One of my most painful college blowoffs came from a woman I’d gone on several dates with and was totally smitten with. We’d joked about some asshole who’d been pestering her for a date for awhile, about what a jerk he was. The woman was devoutly religious, and in respect for this, I was being all gentlemanly.
Until one time, she suggested we go to a rave instead of to the play we’d been talking about going to – and it turns out that the persistant jerk was in the group of people going to the rave. By the end of the night, those two were all over each other, pointedly ignoring me.
I’m still glad I’m not the horribly persistant asshole, and I’m delighted that this woman showed her tweakerosity sooner rather than later – but I got to see up-close and personal that sometimes, it’s an effective dating strategy.
Unless you think the guy is likely to show up at your house without an invite, and think you will be able to convince the police that you have good reason for thinking this, then you are not yet in restraining order territory.
All the reasons listed above, and more, could explain this situation. Stockpile evidence so, if you ever need to, you can make it clear which reason was at work in your case.
Not to be too blunt about it, but fuck what she “likes.” Life is full of things – cars, clothes, relatives, relationships, come-ons – that aren’t perfect. Only an immature idiot sits around thinking they have the luxury of rejecting people just because they didn’t approach them in exactly the manner they “like” to be approached. Hell, in my mind any woman who acts confused because I took her behavior at face value is a moron, and isn’t worth the trouble.
DanielWithrow, that happened to me once, with a guy I sort-of knew, too, although we weren’t friends. In fact, I had totally agreed with her that I thought he was an asshole, too! It was amazing to see how fast the new Corvette he drove back to school in after Spring Break changed her tune. I saw a whole other side of her after that.
I came up with the perfect revenge though. First, I called her and told her that I had herpes (which I didn’t) and she needed to get tested. Then I called him up a day later and told him she had given me herpes. Boy was it fun to watch the fallout from THAT!
I suppose it was a nasty thing to do to her, but, well, so was what she did to me. I’ve never enjoyed acting like an A-hole more than on that occasion.
I had a conversation with a female friend of mine last night, first she was complaining about a guy she didn’t like not getting the hint and that followed right into asking if she should play hard to get with the guy she does like. I wanted to smack her and ask her if she didn’t realize she was expecting two people to get completely opposite hints from her acting in exactly the same way towards them.
Not exactly the same issue, but part of the same thing. When my first wife told me she was divorcing me, moving to another state, the marriage was dead, over, etc., my mother kept telling me that if I still loved her I had to fight for her and not take no for an answer.
That was my mother, ladies. My father’s advice was to chalk it up to experience, pick up my life and move on.
Chicago Faucet, that guy was 2 jobs and 5 years ago, and the company acted reasonably responsibly at the time. After I was laid off from them, I found out his next target was a 19 year old who worked directly for him. I was prepared to testify if it came to a lawsuit, but she decided she didn’t want to make trouble. That’s not a decision I agreed with. As for mixed signals, I’d pretty much quit speaking to the fellow unless it was required for work. To give you an idea, I was sitting in the break room one morning when he came in and said, “Good morning.” I continued reading my newspaper. He looked at me again and said, “I said ‘Good morning’!” I looked up from my newspaper slightly and said cooly “I heard you.” and went back to reading it (we were the only two people in the breakroom). I never felt physically endangered by him, but I can be rather tough and American society frowns on men attacking women.
I don’t know. I have a rather bawdy sense of humour, and I like double, triple, and even quadruple entendres, but his actions carried on long after I’d quit making such remarks around him, and after I’d gone to his supervisor once without bringing in the personal stuff. The best explanation I can come up with it was a power trip, but I don’t surrender to bullies or to people trying to assert power over me. As some of you know, I’m not exactly a weakling or a shrinking violet. All he did was lower my opinion of his intelligence and character to a remarkable degree. As far as I’m concerned, he’s only guilty of attempted sexual harrassment, which might be even more embarrassing than successful harrassment.
Please do keep enlightening me though. This is one of the Great Mysteries of LifeTM that I’d like to get crossed off my list.
Oh, well you didn’t say that! Two jobs and five years ago. Your original posting made it sound like a current event. Anyhoo, that makes that guy just a plain old, off-the-shelf, factory-stock, asshole. I feel that you treated the situation exactly the way it needed to be treated. And I’m glad that you are not going through it anymore.
I was sexually harrassed at the school where I taught. A married man (and the father of five children) would not keep his hands off of me. I am also married. I had told him a few times to keep his hands to himself.
One day I got right in his face with my mean teacher look and told him to KNOCK IT OFF. I thought that that would be the end of it.
The next day in the faculty lounge, with several colleagues present, he did it again. Then he jumped back as if startled and said, “Oh! I forgot! You don’t like to be touched!”
That kind of demeaning comment helped me to see his apparent motive more clearly. It was a hostile attempt to control.
That day, again with open-mouthed colleagues present, I told him that if he ever did anything like that again, I would call his wife and his bishop. (He was a very active layman in his church.) I also wrote out a complaint and filed with with the administration. My boss told me that it would not happen again. And it didn’t!
Ever seen a romantic movie? How many times do people see that persistence will get the girl in film, on television, and in literature? Do you know of any heart-warming stories of romance where the boy asks the girl out and the girl says, “No,” and the boy takes that to heart and leaves her alone?
That’s not to say that the guy in the OP ain’t touched in the head–although I must say that dating a man “getting a divorce” seems naive in the extreme–but it is also true that myriad cultural references are quite clear that persistence in the face of blunt and even brutal rejection will ultimately pay off in the end.
The kind of men who do this are said to often have quite serious control issues. Also, the controlling behaviour doesn’t usually stop once they are in a relationship. They attempt to wear down, manipulate and control the other person on many levels. In worst case scenarios they often end up being the perpetrators of mental, physical and/or sexual abuse.
Unfortunately, some women are initially flattered by this type of behaviour, mistakingly believing that the man must really like them to persue them with such persistance. But as another poster hinted at, there are other forces at work. It’s not about the man being besotted, it’s about him exercising control.
Obviously there are degrees of this type of behaviour, but generally speaking men who exhibit those sorts of tendencies are best avoided IMO.
Refusal to accept rejection being linked to control hits it right on the head. Before we met my wife had a relationship with a jerk like that. He pursued her over a course of months (but in a tad more charming manner that the OP describes), even after constant rejection. Sure enough, though, my wife started a relationship with him when she was in a particularly vulnerable time (she got a new job and had to move from all her friends).
He turned out to be a controlling, insecure sonuvabitch that finally left only after she stuck a shot gun in his face.
Most of the guys I’ve know, me included, have a hard time with rejection. I couldn’t imagine setting myself up for it time and time again from the same person. I quit wondering whether a woman really meant “no” or not; it got to tiring too play that game, and so I just took them at face value.
It needs to be said, so…What good is it for women to learn how to say no when don’t know how to listen? If you guys want to trade, we’ll talk. But it’s got to be both happening at once.
Crap. something else I forgot, too. If you do turn down a guy really bluntly, you get called a bitch or worse—and no one sees anything wrong with it, either.
In retrospect, you are most likely correct in your assessment.