A few years ago, Some girl I was hanging out with just used me to buy alcohol for her and her friends. Like she picked me up to hang out and there would be 2 people with her who I didn’t know and she’d be like “oh by the way, can you get us some vodka”. If this sounds weird to Europeans, the drinking age is 21 in my country. Like was I supposed to say no, after she pressured me into it and probably would have just ditched me if I refused? I don’t like talking about it and I still have mental issues related to her to this day. I was actually doing much better with my mental health and taking care of myself before I met her and that hit me like a train and sent me on the path I’m on now.
Me.
An ex-colleague of mine.
The guy kept up a nice guy act, but was fully self-centered, tried to subtly force his religious views upon the workplace, actively formed cliques to sow disorder and refused to help anyone in any matter that “wasn’t in his contract”. He openly criticized anything that didn’t “meet his standards” and did so in an extremely condescending way.
His charisma attracted many and kept them from seeing through his act. His only goal seemed to be to gain power at any means.
I don’t know why, but I found him suspicious at first handshake. Somehow he just felt totally fake to me. His duties rarely overlapped mine, so I just kept my eye on him from a distance. After about 6 months a leadership opening appeared and he instantly tried to recruit me to his clique. His warm, joyous eyes turned to ice when I turned him down and told him that I’m aware of the game he’s playing.
In retaliation he started a smear campaign against me, but since I had done my duties well and had helped everyone whenever I could for the last decade, there was nothing for him to abuse. His attack backfired gloriously.
Soon after our boss called me to his office to discuss “reports of degligence in my performance”. I knew that these were fabricated, but I was still a bit concerned when I entered the office. Boss told me to close the door and went straight to the point: “How are we going to get rid of this lying asshole? These reports he gave to me about you are complete bullshit, but they are not enough to fire him.” The old sly fox had also been keeping his eyes and ears open and was as aware of the creep’s machinations as I was.
We made sure that the creep didn’t get the leadership position and started to insulate key personnel from his influence by informing them of the faked reports. In the next few months the word got around and his clique fell apart. The fucker was left pretty much alone and after that he resigned.
Thanks for sharing. I’m a domestic abuse outreach worker and he sounds like a perp, classic traits are lying, charm, manipulation, always thinking they’re right and selfishness (and more). It sounds like your gut instinct warned you about him, which is great. You handled it really well 👏
I’m cautious by nature and playing it safe seemed the wisest course to take. The guy built his schemes very cleverly and handled his own duties well, the only mistake he made was when he attacked my reputation.
I was also very lucky to have a boss who trusted me and saw things as they were. One of my co-workers ran into the creep a few years ago and found out that he had kept leaping from job to job until he had landed into a leadership position.
Absolutely. Can I ask a few questions? They may sound odd but there’s reasons. Was he impulsive? Did he have a normal emotional scale, show emotions other than anger? If he did someone a favour did he see it as something that was owed to him, bring it up frequently? Just wondering
I do not find your questions odd, fear not. In retrospect his case is quite fascinating.
Like I said, our duties rarely overlapped and I mostly met him at staff meetings and occasionally at the coffee lounge. He rarely expressed strong emotions - except frustration, since something was always being done “the wrong way” - and the only time I saw him express anger was when I called him out. He was often smiling, but in a weird way where his lips formed a smile but his eyes weren’t fully in on it.
He was the total opposite of impulsive. If you knew when to look, you could see him calculating the next steps before taking action. But he loved attention - he was in charge of the office christmas party planning and he made himself the central figure of the entire show. If there ever was an epitome of cringe, that was pretty much it. This was an apparent blind spot for him, his corridor charisma did not work at all on stage and his act was just plain bad.
I don’t know about the favours. But he would not help others if it wasn’t his job. This one time our old (one year to retirement) janitor was moving desks to another floor and asked me to help him out, since he had a bad hip and the desks were too big for the elevator. I was young and always happy to help, so we started carrying them up. The creep happened to see us working and walked to me and said “Don’t you understand that it is not your job to carry desks? That’s what the janitor is for.” And he said this out loud while the janitor was right there, holding the other end of the desk mid-stairs. I responded “I do understand. I like to help my friends.”
Then he just left and we hauled the desk up. The janitor was pretty much ready to go and punch the creep, but I talked him down.
I’m certain he’s a dv abuser, he shows classic warning signs. I know what you mean when you say about the mask like face that doesn’t go to the eyes.
When you looked into his eyes what could you see?
He was married and had kids. He never showed any violent tendencies and was physically very non-imposing. I always assumed that manipulation and mental games were his primary tools, but one can never really know.
His eyes seemed pretty normal, but I remember that they were always moving. He wouldn’t look you straight into eyes for more than a second or two.
Yep not all abusers are violent and certainly not outside the home. Tbh the extent of the game playing was making me wonder if he had anti social personality disorder (psychopathy). People can often tell from the eyes eg Ted Bundy
Andy Dick. If you live in LA long enough you eventually meet him and he is the worst.
It’s really striking how consistently I’ve heard this
My Dad.
He was verbally and physically abusive, extremely manipulative. He is currently dieing in prison serving out a 25 year sentence for attempted rape and abduction.
I got a DNA test done and then sent the results to all of the forensic genealogy groups because I’m pretty sure he has victims out there.
I’m really sorry you didn’t get the dad you deserved. No child should experience that. Have you found !dadforaminute@lemmy.world it’s great for when you need dad advice or a pep talk
No worries, I learned how to be a good father and have raised my children to be better then me.
I’m totally sure you are a great dad, and kudos to you for that, dear random internet stranger. Congrats on being the one mature and wise enough to end the cycle of abuse, not to follow it. You don’t wanna know how often the latter is the case.
When I was a kid I learned about the “cycle of abuse” I was so sure I would end up like my dad, I started drinking hevely at around 12 and lagit intended to not live long enough to ever be a parent, then after a fairly shitty youth I decided it was time to kill myself or try and fix shit, I had already lost 2 brothers to suicide so I knew the effect that had on the people left behind so I joined the Army reserves and started trying to fix my shit, I thought I was doin pretty good at 27, so I let my then wife talk me into us haveing a baby, my son was born and I dedicated myself to being the best father I could, but wasnt till I was 40 that I started working on mental health (thanks to current wife) my life has had a lot of super not great, but im here and still working on being a good parent.
I know it means shit, but i’m proud of you dude :) It takes a lot to not only ackowledge the existence of the fucking circle, but also to decide against a kid first to protect it (which already was a good sign hm?). And it rocks you didn’t pull through with the suicide-shit. Dunno where you’re from, but in my generation here, mental health is not a thing. Female mental health is “tsk, weak women lol” but men? oh my. Men do not have mental problems. I’m glad the younger generations aren’t that dumb anymore. So yeah, 40 is still a good time to get started and probably still early for men our age :(
I understand why you didn’t wanna have kids/feared having some. I too, did not (and now too old for one). I also feared I’d be a horrible dad, but probably I wouldn’t have been. Who knows. I just didn’t want to find out IF. It wouldn’t have been the kid’s fault.
Ive seen the his royal highness, the sweatiest of nonces, prince andrew from a distance, does that count?
I’ve also met a murderer, I was on holiday in Norfolk as a child and my parents were going to let me go alone to a nearby shop to get the paper that we had been going to every morning. Soon after he was convicted for the murder of a 12 year old he strangled in his house and dumped the body in a layby. I don’t think it was confirmed but the shopkeeper was gay and the kid had got into relations with him then was blackmailing him about it.
A white South African Jew who went to the same (US) community college I did. He’d talk about applying to African American scholarships because he’s from Africa and he’s American. The more I learn about Apartheid the more I regret not slapping that shitbag.
That one’s kinda on the US, giving black people such a stupid name.
One of my good friends growing up has a brother who I knew pretty well.
The brother should be finishing up a lengthy prison sentence for a double homicide pretty soon, IIRC.
This guy from the USA who would treat everybody like shit. He would tell us horrible things and he could get away with it because of how much money he had. He was racist.
Last time I heard about him, he was serving a prison sentence due to corrupt acts
Prison? I heard he is the president now.
