What should I do about a guy that has become creepily attached to me?

Question

I’m a fifteen year old girl and I attend a part time school for homeschoolers who want to take some classes that become difficult to teach online. In one of my classes I met a dude. We talked about video games a handful of times, but only ever for like a minute after class. Eventually he asked me for my account on this video game and I gave it to him. We played together and then he asked for my discord, which again I was fine with because most of my friends have my discord.

Over the next few days he messaged me on and off, before asking me to the fall dance. I told him that I could go and hang out with him at the dance but was not interested romantically. This was when I started to feel uncomfortable with the situation. He made several very suspicious comments I will not go into detail on as well as saying things like “People are gonna be like ‘wow the weird kid finally got a girlfriend’. Then later in that week a girl in my class explicitly warned me about him.

I was going to an event that Saturday of the dance, and as the situation put me more and more at unease I decided to stay downtown so that it would overlap with the dance. I hoped that this would stop the constant messaging (20+ messages a day without me replying) yet it didn’t. A week later he brought me a keychain and drawings that he’d made. Reminder: I had only talked to this guy irl for maybe ten minutes total.

He’s also said some very concerning things about his mental health. Note: this is no way undermining people with mental health issues, I myself am going to therapy. The things he said made me see that even a friendship with the guy would be very toxic.

He is also convinced that if I don’t reply it’s because my parents said I couldn’t, even though he just makes me uncomfortable.
I want to be nice and not block him especially since we have mutual friends and the rest of the school year together.

Any advice?

quaranta · Accepted Answer

Before thinking he is a weird creep, so far his signals aren’t much different than a teenager with poor social skills making up his mind out of a crush on a girl.
Crushes can make people unhinged.
Most people, especially young, when crushing, create a whole world in their mind made of fantasies and things that “have to go that way”, or “are bound to be like that”, expectations and hopes, and feel like the ground would collapse under their feet if they get turned down. So, some of them get trapped into biases, to never see signals that this is going to happen, reinterpreting the reality the way they want, to keep believing in that hypothetical scenario they got addicted/obsessed to (like he does, saying your parents don’t let you reply to him, that is an extreme measure to not see the harsh truth).
While this is a problem for the person who is crushing, of course, it also becomes a problem of their target, because their target gets non-consensually loaded of a responsibility they didn’t ask for. This is where boundaries get disrespected, the “you” in his world is not the real you, but he gives you the responsibility to match that expectation. He has an agenda for you you never agreed with and that can easily feel as non-consensual.
What creeps you out is probably the fact that you can see how his vision of the things runs fast forward without your real participation at all (and is unstoppable) and you perceive how the growth of any expectation on you equals to the size of his possible negative reaction later.

This, however, doesn’t need severe mental issues to happen, it’s sufficient to be a young person with a hopeless crush on someone.
But as you said, he told you about his mental issues and you found it potentially toxic, and got warned about him by others, so let’s assume he tends indeed to get overly obsessed about people and ultimately dangerous about that.

First of all, the urgency here is to stop him. That expectation must absolutely stop growing, because it grows every day more, with new fantasies, reinforcing the addiction. You are ghosting him, but as you can see he interprets ghosting the way he wants because that’s indeed a vague unclear signal that opens to interpretations. Even worse if in real life you smile to him, laugh, write “haha” in chat and are too kind in general. Just do not smile. Girls tend to smile a lot precisely in the situations they shouldn’t communicate availability instead, and in this case you should cut away every possible positive signal you are giving him. You must be very clear with him, very very cold and stoic, but, clear.
In your situation, to his N message, I would reply:”Listen, I noticed you keep writing to me even when I don’t reply and that you talk like if we are going to get together or something. We aren’t, I told you already how things are from my side and you are running without me. I’m not interested and I decided to prevent you from going further with your fantasies, because I’m not there... I understand this hurts, but I trust we will be mature enough to face this last half of year of school together without being too uncomfortable with our mutual friends or in the same class”.
Given his obsession he could resort to other methods to keep his bias up, like believing someone forced you to write that or that you are under wrong spiritual influences, etc. So be clear and block all of his assumptions, dig them out as soon as you perceive them, and destroy them.
Before that, warn all your friends that you are going to turn this guy down and that he could potentially overreact, so, to monitor him for a while, and to help you keeping your point firm in case he talks with them, by repeating him you are really not interested and nobody forced you to say anything. Let them repeat him things for you, so he will be forced to believe those were your words for real.
Warn your parents too and teachers if you find it necessary, and find a way to get the contacts of his mother too, to keep there as a last measure in case he gets objectively dangerous. Prepare all this plan around to counter all the possible effects you might be afraid of.
If needed, even, pretend to have a boyfriend or a crush on someone who is reciprocating you.
Expect he might reply with either insults and blocking you (accept and ignore), or with denying the reality with his own reinterpretations (dig that out and destroy it), or with threats and slow attempts of revenges (make sure people around are ready and monitoring him). Unlikely he will just “accept”.

But you have a warranty at least: if other people warned you about him, probably he did similar things with other girls in the past. But right now he is obsessed of you, so that means he got over them at some point and managed to move on. Not sure how much it will take, but he should stop sooner or later with you too.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

You need to involve a trusted adult in this. You can't handle this and you shouldn't handle this on your own. Who knows what kind of adverse reaction he'll have if you reject him a second time. Don't get rid of your text messages from him. Keep every single one of them so you have evidence of harassment if it comes to reporting it. Especially keep the message of you saying your are not interested in him romantically. But I have to say he is harassing you and not sure if he's using intimidation to control/manipulate you. I'm so sorry this is happening to you. But you are handling it so well, better than most people who are way older than you. You are strong, don't let this toxic behavior make you feel otherwise. You sound like a really nice girl, so don't blame yourself for anything if your mind happens to go there. Women/girls aren't supposed to be responsible for the behaviors/actions that men/boys unwisely make towards us. Remember not to be by yourself with him anywhere. Good luck! :)

inhua · Accepted Answer

he's attached because you're likely the first girl that's ever shown any semblance of kindness towards him.

to me, he's one of those guys who has been bullied, humiliated, rumors spread about him and rejected a lot for whatever reason and now years and years of abuse is slowly festering up and he's slowly turning into the thing that he and others hate the most. (of course this can be prevented). this happens a lot when people choose to box you into a particular group, you try to get out but they keep pushing you until you embrace the label (sad but true).

so far I don't see any bad intentions from him and I'm certain he doesn't want to have bad intentions but he is hanging on the edge of a cliff and could fall at any moment. sometimes all it takes one bad moment to turn a kind soul into a monster. currently I would say he's blue-pill but you want to red-pill him in the right way not the wrong way.

that being said, you can tell a trusted adult to handle it for you (which would end in a good or bad way) or you can try to handle it yourself with caution. I'm not saying you should put your safety on the line but by handling this situation yourself it would at the very least build some trust from him rather than you going behind his back and having him be humiliated by an adult. only you can decide. you would need to be direct because he's not a mind reader but not offensive. these are the steps I recommend.

1) Tell him to listen objectively and put his emotions aside.

this is absolutely crucial. you've already identified him as having mental issues and his emotion instability can be potentially dangerous if you don't nip it in the butt first.

2) Talk about how he makes you uncomfortable.

a lot of girls do a terrible job at this, often resorting to insults to "fix" the problem which only makes matters worse. you would need to go over points such as personal safety, why his attachment to you is unsafe, even use biology examples to explain your point e. g. guys are physically stronger and can't get pregnant therefore girls are more vulnerable and need to feel safe.

2) Talk about why he is the way he is.

mental issues don't just come out of nowhere. perhaps his family life is shit? maybe he has suffered from some sort of trauma? why was he bullied/picked on/ostracized by others? is this something within his control or not? etc. and be brutally honest with him. is he "weird" because he's short with crooked teeth or is he actually saying or doing things that make him "weird" i. e. bragging about being a pimp. or it's a combination of both?

3) Talk about how he can change.

ignore the societal bullshit that people should just "be confident" and "be yourself". it's clearly not working for this guy. is he someone with a bright future ahead or does his future look grim? tell him why it's important for him to drop the porn and video games and pick up an active sport or beginning studying and improving his grades. let him know that it's not the end of the world if he doesn't have a girlfriend. a girlfriend should be a byproduct of him improving himself not the cause of it. ensure he has proper goals, why he shouldn't let social media and pop culture influence him. he might be attracted to the idea of hook-up culture and "needing" a girlfriend rather than being with someone who he can love and who loves him back.

granted this is a tall task to accomplish and you're not obligated to so for safety reasons but you don't want things getting worse where he goes completely off the rails, this is what I would do. while a trusted adult can also do this, if he is truly attached to you, only you can get through to him where nobody else can.

YourFavoriteFriend · Accepted Answer

He is the classic nerd. You were the first girl that showed any kindness to him and in this case, the guy will always "fell in love". He is not "creepy". He just thinks about you 24/7 but got comfortable enough to show it (even if you don't answer as you say). The only think that will put him away is you DIRECTLY and STRAIGHT tell him how you feel. Yeah, it's hard but you cannot blame him if you are not honest with him. It will be much much worse if you tell your parents (which who knows how they're gonna interpreter it), the teachers, or even worse other kids. Please be honest, a similar thing had happened to me when a girl I was close with wasn't honest until about 3 weeks which she finally said a direct NO.

Also, the comment an Anonymous woman gave that he can be dangerous is simply LAUGHABLE and that woman is out of reality and doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about. It's just a classic situation.

Summeroflove · Answer

Be direct. Tell him that you want him to leave you alone. If he won’t respect your wishes tell your parents as well as your teachers.

OlderAndWiser · Answer

Discuss this situation with his mother.

Anonymous · Answer

Don’t listen to comments saying how he is attracted to you etc etc
He is acting abnormal and he is NOT listening to you. For example how he believes this it’s your parents doing rather than you-want-it to stop it has nothing to do with your parents.. this type of guys can’t take a no as an answer. I would be very careful with him. He might even do something stupid if you say you have a boyfriend or like someone else. If you are -18 just stay away from him full 100% no contact at all. If he continues this go to an extreme let him know you will notice school etc
He needs to learn how to take no as answers it’s time for him to understand people and Respect space opinions etc

Jamie05rhs · Answer

This is quite unfortunate. The reason this has happened is because he's a nerd, and nerds are sheltered and don't understand women. It's not his fault.

What you need to do in this situation is to get a mutual friend to tell him that you don't like him. And this friend should also counsel him that the most prudent thing for him to do would be to back off and stop pursuing a relationship (any kind of relationship) with you. The friend you choose should be someone who is respected but is also kind and gentle.

Unfortunately, my advice is coming from personal experience. Because I was once that guy. (Not quite AS cringe. But in a similar category.)

fembotnpc777 · Answer

Have your dad to approach him and say "you're not allowed to talk to my daughter anymore." He thinks he can do whatever he wants, because who's going to tell him no. You're not responsible for helping rapey special ed cases feel emotionally balanced. You're not a charity. You need some men to scare the shit out of him. Tell them you feel unsafe.

Tiger71 · Answer

He would probably be more likely to step in front of a car to save you than to hurt a hair on your head. In fact, if he found your hair, he would save it. That’s what love/ infatuation does to a socially awkward boy. Be nice, be gentle, be caring. Be honest. Also, stop being so perfect. He has you on a pedestal. He may have gotten some signals crossed. If you give that info out to other males in front of him, as well as females, he may figure it out. If you deep down feel like he might hurt himself, tell his parents at least.

Anonymous · Answer

"He made several very suspicious comments I will not go into detail on." Why? You go into way more detail than we need about everything else.

That makes me suspicious of this question.

Also you don't write in the language of a 15 year old girl.

OddBeMe · Answer

Eesh. Whatever you do, do it slowly. Transition from “friend” to “acquaintance”.

Perhaps make him bored and look elsewhere. He sounds a bit unstable. I doubt your safety is at risk but there are a lot of true crime stories featuring this very situation.

Us shy guys need to get our shit together. This is embarrassing. Sorry ma’am.

desperatelyhungry · Answer

You need to be blunt and tell
Him to leave you alone and is block him after. If he contacts you after, you need it let your parents know. Stalking cases can go bad quickly, so please be as careful as you can

supercutebutt · Answer

It is time for you to accept the fact that this young man is your soul mate and will become your life partner. :)

Adaeva · Answer

You should decide based on your experience with him and not be overly swayed by what some girl tells you.

CA4444 · Answer

You could tell him nicely that you don’t wanna talk or spend time with him, make it about you not him so he doesn’t take it personally…

Fromdusktilldawn · Answer

in that age guys are young and nice in the head, the are learning and dont know boundaries and when its too much yet. If you reject him, do it in a manner that he learns that his behaviour is counter productive and not good to get a girl

Gent207-2 · Answer

Tell him you are no longer interested - block him on all apps and avoid him at all costs.

serious_miss419 · Answer

Don’t reply to him and delete his profile from your accounts. A creep is a creep. They don’t listen - you don’t owe him anything

rienna888 · Answer

looks like he just has a crush on you. I think you should just ignore him

TallAnon · Answer

Have you tried telling him that he should leave you be? Don't hint him in the right direction, tell him. A lot of people are very stupid.. Be frank.

Guy13 · Answer

Ask you Parents.

art84 · Answer

Guy sounds creepy maybe tell him to stop it in a nice way if possible without upsetting him.

Anonymous · Answer

Perhaps you can say to him hey I feel a bit uncomfortable and be honest if you want to talk with him. Tell your friends to how he makes you feel. True friends will understand and support you. Hope it works out well for you. Good luck!

jimmy2 · Answer

Lose him dear toxic is nonthing but pain in your heart

Anonymous · Answer

Just tell him you love him and you’re the only woman for him

dustybiker · Answer

Block him. It will become inevitable anyway.

Nominal · Answer

U can be nice and strictly.

What should I do about a guy that has become creepily attached to me?

Most Helpful Opinions

Most Helpful Opinions

What Girls & Guys Said

What should I do about a guy that has become creepily attached to me?

Most Helpful Opinions

Most Helpful Opinions

What Girls & Guys Said

We're glad to see you liked this post.