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China Elevator Stories
not everything can be generalized, so please don't
The stalker who has made my life a living hell for more than 3 years in a row is generalizing things that can’t be generalized.
19/06/2024
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
When I signed up for a dating app – not because I was trying to date someone (I am happy being single) – but because I wanted to do a social experiment and try and see what these apps are like, how they work, and how people behave on these apps, one of the first people who appeared on the app so they could harass me was a stalker who has been stalking me using a fake profile.
He didn’t appear with just one fake profile, but with many. I was unable to really enjoy chatting with other men because wherever I went, he would appear and send me messages.
He is very ego-centric and cannot ‘see another person’ in the sense that he’ll make everything about him, that he’ll only talk about himself and his looks constantly without reflecting back what a woman wants, what she needs, what her rights are, that as a man who wants a relationship with a woman he would have to make this woman feel special and not advertise himself instead (while degrading her at the same time).
If a woman said ‘no’ repeatedly, a man who respects women would accept this and move on. No woman wants to be harassed by a stalker who keeps pretend playing that he is in a relationship with her.
Now, I have had to watch his efforts of trying to “advertise himself to me” for a few years. I have said no to him 3 years ago, it hasn’t changed 2 years ago, and it was still the same 1 year ago.
The source of his behavior are videos from YouTubers who teach men how to manipulate women, so that the women will like them. Think videos such as these: “How to get any woman you want”, “How to get her into bed even if she doesn’t like you”, “How to make any woman like you”, “How to get her to be your girlfriend even if she’s not interested in you”.
He projected onto me, for years, that I was the one who wanted to be in a relationship with him. When I told him ‘no’ repeatedly, he tried to force me into liking him. I told him repeatedly that I meant what I was saying and that it was still a ‘no’. In his mind, I had no say in this. If he wanted to be in a relationship with me, he would be in a relationship with me and if I said ‘no’ to this, this was simply not my right or the truth.
I told him that his behavior was inappropriate and disrespectful. Why would I want to be with a person like this?
Because these YouTubers said that men could manipulate women to like them when a woman had already made clear that she didn’t like this man, that men could get any women they wanted even if the woman had already made clear she would never want to be with a sick person like this, this is what he then thought: That he could still make me want him. The way he behaved showed that in his mind I had no right to say no to him, that I would have to like him, and that because these YouTubers said that it was possible for any man to apply these methods to women, the woman he applied this to then also didn’t have a voice.
I told him repeatedly that I would never change my mind about him and that I didn’t appreciate being harassed. The things he projected onto women is not what women want, and it is not what I wanted. A relationship also has to be consensual and there was no consent on my side.
I let him know repeatedly that I found him unattractive, that his behavior was extremely disrespectful, that I wanted nothing to do with him and that this would never change. He still tried to coerce me into talking to him, and into finding him attractive when I didn’t.
“If I say ‘no’, you respect this boundary when you are a respectful man”, I told him. “You do not gaslight my boundary away and pretend that what I say does not count.”
It was already obvious at that time that this was a man who is incapable of maintaining a relationship with a woman. It was also clear to me that his intents were not authentic. I always felt like he was using me for something different than what he was saying and that he was exploiting me. He is a person who is always chasing success (not the kind of true, fulfilling success that can make your life meaningful, but simply a facade of it), a fake life, and getting stuff from others for free without having to create these things himself or having to ever work for these things.
Think my blog – whenever I post a blog post, he’ll think that it was him posting and that he’s now more famous if I post something (even if this post has nothing to do with him). He’ll think that my blog is his blog, me writing is him writing, me doing something is him doing something.
As I have experienced, he is a jealous, greedy person who wants to take away things from others. I believe he wants to have my success, and therefore tries to get close to me. He is in competition with me constantly. Tell him that this is not appreciated? He’ll flip out and will punish you for having an opinion or for telling him the truth. Whatever it is that makes him want to be in my life is not an honest, authentic reason. He was trying to dictate to me what I needed to blog about, and he was trying to bully me into blogging about him when I had told him ‘no’ repeatedly, and that I did not think he was important enough for me to blog about.
Why am I still blogging about him?
Because he has stepped up his efforts of trying to gaslight me into pretending that I do like and want him when in reality I don’t. This is an effort of trying to flush him out of my life or to at least get him to stop his sick efforts of giving me unsolicited feedback and harass me.
I do have a choice in this, but he tries to intimidate me into having no choice (this is misogynistic behavior). Only a man who is not very intelligent would say that I don’t have a choice or start an “I’ll advertise myself to her in an embarrassing, dumb way, so she’ll have no choice but not reject me” campaign that I did not consent to.
You have within you what you have within you. You do not have within you what you try to project you have within you without actually having it within you. Simply because you say you are successful, doesn’t mean you actually are. Simply because you say that you have high self-esteem doesn’t mean that you actually have high self-esteem.
A better way of approaching this would have been to go within and to heal your own issues instead of trying to coerce a woman into having to have contact with you and then – when you have healed your issues – go look for another woman who wants to have something to do with you instead of trying to change a woman who doesn’t want to have anything to do with you into one who does. Guess what? This is an impossibility! You can keep on doing this but the woman will never change. When a woman rejects you, she rejects you. When she doesn’t like your looks, she doesn’t like your looks. When she doesn’t like your disrespectful behavior, you can’t make her like your disrespectful behavior. This won’t change. So don’t try to change her.
Has a man ever tried to coerce you into liking him when you didn’t?