Moderator’s note:
If you find yourself disagreeing with this person’s actions, we encourage you not to downvote the post. Instead, kindly express your opinions in the comments. We recommend maintaining politeness and articulating your thoughts with well-constructed arguments.
I (20F) have been on Tumblr for some years, and recently, a family friend (23M) downloaded it too and started following me as he knew my URL. He’s got a crush on me and just isn’t normal about it.
For context, here’s a non-exhaustive list of things he did:
- Took a picture of me on Snapchat with a filter that makes it appear as if the person is naked, but with the skin-colored square censorship (without consent).
- Cornered me in his car on a forest road alone at nighttime and forced me to come out to him.
- Kept confessing to me over and over again even if I’ve made it known several times it makes me uncomfortable and he knows I literally cannot be attracted to him.
- Made a list of behaviors I’ve exhibited (e.g., moved away when he touched my arm) along with dates of when that happened and used that to diagnose me with childhood trauma.
And that’s a non-exhaustive list, but what’s coming into my head first. This started when I was 19 and him 22, and we had very few contacts prior so this came completely out of the blue.
He’s started following several blogs I regularly reblog from, some about things I know for a fact he’s not interested in, and that includes some of my mutuals
Image credits: Tracy Le Blanc (not the actual photo)
This goes in line with him pretending to know and be a fan of some things I like and just altering his whole personality, mannerisms, and speech patterns to resemble me and attract me or something along those lines, I guess??? I am not blowing the imitation thing out of proportion, as some of my friends have noticed it too.
I am not in any physical danger, but I’m really uncomfortable with this whole situation, and Tumblr is my safe place
Image credits: Vasilis Caravitis (not the actual photo)
I cannot block him for several reasons nor get further from him IRL, but I want him to have as little access as possible to my blog so as to keep that one safe place.
I don’t intend to do a call-out post or whatever, just to send a DM to my mutuals along the lines of “Hey! [Blog’s name] has done some things that make me uncomfortable with them having access to my blog. Would you mind soft-blocking them so they don’t follow you anymore? It’s okay if you don’t want to, no pressure :)” but I also know that Tumblr can be quick to harassment campaigns and bullying, and things can get easily out of hand there with some anonymous asks being really fond of suicide baiting and insults.
He doesn’t have anon asks turned on, so even if that were to get out, he probably wouldn’t have to deal with that
Image credits: Glenn Carstens-Peters (not the actual photo)
I trust that the mutuals I plan to contact wouldn’t do any call-out post or public mention of the whole thing, but I still worry about it in case anything were to happen. It doesn’t help that the guy has no self-preservation instinct and used his real first name and part of his last name in his URL on the doxx-you-because-you-have-trash-MLP-headcanons site.
I feel like this could be kind of a jerk move because it’s bringing what’s basically a private conflict to other people who have nothing to do with it, but I’m really at the end of my rope at this point. This has been going on for 8+ months. WIBTA if I did it?
Moderator’s note:
Please note that the images included in this article are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent the actual individuals or items discussed in the story.
If you have a comparable experience or story you’d like to tell, we welcome your submissions. Click here to share your story with Bored Panda.