BENGALURU: A guy has been stalking me for years. He was my classmate in school. I got to know from our mutual friends after school that he’s telling everyone around that I am his girlfriend. I couldn’t confront him as we moved to different cities and lost contact. He’s an irritating person and doesn’t get along with everyone. I was just being nice to him, helping him with studies and he misinterpreted it. All of a sudden, I got his friend request on Facebook. I accepted out of goodwill, hoping that he has got over the past. He had send the request to everyone. We exchanged pleasantries. He was living in Manali. One day, he sent me a message that he’s come to Bengaluru and wanted to meet me. I was shocked. He didn’t tell me why he was here. He just said we would run out of things to talk when we meet if he tells me everything over messages. He never asked for my phone number. I didn’t meet him. He tried to emotionally blackmail me saying that he always considered me his best friend and I have changed. I was waiting for him to reveal his feelings so that I could directly tell him that I do not have feelings for him. I later blocked him. I do not know what he is up to, neither do my other friends as they have blocked him too. Will he come back?
Look at the story from the boy’s perspective. Consider the “timing” of your help, helping when the entire class was rejecting him. If you too had rejected him, he would probably spend time in introspection.
It gives an immense sense of being accepted, when the whole class thought he was irritating and he did not get along with everyone. During puberty when softer passions are developed, you became an object for him to look forward. Hence he has told other classmates that you were his girlfriend. Till here you are not responsible for his feelings.
One can say, what is the big deal about a Facebook friendship? In retrospection you can justify that it was sent to all classmates and not directed only at you. Your acceptance as a friend is significant because you accepted his request for friendship on Facebook, despite knowing that you were just not a friend. It was big emotional bidding for him to reconnect with you and he would feel as if you reinforced it. Also, reconnecting can mean a lot to him. He would give lot of meaning to your chatting.
Although you did have a gut feeling about his romantic feelings for you, you never elected to confront him about his feelings of seeing a girlfriend in you maybe the chat was ordinary, yet it is special to him over which you have no control. He will assume that you are aware of his feelings for you.
He will claim you have “changed” because in his mind, you have allowed him to mentally romanticise with you and when you refuse to meet him, there is sudden cessation of empathy and reinforcement. You are not available to him as much as he wants now. For you it was a simple “dosti” and for him, it is not.
You have no inner peace even after blocking him, because, you wanted to be a good friend to him and yet it was not possible. Secondly, you knew his intentions for you, but you were waiting for him to disclose this directly. Giving time even for a casual chat will help to assume that you are enjoying his company.
Will he come back is a difficult question to answer. Definitely he will be disappointed that you and other friends have blocked him. If he takes a long time to get over the crash of the fairy tale world, he may have no energy to search for you. None the less we cannot rule out the possibility of his searching your whereabout since you have avoided him completely after being kind to him. He may crave for that kindness which gave him a sense of security and identity.
Change your phone number, change your address. Uninstal True Caller. Do not display your photo in display picture of any social site. Even in case he meets you, deal with it, and build reality in him.
- Clinical psychologist, Fortis Hospital. Email your queries to health.cityexpress@gmail.com