that the project will continue as long as A is involved in it. I'm not going to try to continue on my own; I feel that it will die a natural death and then, if I can, I will resurrect it without A's involvement.
I am just wondering how to respond to A at the next event. I am not emailing him unless I email others at the same time. I will not email him about his shitty, stalker behavior, because I'm not going to put anything in writing that he may try to use against me later. He has a lot of friends, and they are very nice people (one of them told me that A's wife is also very nice; I haven't met her). So he's not some loser who latched on to me out of desperation - which, really, makes it all the more baffling that he would fixate on me. I would, I must admit, like to scream very loudly at him about all this shit, about the meaning of the words "privacy", "friendship", and "stalking". But I want to keep myself as under control as I can.
Thoughts?
There's a certain annual event that I attend every year I can. In 2013, I went to it for the first time in years (due to a poor financial situation). I love going there, especially seeing the friends who also attend it. Usually, I meet someone new each year.
2013 was no exception. I met several new people, one of whom is the focus of this story. I will call him A. We hit it off, hung out between activities, then went our separate ways after the event.
I need to stress here that I do not view A in anything even remotely resembling a romantic light. He is considerably older than I am and married, but even if he were my age, single, and far more attractive, I still wouldn't be drawn to him. Friendship only, and (in my view), there's nothing wrong with that.
Right. In 2014, I went to the event, he went to the event, we hung out, the event ended, we both went home.
Last year, he encouraged me to attend a similar event a few months before the "main" event. I agreed. We ended up sharing a rental, to save on costs. Plus, he's not in good health, and needed someone to remind him to take his medication, which I did. During that time, I mentioned that there's a certain item of information about myself that I don't like to share. It's nothing important; I just don't like other people knowing it, and other people don't have to know it.
Well, he perked right up and asked for the information. I didn't give it to him. A day or two later, he tried to trick me into telling him. I didn't tell him. The event went well, we went home. Fine, or so I thought.
The "main" event came a few months later. One day, A walked up to me with a smirk on his face, and said, "I've just found out [information that's none of his fucking business]."
The area was full of people, so I couldn't do much. The event ended a few days later, and we went home. I didn't say anything about it later. We hung out, as we usually do, went to the airport at the same time, and went to our respective destinations.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I am. This guy asked me for information that was none of his business, and when I didn't want to tell him, he tried to trick me into telling him. When I refused to tell him, he turned to the Internet. Between the two events last year, he actually found my high school yearbook photo online and sent it to me during a Skype call! The night I met him in 2013, he Googled me and talked about the information he'd found the next day.
You're probably wondering why I wasn't pissed off before. The first time (in 2013), I didn't think much of it, because people often Google those they've just met and know very little about. The digging for information last year - yes, that was creepy, and I don't know why I ignored it. I hoped he would just drop the issue. Why on earth he would care about that information was beyond me. It still is.
But now, as I said, I am fucking furious that he did all this shit. Fortunately, I haven't heard much from him since the last event. I am just fine with this. I hope his wife read him the riot act, especially if she found out he'd been stalking me online. I will go the "main" event this year, but not the other one.
I had agreed to work with him on a project that (he claimed) is very important to him. Progress made: None. He wants me to do all the work except one thing, which he wants to do. I talked to a friend who agreed to be a part of this project, but I haven't heard anything from that friend in a couple of months. Other friends know about the project and are enthusiastic about it.
Recently, I sent an email to A and two other friends about this project, saying that I didn't feel we were getting anywhere. A said that of course we were, because Persons X and Y were posting about it online. Yeah, right.
So, I doubt that the project will continue as long as A is involved in it. I'm not going to try to continue on my own; I feel that it will die a natural death and then, if I can, I will resurrect it without A's involvement.
I am just wondering how to respond to A at the next event. I am not emailing him unless I email others at the same time. I will not email him about his shitty, stalker behavior, because I'm not going to put anything in writing that he may try to use against me later. He has a lot of friends, and they are very nice people (one of them told me that A's wife is also very nice; I haven't met her). So he's not some loser who latched on to me out of desperation - which, really, makes it all the more baffling that he would fixate on me. I would, I must admit, like to scream very loudly at him about all this shit, about the meaning of the words "privacy", "friendship", and "stalking". But I want to keep myself as under control as I can.
Thoughts?
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