manipulation

Trinidad Sexism

I rented an apartment at a great price from an elderly man. In front of his real estate agent he informed me there were no issues with utilities and he liked people that kept to themselves and he left people alone. Once I moved in, he began stopping me for random conversations that would eventually lead to comments about my body and statements involving sex or porn. I would repeatedly tell him I was uncomfortable with those conversations and it was inappropriate. He also started cutting off the water for random construction projects before I left for work or church and said he had the right to maintain the property whenever he wanted and it NEEDED to be done. Once inside my apartment, he would continue describing my “enticing” body and come back to topics of sex and porn. He repeatedly asked me if he had a chance with me/ if I would give him a chance/ and if I would be interested in him / what I thought about him/his appearance etc and I turned him down each time. No matter how many times I expressed not having any interest in anything with him, he would tell me I can’t blame him because he is a man and it’s because of the way I look and he sees my body and I have to expect that because he is just being a man. I continued telling him I was uncomfortable and eventually started asking one of my friends to come over any time the landlord had some random project to do in my apartment. The landlord then began approaching me when I was alone and scolding and lecturing me for bringing someone over as if he needed to be watched. I told him it was a matter of my safety and comfort as men I did not know were randomly going through my living space for these construction projects. He insisted that I should be alone when he comes over and that his right as landlord includes coming in whenever he wants to see what is going on in his place. He told me everyone he ever met loves him and thinks he’s the greatest landlord and man ever and I’m the only person he’s ever met that doesn’t love him. He has stopped me from going to work, church, and meetings. I’ve had to stay home for random “fixes” he claimed to have to urgently address which he used to sexually harrass me and claimed he never told me to stay home, I just chose to keep him company. He has also yelled at me for calling him out on it. He insisted to me that my friend coming over to witness what was going on was really just using me for sex and insisted that we were having sex and he KNEW (there was nothing of the sort). However, he would also soften his tone and speak very politely when my friend came over or if he saw that I had my phone on speaker. Due to the COVID situation, my job was affected and I asked the landlord if he would accept the government grant. He said yes but delayed in giving me my last receipt for half a month, which in turn delayed my application. By the end of the first month of missed rent, he gave me an eviction notice. After he sent passive aggressive notes by my door, I sent a lawyer’s letter informing him that he agreed to wait on the COVID grant, and I had offered to stop the grant and borrow cash to pay him and he refused, but that I would oblige and move out. Today he replied via email denying everything and claiming I brought men into the property, distinguished by their skin color. I am still moving out before the time limit given on the eviction notice. A lawyer told me that his denials and claims have nothing to do with eviction and he has no grounds. He is lying about everything and I think it’s because of the rejection to his sexual interest. There is a new tenant that looks like a fearful young woman and I wonder if she is his next target. I am literally afraid of turning on any lights or making a sound to give any indication that I am home to avoid anything more from him until I move out. I have been assaulted before and I am just trying to avoid being on the receiving end of another man’s anger.

Emma

I have a story that I know a lot of women have also been through. A guy I considered to be a close friend of mine admitted he had feelings for me, I politely told him I did not feel the same and bluntly, that it would never happen. The following weeks after I was bombarded with texts trying to force me to change my mind. When I said no he saw it as an insult, insisting that I should be flattered. When I told him to leave me alone after countless 4am paragraphs and turning up to one of my functions, he made me out to be a monster. He was horrible and manipulative and I felt scared to see him on the street. Ladies if your gut tells you a guy is like this block him and do not look back or feel bad!! As women, we are made to feel responsible for His feelings, but the only feelings that matter are yours.

Barb

I am NOT A PRETTY GIRL. Ok everyone thinks I am ugly, and it is true. One day this guy finally paid attention to me, and I fell in love too easy. He knew everything! Every weakness, what to say to make me have sex with him even when I didn’t want to. One day I was ordering a pizza and didn’t have any more money on ANY of my bank accounts. He took the money, but in small increments. (FYI, yes I have money). At first I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought I had overdue payments, and more money was taken. I didn’t want to believe he screwed me over. Sadly I allowed him to use my accounts to do whatever he wanted. It was until I went to his room and found a million different books that I have never seen before. I didn’t even know he read. He was taking notes like a crazy person, from these books. Notes on how to exploit my weaknesses. What to say and when to say it. Not to mention he had several ID’s. There was a lot of Robert Greene in there, and a few others. I don’t remember the names of the books or authors, but I’ll post when I remember. I’ve reached out everywhere and I just need help/a friend. Should I get revenge? Do I get therapy? How can I even recover such a devastating loss?

Elise

I had a friend for many years who always took a fancy to me. He seemed nice and I trusted him and he had been dating my best friend when we were 16 years old. Eventually we ended up at some parties together and he drunkenly used me to cheat on his girlfriend, my best friend 3 times. One of these times involved me being pinned, saying “no” 4 times, and telling them that if he went any further it was molestation. He did not care. He went further. And I was molested by him inserting his fingers in to multiple times, while I was too weak to fight him off of me. I tried to forgive and move on, hoping that if I pretend it never happened, continued being his friend, and never said anything to his girlfriend the incident would go away and I would quit feeling damaged. I tried to speak up, and told 2 of our close friends, but he found out and texted me, infuriated. He later went on to tell me that I was never allowed to talk about it again, and manipulated me by playing victim, and telling me that it hurt him and made him sad when I “brought up something from the past.” Years went by and I thought this boy had changed. At the end of our first year of university we ended up dating. He told me that after college i was to put my dreams aside so that I could follow his. Also during this relationship he would pretend we weren’t together at parties. He instructed his friends to never mention anything about his girlfriend (me) or even that fact that he just wasn’t single. And no, this did not change when I was at those parties with him. He would not dance with me, he would not talk to me, he would not look at me, he wouldn’t introduce me to his friends, he wouldn’t even stand next to me. I later found out he actually enjoyed watching me being flirted with by other men. It gave him some odd and concerning validation by other men that I, as a girlfriend, was attractive and acceptable. While i was being bothered by odd men and extremely saddened by the fact that my boyfriend ignored me in public, i did notice what the goal of this distamce was. He was constantly hitting on other women in front of me at these parties. He would poor drinks for them, take down their numbers, and chat them up all night. When i confronted him about this behavior he quickly made me the villain and said that it was unfair of me to ask him to stop “making friends” and went on to tell me that, even though it made me feel awful, the behavior would continue. At one party another atendee finally noticed this odd behavior and confronted him in front of multiple people about how he should be paying attention to his own girlfriend. My boyfriend at the time proceeded to get very mad at this attendee and told the attendee to stop telling him what to do. Multiple other men approached me that night to explain they had been to multiple parties where they had seen me, and never once got the impression that i had a boyfriend, much less that he was actually at the same party. Eventually I realized I was unhappy and wanted something else, but at the time I was too close to the situation to see how incredibly manipulative he had been. However I did break up with him. Later on in the year i would go on to ask his best friend if he thought that boy had cheated on me, he said he had not cheated on me, but it did seem that he had tried multiple times to do so, only that the attempts failed to be received well by the women he attempted it with. After the breakup we remained friends. However, just to be clear, I told him, about a month after the break up, that I didn’t want to have sex with him. He seemed extremely mad at me for not wanting to sexually pleasure him anymore but also, to my belief, because he had always had an extremely difficult time with women and quickly grasped the unlikelyhood of finding another woman. About 3 or 4 weeks went by and I ended up at a small party at his appartment. He stayed sober, waiting for me to get drunk. Me, being unaware of this tactic, felt I was in a small, safe space, with only close friends and proceeded to, for the first time in my life, get black out drunk. The next morning I woke up, naked, in bed next to that friend, remembering only bits and pieces of the night before. I remember shots, making out with that friend, puking twice, and some fuzzy memory of being naked, on my back, with him on top of me. I asked him what happened and he proceeded to try to initiate sex again. I told him no and moved out from his grasp. He told me we had had sex. This friend kept a security camera in his room that could see parts of his bed so I asked to see the video from the night before as proof. I could only stomach about 5 seconds of the apparently 3 hour rape. I told him that I didn’t like what he had done while I had been in such a state of inebriation. He said, and I quote “I was honestly pretty sober last night…. Yeah, I should have stopped, especially after I realized how bad(ly drunk) you were.” I was shocked. He admitted to being sober, admitted to knowing I was blacked out, admitted to having seen and heard me puke multiple times…. And had continued to sexually assault me for 3 hours. He was my best friend for 4 years and my previous boyfriend. I was beyond hurt. I struggled for a week before I finally broke and ended up telling all of my roommates and my mom about what had happened. I accused him of rape, not because I was going to go to the police, but just because I needed to hear him say it. He went on to deny it, to blame me, and to ignore me as my mental state deteeiorated. All of these things, of course only helped it to deteriorate further. We went to different universities, so I couldn’t even contact faculty to receive a restraining order. Most days I’m fine and I just feel lucky not to remember anything but the 5 seconds of video I saw. But every once in a while I still struggle with this, with being raped, with the fact it was my best friend, with the fact that I can’t put this manipulative sexual predator some place he can’t hurt anybody else. My biggest hope is that one single woman hears this story and somehow gains strength and knowledge from it. The strength and knowledge to leave a manipulative relationship, or to help someone they care about leave one. One of the biggest tellers (and problems) I see is women (and men) making so many excuse for shady/offensive/abusive behavior for their significant other and thinking that is a normal relationship. A partner should not do something to you that you are too ashamed to tell your friends. A happy relationship is not one where you constantly have to forgive and forget things that deeply bother you, or where you are even made to feel ashamed for being bothered. A healthy relationship is not one where you have to say “yes, I know deep down that this is wrong, but he said….” no. You deserve better. The people you care about deserve better. Everyone deserves better than that.

Amy Hilgers

To my first serious boyfriend, You taught me that the most important part of me is my sexuality. That I should be eager to please and easily pleasured and that’s how to earn affection and attention. You taught me that there’s something wrong with me if I’m not pleasured by what you do and how you do it. You pushed me to do certain things enough times that I said yes, because I thought I was supposed to. You shaped, molded, and manipulated me until I learned how to fake intimacy and give everything to be the girl you dreamed of. My thoughts warped to the point that man after man has treated me this way and I didn’t even bat an eye. I swore up and down I’d never let anyone hurt me the way you did. I put my heart in chains and locks, but I somehow forgot to protect my body. The sacred gift that I have from God, I just let it be the object that you taught me it should be. I’ve been sexualized and made to feel like an object by you, by your best friend after you, by men I thought were my friends, by strangers, by an older coworker, by younger boys who thought they had that right too. No, I didn’t let them all have what you had. But I let them objectify me because you taught me to see myself that way too. Now I’m left with the tragedy of what I’ve allowed, but you’ve lived on seamlessly because that’s how it works. That’s how being a girl in this sex-hungry entitled-man’s world is. You should have known better. But the truth is, you get to walk away, somehow, without even being aware of what you’ve done.

M.

I’m sure many women can relate to the following message I had to send a 27 year old Doctor following our first date from Tinder and his 3 oblivious subsequent text messages: “Hi. I feel like I should tell you what I thought about the other night in the hope that you won’t do it again. As soon as you bought that 3rd drink so you couldn’t drive home I knew I wouldn’t see you again. I thought we could have a good evening though but I made it clear I wanted you to stay on the sofa but somehow you ended up in my bed. I then made it clear I didn’t want to sleep with you and you just about seemed to understand that but just because you know the line between consented intercourse you seem to think its ok to blur all the lines in between. No means no if it refers to sex or just taking my clothes off. You were relentless and I found it really disrespectful. At one point I woke up to you rubbing yourself on me while I was asleep which I have no words for. Because you were stuck at my house because you drank too much I didn’t feel like I could do or say anything but I hope you listen to this and respect the next girl who tells you no.