Dear Cenk and Ana,
Last year, I told you I’d been gas lit by institutions. As an out-of-work performer with social anxiety, I relied on my alma mater’s community center’s Fitness and Wellness Center, to socialize. I trust Canada’s most famous university’s students, academics, and low level staff, but the 100K+ -earning professional managers ended my faith in it by violating my rights.
One of the smartest women I’d ever met worked there; she stalked me for months before I talked to her. We’d hit it off for a month and then she’d avoid me like she hated me; when I kept things professional, she’d stalk me more, interrupt my conversations with other women, and reinitiate closeness before repeating the cycle. She seemed to care, as when we ran into each other on the subway, conversing happily. She asked about my “Mad Men” script. I doubted my abilities. Her favorite work was John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. She said he struggled for years to do anything of worth, “and suddenly at, like, 70, he does this amazing… thing! You’re a writer!” No one had ever said anything so beautiful to me; within weeks, she was ignoring me.
In 2016, seeing her depressed for weeks led me to risk turning her off to save her life by revealing I’d sought therapy so she’d consider it; she was kind, then avoided me the rest of the day. 11 months later, in June 2017, I felt bad for refusing her advances the day before, so I confronted her to know if we had a future. Inspired by “Cheers” and “Moonlighting”, I said, “I think, on some unconscious level, you have feelings for me and that makes you uncomfortable and you take it out on me!” Rather than admit to mutual feelings, she said she had none and called Campus Police.
Days later, her gym manager boss said she’d accused me of sexual harassment and threatened to expel me if I talked to her. Yet, next month, when no male staff were watching, she went back to stalking me, moving close when I’d move away, hitting on me, trying to talk to me; thrice, in August 2017, she’d stop 2 feet in front of me on the step machine and stare into my face pleadingly; I shut my eyes. Surveillance cameras captured this, but I didn’t know until notices advertised them in 2020.
My hardcore feminist psychologist assured me I hadn’t sexually harassed her, warned she was dangerous, that I’d defied her unspoken terms by talking about our relationship, and that her flirtations weren’t due to attraction, but her own ego. She was annoyed that I’d apologized to her so much. “You’ve apologized enough. Stop apologizing to her.” Yet she insisted trying to clear my name now would be read as hostile. “If you go in like this, no one’s going to believe you. They’re going to believe her!” I tried to put it in my past.