What do you call this when someone does this?

[Notanumberuser]

Random acquaintance - friend of a friend I met on a couple of nights out where I used to live. I’ve moved since and haven’t seen them since.

See my friends but this person was on the periphery so I haven’t seen them.

They are unwell physically and quite depressed with it I think - I have empathy for them, but the constant negativity was irritating me.

Last week they posted a rant about the NHS and how crap it was and they wished ill on some unspecified members of nhs staff who have been involved in their treatment.

That was the final straw for me and I unfriended them. I’m a stupid plonk and didn’t realise that unfriending them on facebook didn’t take them off messenger.

Anyway, 5 mins literally after I unfriended them they started facebook messaging me -

I see you have unfriended me

I’m sorry if I have done anything to upset you can you tell me what I’ve done

So I told them that the rant against the nhs staff member was not acceptable to me

Now I’ve been getting messages every day and they are

I’m sorry you feel that way

I don’t want any hurt between us

I’m really sorry that my words hurt you

I don’t want to feel I upset you

And on and on and on in the same vein.

I have forwarded the messages to my friend who is friends with them (god that’s complicated even to type!) and suggested that they get them help with their MH as it’s clearly an issue but what’s it called when someone does this?

They are clearly very depressed and unwell and the physical issues the doctors can’t find a reason for they have suggested are psychosomatic (sp?)

They are messaging and messaging I am not responding (I have had 4 messages in the space of writing this post) - what do I do? Will I make it worse for them if I continue to ignore them?

I don’t know how he knew i’d Unfriended him but it took him less than 5mins from me doing it to him messaging me. My profile is closed down to anyone I’m not friends with.

I’m convinced I did the right thing from the messages he was sending which were all to do with how he valued our ‘relationship’ and the ‘relationship’ and what close friends we were. I literally met him twice or three times on a night out. We never ever had anything even close to a relationship.

His conditions are nothing like endo (obv) and he has had many many investigations at 2 or 3 different hospitals and he’s had loads of support from his work who have kept his job open for him while he has been off on extended sick leave. Honestly his issue is at least in no small part MH related but he won’t go for counselling because he doesn’t see it as part of the problem.

By the way Tammy. I have empathised, sent messages in replied to long messages from Facebook messanger and wished this person well.

This is not a friend of mine. This is a friend of my friend’s boyfriend who I have met literally twice maybe three times in my life. I owe him the sum total of fuck all. He is not someone I am close to. I don’t live near where he does and in point of fact haven’t seen him in years and wouldn’t go out of my way to see him (as I said in my OP). Why do I owe him anything when his page on facebook (which is the limit of our interaction) is making me feel upset?

Coming back to this as I spoke to my best friend about it on the phone last night (she is also facebook friends with him but as with me doesn’t really know him in RL) and the first thing she said was ‘was that you. Oh’

I asked her and it transpires that he has posted a very very manipulative attention seeking narcisstic post on Facebook calling me (obliquely) a horrible person who didn’t support him and using words to describe our interaction like friend and mate and he has loads of cheerleaders who have come on and been really really spectacularly nasty to me (even though they don’t know me) they have accused me of being a horrible person mentally unwell with issues who needs to hold a mirror up to my behaviour

But - if you read his post you would think we were best friends of years and years and not just someone I met once on a night out and said a brief hello to one other time.

I don’t know whether to contact him or leave it - my friend wants to set the record straight but I’m not sure there is anything to be gained from that. It feels terrible to have been so maligned as I have been on his post though.

Rather than unfriend them you could have unfollowed them. They then don't appear in your newsfeed and they wouldnt know.

I've done this with a few who post constant drivel or endless pics of them on nights out wasted.

Yes but he’s not my friend. I don’t interact with him in real life and I will never see him - he lives 90 mins away and unless I ran into him on a night out i’d Never arrange to meet him for eg.

Why can’t I just remove him?

Don’t contact him. He sounds mentally unstable and could turn into a stalker type situation if you give him the slightest encouragement or mixed signals.
Maybe time to start keeping a diary of incidents, in case he gets nasty.
You sound like a nice person and very trusting but please be very cautious.

I do feel as if it’s harassment what he’s put on facebook and I feel totally weirded out (the messages he sent were most odd)

I don't think there's a huge amount you can do.
If he's sending that many messages and that upset about it after only meeting you a couple of times, then this is all about the drama for him and anything you do is just going to feed it.
Definitely block him on messenger. My understanding is that you're unlikely to see him again in RL (?) so try and leave it at that.
Sooner or later, he'll find someone else to rail about
Imo anyone with any sense tends to recognise that the kind of 'I'm so hard done by by a friend I won't name on FB' posts says a lot more about the poster than whoever they're complaining about. Reasonable people don't deal with relationship upsets by posting on Facebook for the likes.

And yes, I’ll write it down and keep a diary that’s a good idea. Thank you.

Jenny one of the reasons I unfriended him was because he was sounding more and more unstable in his posts on facebook and I really don’t want to be involved in that - he’s not someone I am really friends with and I don’t want to have to support him through crisis after crisis.

Could you send one last message asking him to stop? This is actually quite scary, hopefully he will give up soon. Has your other friend replied yet?

No but other friend who I sent the original messages to was, I now know, at a wedding yesterday.

Get your friend to take a screenshot of the post about you as evidence. If you get any more contact from him go to the police. Harassment is a crime.

I’ve just screenshot the post and all the replies. HIs facebook is wide open to the world.

Thank you that was good advice Raisins.

Not blocking someone in order to receive more messages so that you can then use those messages to demonstrate harassment is placing yourself at the centre of the drama.

If you don’t want to receive the messages, don’t. You know where the off button is.

This person hasn’t named you in their Fb post about it, as you are acquaintances, it is unlikely that any cheerleaders know (or care) who you are. You taking this personally just escalates the person you I friended having taken it personally.

You will never meet them again, just block, forget it and walk away.

I didn’t think of blocking them I only unfriended and I certainly didn’t expect a slew of messages 5 mins later. That was not placing me at the centre of the drama and feels like I am being blamed. I replied once and only one to make clear why I had unfriended them.

How has that been putting myself at the centre of the drama .

Because now you are concerned that blocking them will remove the messages.

Just block them and be fine with it. Tell other mutual friend ‘all done and dusted, blocked, end of story ‘.

Unwanted messages = block.

You are not being ‘blamed’.

I need to keep the messages because I’m scared. They’re weird. They make me uncomfortable and I want to keep them in case his harassment escalates.

The only reason I hadn’t blocked yesterday, as I said, is because I didn’t want to have them disappear if I blocked him.

And I had already said that and said yesterday I had blocked him on messenger and before you posted so aggressively I’d alreasy said he’s blocked on Facebook now too.

I wasn’t not blocking him to receive more messages. I was not blocking so as not to lose the ones I had already received

Just block them, life is too short for all that nonsense.

You've done the right thing and now don't be tempted to enter into the fray re his other comments. He'll hopefully move on to the next person he wants to rant at

You don’t lose the messages by blocking someone.

Christ there’s no need for all this nashing of teeth. Block the daft twat, tell your friend you’re not interested, don’t care what the hell hes posting and move on with your life.