icky social situation taken out of context and twisted

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I had a really good friend, arguably the friendship developed into one of my best friends for about a year. Little did I realize that he had a huge, obsessive crush on me. I couldn't recognize it despite all the gifts and some of the extra efforts he put on me. From my point of view, I tried to offer things about half of the time back. He has told me that I should have recognized the signs, but whether I should've or not, I really did not.

It,hurts that I trusted him as a good friend before with the situations that transpired after a year. He was that good friend actually. I have been in only 2 very short lived relationships in my life, and they both happened when I was closer friends with this other person. The first person was not attracted to me after our first encounter, but he respected my privacy and me as a person at least. The second person, he rushed me and slightly raped me. I just stay away from the second person now and do not talk to him. I just broke that relationship off a week later and would not make any comments besides that things were too rushed. 2nd person tried to reach out to me a few times, but all requests were ignored. Second person is "still on my Facebook", but I didn't want to cause any immediate provoking for something bad, so I've just "had him on my friends list" for now. I had shared these intimate details with this good friend, and to see him describe it as me ignoring him and "getting into the sack" with another person hurts very deeply. He makes it sound like I was trying to purposely use him and just have fun. That is not the case at all, and I know that he knows that. Otherwise, if I didn't care about him as a friend at the time, why would I even want to tell him about the relationship to begin with?

After I told him about my second relationship, he had a last minute, long talk with me after he help me fix a vid camera for a stressful job at an urban school. Instead of about 15 minutes, I had to give him 1 hour plus even though it was affecting myself and my job, but he was a good friend. In some ways, still is. He started screaming at me about how I could get all these things and how he has never had anyone, and kept pushing me to come up with specific reasons why I was not attracted to him. So, I told him out in a calm manner, and he was thankful for a truthful answer. In the long run, he has taken the answers as if I was trying to insult him directly and with no care. We had a strong friendship, and I still held on until the few times after that, he had bouts of yelling at me. It hurt that he was telling other people his side and what I felt was not the whole story. There was lot of emotion involved on both sides of course, so after the constant conflict, I needed space.

He admits that he was (overly) obsessed with me, and when I told him my point of view about everything from the beginning and why I did the things I did, he understood it completely. But he still makes it seem to others that I just simply purposely tried to use him and did not care about him. It hurts that I was only interested in a friendship with him and not a romance and couldn't recognize that he wanted this at the time. Just because you are attracted to a person does not mean they have to be physically attracted to you back.

There was discussion about how I made a comment how I would not go out with a person over 10 years older than me probably. I guess I was wrong. When he asked me that at the time, it didn't even hit me that he could be referring to me.

I explained how I've been so used to cultural circumstances where my family would be like this a lot and they would push me to give to others even if it felt inappropriate to me. The generosity that I used to give out, it was like I was trying to buy friendship unintentionally and learned the hard way that these people were actually turned off by the generosity. Now, I realize that a lot of them probably thought I wanted to date them when really it was just me of showing a sign of that I think we are developing a good friendships (and if there is a connection, a romance might be nice.) I feel like I was trying to be bought off without realizing it. The difference is, I tried to give back, and not intentionally in any way, shape, or form take advantage of the situation.

We are both in a social group, and after this event, I started to notice a lot of tension. It was as if my pure existence was angering him, and this happened for months. One day, he reached out to me and just started to talk to me like everything was normal. I couldn't play the part though because I was so overcome with the unnatural setup and the emotion. It was not natural. It did not feel real. It hurt. I get the situation and why everything happened the way it did, but I have feelings too.

After my last bit of communication with this person, he tried to contact me back on FB and IM. In one of the messages, it said he was no longer angry with me, just at the "beginning," which is really about 5 months long. I did not feel comfortable to respond because I had spent over 3 months drafting up at least 3 pages, single spaced, of information full of emotion. It just didn't feel right, nor did the circumstances I had in writing the document. I will not explicate about this part, because the person I'm writing about will probably read this very soon.

I am drained emotionally of time and energy. I just need to focus on my full time job and make it as successful as possible. All this drama that was probably unnecessarily created has hurt the friendship greatly. A number of people have purposely (somewhat) distanced themselves from me because of this situation. In some cases, I know that it is only because they don't want to and can't deal with the emotional turmoil that this whole situation has brought about.

What's ironic is if I'm "such a bad person", how come all these other people that he is confiding in won't date him then? All the anger is senseless. Dating and sex are real life, but there is much more to life than that.

Time will definitely heal at least some wounds, that is about the only thing I really can think about right now.[b]

Last edited by chessimprov on 27 May 2012, 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

There has been too much drama in this relationship--mostly on his part. Just tell him that, and that this is a turn off. Also tell him it takes two to make a romance. Remind him of what you posted here--that just because one person is attracted to another, that other person isn't automatically attracted to the first person, and is under no obligation to pretend to return the affection. And tell him if he can't tone down the drama then the friendship is over.

And if he doesn't tone it down do end the friendship. Drama queens and kings are real big on manipulating people. The people around them tend to give in to the DQ/DK to keep them from ranting, but the ranting is a form of manipulation to get their way. That's not friendship. That's riding rough shod over people.

As for the other relationship that went real bad, take the guy off your contact lists, and block him from your phone. You are under no obligation to continue "friending" someone who isn't a friend. Just send him one email for politeness sake, telling him you are not interested in any further contact with him. Then terminate all contact.

One more thing. You need to be more careful in your relationships.

You don't sound like a bad person. Even if you guessed that he might fancy you, it's very hard to tell for sure without straight-out asking (and that can sometimes come across as big-headed). It's up to him how good a 'friend' he wanted to be (as long as you were nice and said thanks when he helped you out)- you don't owe him a relationship.

I can see why he's hurt, and jealous, but it's largely his own fault for hanging around so long as a 'friend' and not letting his real feelings be known. Accusing you of 'getting in the sack' after you explained the details to him is disgusting; the two of you were never going out and it's none of his business who you date.

It's up to you if you want to reconnect with him. He may not be angry with you anymore, but it's a two-way thing and you need to decide if you feel comfortable around him.

er, think very carefully...

edit; questor is right; you need to be more wary about people who do loads of things for you, or seem too good to be true. they may want something more than just friendship. It's a learning curve; I've definitely made the same mistake when I was in my teens/early twenties.

Just because he's never had anyone doesn't mean you should have to go out with him or sleep with him out of charity. Nor can he make it your fault that you didn't know about his feelings – if he wasn't successful in communicating them, that's his fault, not yours. He seems to have self esteem issues, as well as major problems respecting others peoples' choices. And asking you why you're not attracted to him is frankly ridiculous; attraction is not a conscious decision based on thought-through logic. I think his behaviour towards you has bordered on abusive, that there's a risk it could get worse (e.g. it sounds as if he's trying to sabotage your other friendships as well as stressing you out in a big way, and if you don't give him what he wants those things could escalate), and that you should drop him as quickly as possible whilst he goes away and grows up.

I know that sounds harsh, but you've already been in a rushed situation that turned into a rape (it's not a case of being 'slightly raped', if you said you weren't ready but he went ahead anyway it was a rape), and now you're being pressured unreasonably and having your friendships undermined by this man. I think your instincts that you need some space are absolutely right. You need time and space to find a man who is prepared to respect you, and who is grown up enough to understand that people with autism/AS have all sorts of challenges when it comes to relationships and need time, patience and kindness. There are plenty of good men out there. In the meantime, any you encounter who can't offer you respect and an adult (as opposed to adolescent) approach to romantic relationships should be calmly but firmly shunted out of your life. You deserve better.

The reason it was "slight" was because it was unconcensual for him to touch me orally, He just started to do it, and stopped immediately after I asked him not to, but I felt humiliated because I know that he knew that I wanted to go slow. I didn't want to take it to that level. It was my very first time with him. He didn't penetrate me. Maybe this slight experience was meant to help me avoid more serious catastrophes, and that is the way I really need to look at it now.

I'm just glad I am fine and can move on from this point on.

This person who is/was a friend before, he is on the spectrum as well. We had earned each others trust to the point where we could talk about each others' problems and try to help each other get through at least some of them. When we hung out, it was me deciding just about all the time, but every now and then I did try to give my friend opportunities to come up with ideas and I would try to let him know that his input at any time was okay.

Now that I think about it, he did have one other encounter, which he doesn't count. It was basically a lot of open mouthed kissing, but didn't seem to go further than that. He knows it wasn't real at all now, and that's probably why he doesn't count that as "an experience."

However, after the slew of events that was described previously, that trust was broken. I do believe that time and lots of certain types of talking may be needed. I won't mention specifics because if the person I'm talking about is reading this, he's going to do something because he is acting like a robot reading this, not because he really means it or know how to be emotional in a good way. He needs to talk to other people about how to best resolve the friendship, not keep saying bad things about me that in my opinion are not true or not totally true. Now I see that the rageness has come online and it has gone unnecessarily way outside of our social group even to a person who's mother's boyfriend is discriminatory. I know everyone needs people to talk to, but gee whiz man.

Most people can't believe that I am on the spectrum and some think I am misdiagnosed. I don't quite fit in with the real world, and many in the aspie world are very untrustworthy of me or just do not give me a chance. Somehow, I know that a big part of it is because I have been able to make myself function well enough in society, but still keep my own personality and identity without being a burden to others. Most people I meet, it sticks out more what traits are uncomfortable around them, and many are with their parents. I luckily have parental support but they are still 7 hours or so away from me. I am glad that I can learn to live more on my own, because I will need to be able to do so one day anyway.

When I look back, I begin to actually understand a little bit about why I did the things I did, why some people reacted the way they did, and the fact that my parents did not realize that they were putting me down unnecessarily and holding my self confidence back for the longest time.

The best way for anyone to "get out of the rut" they may feel they are in are to try to do things you don't like, even if in small steps, and try to expose yourself to different activities. Expect a lot of pain and confusion, and hope for a support network of people who will try to listen to your situations. As they say, knowledge is power.

Thank you for your support all!

I felt like I had to get this off of my chest, and it was related enough to the past situation that I am adding it now.

I know I need to stop trying to look at the posts by said person before me that I know refer to me. As it is in human nature, once you bump into one or a few, you get really curious and want to know omre.

It's frustrating to see that he finds ways to pick at things that were actually to be supportive. Things that I did not even think of and were really part of conversation and not attacks.

I know I'm not the best with my words either all the time, but in some cases, it's really poor judgment on his part no doubt. And I know in a way he's wondering why we can't just "be friends" again. We both would like to be friends again because we are both good natured at heart. But our personalities, how we carry ourselves through life, have turned out to be so different. We've both spent a lot of time and energy in different ways. I hope this person can stop using his autism as an excuse for being a burden and taking his energy not just out of me, but apparently out of other people too. I know his autism makes it harder to understand the intricacies for what they really are. He can still be a friend, but he has a lot of work and thinking about himself to do. A 10 second IM or 1 liner Facebook message is about as impersonal at it gets, and that will just not do after what he put me through. He needs to grow up big time.

What I did not want to reveal before, I think it's okay to now after some thought on my own and experiences with the situation.

The document that I mentioned earlier is important to mention in the fact that it makes the situation even a bit more uglier.

It was a fake apology letter. The idea came from me talking with a Mr. A's friend , "Mr. B". Mr. B felt that I should write an apology letter and get in bed with Mr. A even though Mr. B agreed that my explanations to said former friend were understood and that Mr. A's reaction was quite convoluted and not right to say the least.

Later on, a group that Mr. A and I both were in, there is an organizer, whom I will call Mr. C. As the go-to-counselor of the group, I let him know about the situation once he mentioned how overly angry Mr. A was getting toward him and how much Mr. A was downing himself.

I also let Mr. C know about my idea about a letter, but about how I did not feel it should be an apology letter. After about 1 month of editing, I sent my 2nd draft for him to look at, and he changed it and implied that I needed to give up my dignity because it was the best thing to do for all of us to calm Mr. A down and for me to lie about how I really felt about the situation at hand. I ended up doing just that, and as a result had to quit the group because submitting that letter hurt my feelings. Now, Mr. A thinks I really feel those things that were in the letter, and thinks that he was totally right and that everything should be back to "normal." He can't understand (or does not want to understand) why things are the way they are, and in a way, will probably always hold that on to me until something/(a whole hell of a lot) changes.

After some more thinking and looking back, I realized Mr. C also, if I remember correctly, asked me for more money than the regular membership fee for the group for the following year. As a response, I told him I was not planning another year and had already submitted a letter to leave (or get promoted) with early notification. I did not want to be a tattle-tale, so I did not push the issue. I left the e-mail listserv and after a host of emotions and being asked to give feedback on how the group can be improved, then I decided that it was time that I give them my opinion because it was asked for. It hurts that I would be asked for more money due to Mr. C's poor organization of funds, but what hurts more is that despite him understanding my situation, he used that as a way to get me out of the group. Mr. A will probably be able to get more funding for the group eventually in the long term, but if I needed to leave, I could have been just asked without all this unnecessary drama. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.

I know I can move on, but I just need that much more space than I originally expected. I hope someone can respond to this situation, preferably somebody nice and caring!

I had a very similar situation once with a guy whose brother used exactly the same tactic on my cousin and then on my sister. And what's even funnier, their parents do exactly the same to people, in hopes of friendship. They're 4 very miserable people because, of course, they never get back what they thought they were working hard for. People are not stupid and even we, aspies, can see through these sad games. If it's any consolation, you'll be wiser from now and not give this kind of sad, loser game-player a second thought. They're so unfairly, secretly manipulative that they do deserve to be used during their "hard work" phase I and tossed during their "reproach" phase II. How dare they reproach that all their efforts at manipulating you didn't get them what they secretly wanted. THEY are the users.