Was I being groomed, stalked or pursued?

LegacyUser

Hi,
I am just looking for some clarification on what was going on with someone from my past.

From the ages of about 15-19 I was friendly with a family who had a son. He was 21-25. He showed some interest in me and I was very flattered by this. He would ask me questions about myself but then didn't seem to pay too much attention to me. I was very socially awkward especially around him. I could barely string a sentence together.

We were at a party when I was about 17 and he came onto to me. I kind of panicked, I don't know but he asked me to leave the party with him and I said no. I think I just felt a bit pressured and at that moment felt I was too young for a 23 year olds expectations of me.

After that, he was very cool and off with me and didn't seem interested at all. Until a few months later he was sitting beside me in his house and other people were around but he started rubbing his arm and moving it so that he was touching my side. I didn't react to this. He seemed very interested in me again. Lots of eye contact but we barely spoke. Other times he seemed completely indifferent and not interested at all and sometimes just plain irritated. I just thought this is what guys do. But I was starting to develop some kind of attraction to him perhaps because of all the hot and cold treatment.

Once we were out in a pub when I was about 18, a gang of us, he went on a totally unprovoked verbal attack on me which scared the **** out of me. I couldn't understand this because I was not a threatening person, I just went to say something but before I got the words out, he went crazy. He came to me a few days later to give me what I think was supposed to be an apology but said that he was 'trying to get me to come out of my shell'. I was literally shaking and couldn't respond to his 'apology' and it was very awkward. So I almost started to think that perhaps he was right and he was just frustrated that I wouldn't talk. At the same time I knew that lashing out at me was not a way that a person that cared about you would get you to talk. Also I was about to speak when he flipped out. I think at this point I started confusing fear for attraction.


Once I was in his house and he was sitting across the room from me and we were the only two in the room. He turned the music up on the tv full blast and sat there starting at me for about five minutes until a friend came in and said 'why have you got the tv sound like that'.

Other times he flirted with me and I didn't know what the hell was going on. At the time I thought he was frustrated but I still liked him. But he didn't seem to try to be nice to me that much.

Anyway he started a friendship with a close family friend/ neighbour of mine, male same age. At this time the neighbour seemed to take a sudden interest in me. Talked to me like we had something?? he never showed any interest before. Both men arrived at my job one time (retail). I just ran out the back before they seen me and assumed that it was coincidence that they would be in the shop I worked in.

Other times he made passive aggressive digs at me but I paid no attention. Eventually I moved on from that group. When I was nineteen, I had a boyfriend. We were walking up the road (a long straight road about 10 min walk) when we reached the top of the road, this guy passed by us making sure that I seen him. I thought he must have followed us all the way. It wasn't a walk that would be normal for him.

I worked in another job at this time and he happened to arrived there. I hadn't seen him in a while. He said 'oh there she is' but I just nodded and walked off.

At this time also we found out that the neighbour (his pal) was spreading rumours about my family. Telling half truths about us and we were very upset. At the time I didn't relate it to the other guy but I think maybe now he could have had something to do with it. Also I noticed that when I would meet people that were friendly with the guy, and they would be talking to me, they would say things like 'oh your actually not that bad' even though I had never really spoken to them before.

This was a few years now and recently I reached out to the guy on social media. Please don't judge me, I was just trying to make sense of it. I didn't really understand and I have only been putting all the pieces together now since speaking to him.

I asked him what was going on back then and he almost admitted and denied things in one sentence and tried to play it down. He skipped the real question and then gave me a barrage of compliments, over the top compliments. I cant say exactly what it was but I found his response strange, contradictory, so I ended the conversation politely and I thought that was it. A couple of weeks later I got a very nasty message from a fake account. I have no doubt now that this was him.

I am away from that area now so I don't think I will bump into him again but I am fearful that he may twist what was said in the messages to bad mouth me to people I know. There is nothing I can really do about that though I know.

I'm just confused about what was going here. I feel stupid for putting up with that behaviour from someone and making excuses for him and for taking so long to realise and for some reason even now I still feel sorry for him. I was friendly with the younger people of the family and there was a definite divide. They were seen as the adults and we were the kids (teenagers). Although whenever I spoke to him, the age difference (not a lot) didn't seem to be an issue for him. But it made me feel like he felt in a position of power over me. Also I would have come across as quite submissive.

Is this the behaviour of a man who thought he was rejected and couldn't handle it or was this more serious and was I being groomed by a sociopath? Was he stalking me or just pursuing me, or even just playing some sick game? Do you think he actually wanted to go out with me or what or did he have some secret weird hatred for me?

Part of me feels like it was some kind of emotional abuse but at the same time, all the things he did could be explained away and are ambiguous. Other than a few snide remarks and once lashing out at me, there is TECHNICALLY nothing else that he has done that I can say for definite was bad behaviour. Maybe I am just overreacting?

skallywag

Was I being groomed, stalked or pursued?

That's difficult to say with any real certainty. Sounds to me though that this chap appears to have mental health issues. How would you describe the other relationships he had, e.g. with his family, your family, other friends, etc?

tailgunner

The thing about emotional abuse is that individual events/incidents can often seem fairly innocuous when seen in isolation. But you've given so many examples here, I don't think there can be any doubt that that's what it was.

It would be one thing if the guy was an awkward teenager, but that is not how a normal adult treats others. I don't think the guy is even worth the time spent wondering what his motivations were - whatever he might have said or done over the years was nothing to do with you; it's entirely his own issues at play here.

I know it's easier said than done to just forget about it, but if the experience is something you're still struggling with, talk to someone about it.

Tokyo

"Was I being groomed, stalked or pursued?"

To a point, these can be somewhat subjective terms, and I can't tell you exactly what you experienced. However, I don't think that you were being groomed - i.e. that your neighbour was a sexual predator who tried to gain your trust through gifts and so on in order to do harm to you. Stalked and pursued are two different matters, and often the line between the two can be blurry when one party doesn't want the attention of the other, and the other party doesn't see it that way, and in some ways his actions seem to fall somewhere in between at times, moving up and down the scale depending on the circumstances.

If I am to be honest, he sounds like a very socially awkward twenty-something year old who isn't able to deal with his emotions, both when it comes to liking a girl and when that girl doesn't show interest in him. He was able to flatter you precisely because you were younger than him, and probably had a certain amount of expectation that you would want to be with him and couldn't handle it at the times when you didn't. Again, that is completely my own opinion based on what you've written above. At the end of the day, I wasn't there.

Whether it classifies as emotional abuse is another story. Clearly the guy has issues with his own emotions, and keeping them under control. And overall he doesn't seem like a particularly nice person to be around and you don't feel comfortable in his presence. So don't give yourself any reason to be. Remove him from your online social network if you still are in contact with him there, put some distance between you and him in terms of contact, and move on with your life. Hopefully he'll do the same. And as mentioned above, talk to somebody about it and see what they think. If you have a family member that you are close to who also knows this person and the circumstances, then perhaps they can give you a better idea of what's going on than us here on the internet.

P. Breathnach

I don't disagree with anything that mike.ie says (including the caution that people here can't be sure about things like this). I want to add two things:
- I suspect that he became infatuated with you, possibly knew that in view of your age at the time that it was inappropriate, and dealt very badly with his own internal turmoil;
- more important, none of this is your fault.

LegacyUser

OP here. Thanks for all of your responses. I really appreciate it.

Scallywag, Yea that's a good point. I cant really go into too much detail about his other relationships. The truth is I don't really know much about them but while he seemed to be very popular and his family would talk very highly and proud of him like he could do no wrong, there are a few red flags there that I cant go into.

Tailgunner, yes I think the ambiguous behaviour had me doubting my own perceptions of things sometimes so it has been a great help to hear other peoples opinion and gives me a bit more clarification on what was really going on although reading my post back I just don't know how I didn't see things clearer back then.

mike_ie, maybe I should have said 'conditioning' rather grooming? I went to speak, he lashed out at me but then told me it was his way of trying to get me to speak. Another time when I was more confident after not seeing him for a while, I was speaking to him at a party we both attended and he was really nice. But then when I was leaving he tried to embarrass me in front of other people by shouting out 'oh your off are you, you snob, putting on an accent', it was said with a sense of disdain towards me. I retaliated for the first time and told him to stop saying stupid things about me and he ran after me saying 'sorry' that he was just joking. But it gave me a kind of feeling I was only aloud to speak under his terms and that he could find fault in anything I did.

I don't think that I was totally innocent here and I was flirting back in some ways and I genuinely liked the guy (I don't know why). At the time to be honest I just wanted him to be consistent in his approach to me so that I could be more comfortable around him. He wasn't consistent so I just didn't react to things and held it in. He obviously had his own issues. I just wish I didn't have to get caught up in them.

But given my age, I don't think I fully understood what was going on or even thought that maybe he could have a mental issue because in other ways he seemed so normal, and also this was spaced out through 4 years of an important developmental stage for me. It is only now I am realising what was happening. I trusted that he was right because I thought as an older person that he was. I was also learning how to deal with the opposite sex and I was very shy and not too confident as most teens tend to be.

I am going to move on from this and not have any contact with him. I feel stupid now for putting myself in a vulnerable position again by speaking to him over social media but I am just going to try to forget about it now and move on from it and hope that nothing else comes up. Although it was quite damaging and confusing for me, I think I really had a lucky escape. I cant imagine what it is like for anyone who is married to someone like that.

Rubberchikken

Dont put any blame on yourself.
Tbh the guy siunds a bit up himself and a game player.

From your description i dont get a normal guy but rather someone who doesnt seem capable of behaving appropriately for his age.

Imho you're best off out of it and far away from him.

Est28

He was a teenage to early 20's guy, awkward as the day is long around girls, and he had a crush on the girl down the street. Not exactly anything out of a horror movie.

If he was "grooming" (creepy word) then that's totally wrong, but you do realize that being an awkward teenager is not a crime and you could potentially be ruining his life pretty badly from here out if false accusations of the things you mention are made right?

LegacyUser

OP here, I understand what you are saying EST28 but I have not been making accusations. I have been trying to understand what was going on here for my own reasons.

The reason why I recently made contact with him was because I thought the way you are thinking and I thought that maybe he was perceiving me in the wrong way. I hoped that we could have an open conversation about it at this stage. I thought that maybe we both picked one another up wrong. I did not accuse him. I did not mention exact instances to him either. But I felt the minute I talked to him again, I didn't get any clarification or confirmation of anything and the response was full of mixed signals and ambiguity. I literally felt put back in the same situation for a moment where you don't know whether your coming or going.

Maybe I should not have said 'grooming' but there were times when I felt it was bullying type behaviour. And also a string of strange coincidences. I never said a bad word to the guy. I didn't try to embarrass him in front of other people, I didn't start a verbal attack on him in the pub trying to purposely target his Achilles heel in front of his peers. These are things that he did to me. I feel that he was playing on my emotions and perhaps in his point of view he thought that I was playing with his. You never really know what peoples perceptions are. Although I was constantly nice and respectful to him.

This guy appeared to me to be very confident but I know that sometimes that can be a front. One of the instances above happened was when the guy was in his late 20's. At what point do you stop making excuses for someone's behaviour? I don't think its fair to compare it to him pulling my hair in the playground.

I have never spoken about it before and the first time I did talk about it, I turned directly to him to have an open conversation as adults but it didn't work that way. I felt that getting some other peoples opinion might be helpful for me, which it has been and I am ready to now move on from it. I am not saying that anything that happened was against the law or anything like that and I know that lots of men and women have similar experiences and sometimes its just a clash of two people. I have no desire to have any contact with him or do anything that could be "potentially ruining his life".

Matteroffact

I would say that this was just the behaviour of a man who was trying to impress a younger woman, practising his charm on you. You were too young to know how to respond and he found this frustrating, so because he wasn't able to get anywhere with you he said a few derogatory things about you to his pal. All of this was just natural banter between mates. So you contacted him a few years later and he thought you were interested but you backed off and probably left him wondering what game you were playing. Him sending you a nasty message from an anonymous account is a bit over the top though. He doesn't sound like a well balanced person and I would steer clear of him if I were you.

amdublin

How long ago did this all happen?

He sounds socially awkward and acted socially inappropriately - nothing sinister in a sense, just very weird and a turn off....

I'd suggest you avoid this person.

tenifan

Was I being groomed, stalked or pursued?

People are people. You're a person. there's little point second guessing other people's treatment of you, but you can control your own behaviour.

It doesn't sound to me like you're being groomed (which implies pedophilia and you're over 18) or stalked.. As for pursued, that means someone is interested in you, and there;s no law against it. You can control yourself and your own behaviour though.

LegacyUser

Thanks guys for your opinions. I appreciate it and I fully take it all on board.

I can see here that I have not handled this situation well on my part. I should not have contacted the guy about this and I can see that I have been quite naïve. I am a very open person and I often think that other people are like that too. I like to get things out rather keep it locked away and I contacted the man for selfish reasons to help myself understand and didn't really think it through or think of the effect it might have on him.

Some of the posters here have an issue with the fact that I used the word grooming and stalking. I don't think that is exactly what was happening with me but there were red flags, sometimes overlaps and I know whatever was going on was not healthy for either one of us. I also have to say that sometimes there are non-verbal cues that cannot always be explained but are communicated to someone too.

I think it is important to note that grooming can happen to anyone not just children. The definition of grooming needs to be clarified here. This is a technique that is used by certain personality types. It might not be something that someone sits down and makes a plan but it can be something that comes naturally with their personality and is reflected in their interactions and can be very subtle.

Grooming:

"Adult grooming is correspondent to child grooming and applies to any situation where an adult is primed to allow him or herself to be exploited or abused. While it is a common assumption that grooming is only practiced on the very young, identical emotional and psychological processes are commonly used to abuse or exploit adults, the elderly, and those with compromised mental facilities.

A predator will identify and engage a victim and work to gain the target’s trust, break down defenses, and manipulate the victim until they get whatever it is they are after. Overt attention, verbal seduction (flattery / ego stroking), recruitment, physical isolation, charm, gift-giving, normalizing, gaslighting, secrecy, and threats are all hallmarks of grooming."

Stalking:

"Personality wise, stalkers have problems maintaining normal and stable relationships with others. They lack social skills and empathy-the ability to relate to other peoples feelings. They have a low tolerance for frustration. They have mood swings between deep devotion and angry rejection.

The stalker gets to his victim with the help of age-old depictions of the heroic romantic pursuit against all odds. Even today, popular fiction tells tales of women being wooed and won over after an appropriate period of resistance. Women are told to be flattered (and many are) when a man persists to pursue her, despite protests.
The point here is to recognize that when a man does not accept a 'no' or a personal boundary set (however small you might think it is)-its not 'love'. It is about control and it might be the first warning sign that you have a stalker on your hands."

I feel that some people also have the opinion 'boys will be boys' or that he was just being a lad and he got frustrated approach to this but if just being a lad involves putting a girl down with passive aggressive statements to reduce her self esteem, freaking out at her one minute and shunning her, the next minute bringing her back up with his attention and approval, then we need to look at what really is acceptable as just being a lad or a poor socially awkward man and what is not.

Playing games in the early stages of a romantic courtship can be fun and increase sexual tension, wondering does he like me, does he not like me but when it starts to become a situation where you are making the other person extremely uncomfortable and they feel they are walking on eggshells and you are not actually doing anything to make a relationship happen or trying to put the other person at ease even when you can see they are uneasy but just keeping it at a certain place then it is not healthy and makes the other person wonder what the intensions really are.

Tokyo

Hi OP,

I'm sorry that you feel that posters here have an issue with the fact that you used the word grooming and stalking, but posters here can only give their own opinion on the situation based on the information that you have provided, and after reading through the thread it's my opinion that posters responded to the scenario you described, rather than the words used.

Either way, from your previous post it looks like you have decided on a course of action -"going to move on from this and not have any contact with him"- , and I wish you the best with that. Thread closed.

Regards,
Mike