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age
41-50,
anonymous
writes: Recently I stopped talking to an old coworker. I'm not exactly sure why I did it either. We were both laid off on the same day from the same company. When we worked together before, we were work mates and friendly. He would confide in me about his personal life and relationships with women. I listened and sometimes talked about mine. We joked around a lot and made fun of each other, but we never had a romantic relationship and I would never want to because I don't find him attractive at all. But he was a nice, genuine guy and I enjoyed talking to him at that time. Since I got laid off, I started to taking courses, and licensing exams to make use of my time. I also started looking for work. He didn't really do much but watch soccer. At first I didn't think it was such an issue. He's a bit older and had worked a lot longer than I had and he could probably afford to just hang out for a while. I would take a break from studying and watch soccer with him. At times he would just call and want to talk.And he's started more often to want to just hang out or go out for lunch. At one point he was starting to text me several times a day with any thought that popped into his head. I even mentioned off hand that I don't like being texted all the time. It started to be a bit much and I was trying hard to focus on my work. I turned down some of his invitations to hang out.He then got worried and redoubled his effort. I then told him I needed some space and alone time.Then he got very anxious and started to flirt in a kind of corny, over the top way. We would be out in a group of friends and he'de ask me if I missed him or try to corner me. He seems to disregard the fact that I didn't react either. He just kept flirting. It started to creep me out. So I froze him out. He calls or texts now on a weekly basis. It's been going on for about 2 months. I haven't talked or seen him in a month and I really don't want to. I'm not sure how to deal with him. I feel badly because I know other girls have done exactly what I'm doing now, freezing him out and he feels badly about it, even angry at times(?). A former workmate told him point blank, "Look, I'm not interested in you." He was mortified and complained about it to me. I don't know how to handle him head on, but I don't know how to tell him he is creepy and makes me increasingly uncomfortable. I don't want to waste my time emotionally propping up someone who isn't even trying to help themselves. Am I judging him too harshly because he's "unemployed"? Any thoughts?
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male
reader, als77  +, writes (7 January 2011):
I don't know you, him or much about your situation so I might be wrong, but here are some thaughts :)
Loosing your job must be very hard (him watching soccer all day may have been a desperate try to not think about having lost his job...), and having someone in the "same boat" is a relief. Suffering together bring people closer, and maybe this ended up in romantic feelings for you (or maybe they were there all along? Or maybe there are no romantic feelings, just misunderstandings?).
If you became a rock for him, and then "suddenly" that rock is slipping away, then desperate is not as strange.
I guess you have to answer yourself one questions: Do you want to spend time with him if he stop acting creepy/desperate (that is, if he behaves like he did initially)? If so, then I think you should be honest about this (it may hurt him, but parts of his desperation may be the feeling of loosing you as a friend/rock!). If you don't want anything more to do with him (even if he stops acting creepy) then I still think you should be honest, but then you would have to find a "right way" on letting him down (right=respectful).
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