So I believe I have mentioned a crazy person is in love with me. I cut this crazy person off for good when I moved here after a brief period of dating. And yet, the e-mails have still kept coming, even though I answer thusly: “Yes.” “No.” “Perhaps.” Lately, I have just stopped answering.
Anyway, CuckooBird got word I was back in town due to our having mutual friends and me running into one of his colleagues on the street. I was staying, with my paramour, in a hotel that was just around the corner from CuckooBird’s work and was going to meet my best friend there for a drink before I had to go to work function with aforementioned paramour. About 10 minutes before our meeting, she texted frantically: “Do NOT go to the bar in the hotel! CuckooBird is there right now having a drink with a contact!”
And so fine, we didn’t go. But before long he knew I was in town, asked her about it and she told him indeed, not only was I in town, but I was staying at the very hotel where he himself was having a drink. AND HE WENT NUTS.
By nuts I mean I began receiving angry, hostile e-mails that went on all night, while I was dining with my paramour and then preparing to engage in our fifth round of loving after a morning and afternoon spent on Planet Carnal Bliss. The e-mails were insane, nonsensical, and if you read them, you’d believe that he and I had been engaged to be married and I had run off on him without explanation a week before the wedding. And yet, by nights’ end, he was pleading with me to come and stay over at his apartment. The next morning, as my paramour and I left the hotel hand in hand to go have breakfast, I am pretty sure I saw him ducking into a convenience store across the street.
I reamed him out the night of his e-mails and yet got another one again the next day, trying to explain himself. And so now my question is this: do I send him one long-ass e-mail, spelling out for him his complete insanity and warning him never, ever to contact me again? Or do I just ignore and delete? He is so nuts that I actually feel silence will be seen as a sign of encouragement to him, and that I might need to seriously and menacingly read him the riot act once and for all.
ButtercupPunch - "La clique, c’est chic!" 
October 26, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Send a short, but firm, email. “Stop contacting me, I have already blocked your email address.” If he calls, block that too.
October 26, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I agree with M. This has just gone too far, and he needs to know that. As well as the fact that you will block all contact from now on. Good luck.
October 26, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Agreed. The full-rage Riot Act may be seen as encouragement (“but she cares enough to yell at me!”), so a firm “I am not interested in any contact with you. Go away now.” email followed by a phone # block and email block is probably your best bet.
Do you think he’ll do anything more drastic, like up his stalky behavior? If so, maybe be prepared to get an anti-harassment order against him.
October 26, 2008 at 3:19 pm
I did it, ladies. Have sent the short, forceful e-mail. I don’t think, because I am many miles away, he will do anything more drastic but I have no doubt he might have if I’d stayed in Canada. I could have certainly seen him showing up at my house drunk and that sort of thing.
But he’s in the legal profession so he knows what I would have in my arsenal.
Let’s put it this way, however: I am glad we live far apart.
October 26, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Good for you, Trix! M is wise in the ways of the rejection email.
What a scary, nutso sonofabitch. I’m glad you live far apart too.
October 26, 2008 at 4:13 pm
send a martin blank over to rough him up a little.
October 26, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Had I been earlier I would’ve told you to send a clear and honest email without becoming a mean person. He’s clearly in love and as long as he’s never been awful to you..name calling, disrespect, etc..he probably just needs a firm reality check, not a smack down.
October 26, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I sort of did that, lesbiansaywhat. I was kind but firm. I pointed out what needed to be pointed out and dispelled many of the myths he’s been operating under. Short, to the point, but essentially kind.
AYL: Martin Blank!! “If I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there.”
October 26, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Bless it. (Since B is otherwise occupied at present.) Glad you took M’s advice. She gets it done when it comes to crazy bitches.
October 26, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m delurking for this because it worries me. All my advice is from the book The Gift of Fear:
He doesn’t think of this relationship the same way you do. Any form of contact maintains some kind of relationship in his mind. So if you say you won’t contact him, follow through. If you respond after 100 crazy emails, it teaches him that it takes 100 crazy emails to get an answer from you.
Don’t block him from your email – if possible, change your email, let the people you want to contact know about your new address, and let him continue sending emails to the old account.
Save his correspondence so that you have evidence if his behavior escalates.
Do not get anyone else to talk to him for you or send him a message. This gives him the idea that you’re ambivalent about cutting him off, or else you would have told him directly.
And finally, if you feel seriously threatened, listen to your instinct.
Good luck with all this.
October 26, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Concur w/M….cut this fruitcake SOB off in a 1 sentence email. (Glad to read your follow-up post indicating said action!)
Not to be the bearer of paranoia, but please be careful in the coming months. He’ll either accept your decree or escalate. Please contemplate NOW what you would do in that unwelcome situation.
October 26, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I will, GreenEye.
I am thinking back on my apparent crime. What was it again? Oh yeah, I ended a brief relationship with a control freak. And then I had the gall to return to my hometown and have a drink with my BFF and not invite him to come along, even though I broke it off almost two months ago. That was my crime.
October 26, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hiding in a convenience store is fucking demoralizing. Shit is low rent.
October 26, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I’m about to “out myself” as having no clue about texting, but alas…do you have a way to keep these text messages and document when you received them, etc.? Is it like e-mail that way? I would definitely do this, as it sounded pretty threatening. If he ever bothers you again, make vague reference to the fact that you’ve been compiling this stuff (i.e., texts and e-mails) and watch him turn and run. If the bonehead still doesn’t get it, file a police report. This is the kind of behavior that evolves into the really scary stuff.
I hope you still had a fab time with the yummy man who loves you even if you have a boreal forest! :)
October 26, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I did, Pais. It was almost spiritual. Now we’re both pining and miserable, however — that’s the down side.
October 26, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Thanks Bucks. Can’t really change my e-mail because it’s my work e-mail, but I can block him and will do so.
I suspect I will hear from him in a couple of days all apologetic and pleading but I won’t even see it.
October 27, 2008 at 9:11 am
Aw, so lovely to hear that your time with the paramour went beyond expectations but please be careful with the psycho. Save everything he sends you and document everything just in case, I’m very glad you live far, far away.
October 27, 2008 at 9:37 am
I second the rec to read/follow The Gift of Fear. This guy is textbook, and he is exactly the sort who will take any contact, no matter how ambivalent, angry, accidental or cursory, to mean that further contact from him is expected, encouraged, even welcomed.
If you can set it up so his emails are filtered into a folder marked Crazy Pants, that would be ideal.
October 27, 2008 at 6:47 pm
If only there was a way to change the ring tone on his phone to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” every time it rang.
October 27, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Z.E.R.O contact. None. Not a peep. Pretend he’s dead.
October 27, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Post the emails on one of those ‘don’t date this crazy guy’ sites, along with his name. Don’t say anything slanderous – just let him know you’ve done it, lay out how you met, then let the crazy speak for itself.
October 27, 2008 at 9:03 pm
In light of the tragedy that happened to Jennifer Hudson’s family, I say that you drop off the face of the planet. Beware of CRAZY. I second Kadinsky, Z.E.R.O contact.
October 27, 2008 at 10:23 pm
The man sounds like he has been over-dosing on the crazycake.
Shut that stuff down quick.
No contact. Do not acknowledge his existence.
October 28, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Trix, I can tell you from personal experience, that when it comes to crazy, no distance is too far. Johnny Depp has restraining orders against me in four countries. But seriously, I do know.
Not trying to be a scary old lady, just have a plan in mind, as someone suggested, in the event that he shows up sometime.
October 29, 2008 at 4:57 am
Wow that ‘Gift of Fear’ advice is right on. Dealing with control freaks is almost like brain surgery..you can never be too careful.
Speaking of, anyone else watch ‘Sons of Anarchy’ on FX? Last episodes totally dealt with abusive stalker exes. They dealt with it by putting one in his head. Of course, I hope it never comes close to this for anyone here. If it does, let us know. We be packin.