Fugitivus Discussion Forum

I volunteer at a thrift store on the Navy base. It's way cool, all the ladies I work with are really nice. They talk to me as an equal, and in the beginning, encouraged me to come back by simply stating "See you tomorrow!". It helped, a lot. Anyways!

One Navy guy came in, and he asked me about D&D (Dungeons and Dragons). My ears perked up; I'm automatically taken with people who play D&D because they're just as nerdy as I am! He asked if we had any "blah" edition books, and after that, we got to talking. "Yeah, I play these classes usually, oh wow, that's cool. You have a D&D group, wow we're looking for one! Awesome! My husband and I would love to join if you guys have room!" He gives me his info, and we're off.

I pick my hubby up, life is good, I just took the first steps to possibly getting us a gaming group, yay! I email this guy, no response for about two weeks. Hm, okay. Well I'll text him then, to kinda nudge him to talk to me. After all my email probably went to his spam folder. He responded! Well awesome! And the awkward small talk with texting, okay that's not too bad, we just met.

Me: "I'm from KC, in the Show-Me state...etc"
F: "THAT could turn naughty in a hurry "
Me: *nervous laughter, then immediately change the subject*

I tell this guy it'd be cool if we could meet his group first, because honestly I'm getting a little on edge with this constant attention. It was my intention to just get a hold of him, then speak about how we could get in with this gaming group. Because that's what I want, and have made clear this whole time: my husband and I would like to join your group. Plus, I'd already spoken to my husband about this, and he was less enthused when he saw that text. We talked about it, he said it made him angry. I validated that, and told him it made me anxious. I told him I would proceed with caution.

Yesterday, I got this text:
F: "Do you want to go see (insert movie here) tonight?"
.........
Me: "I already saw it with my husband, and I'm more interested in playing D&D"

I was with my husband at the time, and we talked about this. He suggested, half jokingly, that I text back "Yeah, so what should I tell my husband?" I told him this is pretty much the last straw, that I'm going to listen to my gut which is telling me "I am creeped out!" It sucks if he didn't really mean anything by it (small chance), but good for me if he did (more likely).

I sent him this text message today:
Me: "I'm having second thoughts on (meeting up with your gaming group), and I will explain why. I am not comfortable with being flirted with, either as a joke or what appeared to me as asking me out. I apologize because I pushed through my own boundaries. So please no more texting, but I don't mind emailing. We can try this again when we feel comfortable "
F: "I was doing neither. That invitation to the movie was also sent to (insert everyone on his friends' list, like it's evidence for this behavior), and if I'd had your husband's number, he'd have gotten one as well; but as you're a couple, I figured that extension of the invite to him was implied,"

My email response, and I'm blocking off contact with him after I send it:
"F,
I have no ill will towards you, but this is the last time I will speak to you. I made the mistake of reaching out to you with texting messaging, but the awkwardness does not fall solely on me. My boundaries were explained, and were denied. This proves to me even more that I made the right choice in stating what I did.

Telling you I'm from the "Show-Me State" and you replying "That could get naughty fast" is flirting. I've looked at it different ways, and at the time, gave it the benefit of the doubt. You more then likely didn't mean anything by it either, and that's a bummer on both sides. But it's not okay, even if I wasn't married. I don't believe I gave out any signs to invite this behavior. Either way, I'm still learning.

That invite was sent out to friends as well. That's awesome. I didn't know it at the time it was sent, which leads me to imply that the invite was for me. There has been no talk of my husband until just now. I've been mentioning him this whole time. It was inappropriate, at the very least.

My desire to find another awesome D&D group led me to push my anxieties aside when speaking to you. But I've learned from this, and more importantly, I stand by my boundaries. I wish you and your group well. Take care "

Maybe a little too nice at the end, but some times things can be taken out of context even more when it's just text. Think I handled that as best I could :p

What a douchehovercraft.* I mean, I can see a clueless person cracking the joke about the Show-Me state on automatic, and it's definitely something I might say in a group of friends whose comfort levels I knew, but over text message to a recent acquaintance? Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno. And following it up with a movie invite, and following up the movie invite with a defensive no-totally-I-send-that-to-everybody? Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno. I'm glad you told him to go jump in a lake; he is clearly not fit company.

*I'm doing this wrong, aren't I.

aughgdlhgdlk the forums have eaten my reply like THREE TIMES
Yay being all hardcore in dealings with creepy vibe person!
Booooo him being creepy! boo him not being interested in setting up D&D funtimes and flaunting boundaries! :C
I hope you find someone cool to play D&D with :O

You handled that well, I think. He was a douchekayak.

(<_<)

Well, he seemed nice, and maybe he is. Still not okay to be so dismissive of someone's boundaries like that; not cool.

That tone he used, and the thing he said, is so familiar to me. It's the same supercilious douchetone I've heard from guys from all over the internet, like, "Uh, no, I'm NOT a creepass, and shame on you, you foolish woman, for getting such a presumptuous and idiotic notion in your head." Fuck him, seriously. A decent person evaluates what they did to make you uncomfortable and apologizes. Any guy whose knee-jerk reaction is to not only defend his own innocence but cast aspersions on you for doubting him is an asshole, OR, he's a nice person hidden under layers of unchecked privilege that might take years of getting told to respect people's boundaries before he actually fucking gets it.

Anyhow, I'm really glad you told him off, Nalina. That was awesome of you. And he's bound to not get it at all and feel really uncomfortable and annoyed by it, but that's his problem, not yours. You did awesome.

^ Agreed, because guess what?! Update time

I talked to the other ladies at the thrift store today (still feel awkward when I bring this stuff up, but glad I got this reaction instead of "You're overreacting!"). I asked as nonchalantly as possible if I was being harassed, what are my options in this store? They told me, then asked why. I said "Well, that guy I was talking to the other day, kinda creeped me out,". They said "Actually, we didn't want to say anything, but we feel the same. He's been in here before, asking for another married woman's cell phone number,".

HUH. Imagine that...I was right. Go me! So I told them the whole story, feeling very validated that they've felt the same about this weirdo. And I added "Please, if I'm talking to some guy you think is a little off, mention it to me," Because seriously, I'd rather people think I'm "gossiping" when I'm really just telling another woman to listen to her gut. It's not gossip if it's instinct.

P.S. If anyone else has stories to share please do. Tried to make the title as inclusive as possible.

Oh wow, that's great, Nalina! It's so rare to get confirmation on that sort of thing.

Hm, stories, stories. Oh, one time, when I was fourteen, I met a guy on Furcadia who was using a popular character from a show I like to get into ladies' virtual pants. I take cybering as seriously as most people do real sex, since most of my life has been conducted online. Well, I didn't notice that he had virtually no personality and no emotional affect, and he kept pressuring me for erotic roleplay when I was too nervous to do it, but given my patriarchal brainwashing I thought that was normal and that he would soothe me with his manliness and we would have awesomesauce erotic roleplay. But when we got into a private room together I said, "I don't know what to do," and he said, "You want to watch me go at it with another girl?" And I was like, WTF? And logged off.

After that I noticed that there were lots of girls around with his name in their descriptions saying they were pregnant with his child, and all of them sincerely believed there was a relationship, when really he just went through girls on a weekly basis, so I started telling every girl who had his name in her desc that he was no good. The first one didn't believe me and just sort of yelled at me for trying to ruin her "relationship", but the ones after that were really grateful. Yay!

^ I'm tempted to say "at least it was all online" but that behavior is still wrong, no matter what type of environment. It's good that some of those girls listened to you. Plus you picked up early on the "creepy person" vibe.

Well, granted, online WAS a lot better than offline, but it was still pretty serious to me. And yeah, I did! I'm continually amazed that even as a very confused and crazy young teenager I still always turned away from men who were hurting me or being assholes. There was Heath who I stopped talking to for years and knew he was pining and feeling guilty, then I came back and apologized, and it turned out he's just as much of an asshole as ever and I actually called it right. Also, learned I am not in any way obligated to tell people why I'm not talking to them anymore.