He said he only wanted to be friends. He's been stalking my social media for a year.

Rewind to 2021 - I had just graduated from university with my bachelors in finance but I was still working at the library and student services on my campus while I applied and interviewed for graduate jobs.

After spending the last 3 years in avoidant mode, no relationship, no dates, no kisses - a boy that worked at my local Woolworths, who I also recognized as the aloof fellow who smiled at me with intent on campus, found me on Instagram. We exchanged singular brain cell-type responses to each other, but nothing much more.

He frequented the library and socialized loudly in a big ethnic group and at some point I found myself in a conversation with him and a fellow library coworker who knew him through her second job at Woolworths. Perth is small.

I remember looking him up and down, scanning his face, thinking ‘this guy’s head is square like Spongebob’. Ultimately, my medulla oblongata kicked in and decided that this guy didn’t make the cut.

Later after my shift, I decided to be studious and went to a computer room to study. Unbeknownst to me the loud ethnic group of the library were the unofficial occupiers of this room but I walked in and squatted in their territory like it was unclaimed land.

The boy came in and we chatted, bantered. He showed me pictures of the farmland his family had lived on for generations in his homeland.

Eventually, I leave and return home and whilst in my pyjamas he starts sending me flirtatious messages - flirtatious, not salacious. Expressing his interest. However, I didn’t want a stranger picking me up at night in my comfy mismatched sweats to look at the moon. So I softly and shyly declined his offer.

The next day I am reading a book on a picnic blanket in the late morning along the riverside where he joined me.

Making our way through some back and forth chat, to my utter surprise we had chemistry.

He was physically attracted to me, lustfully attracted to me. He made that clear and yet, I felt comfortable.

We spent about 5 hours canoodling and bantering - it was part sensual, part playful and I was dumbfounded that this guy of all guys, the very guy who I had previously written off, was so easy to feel close to.

However, this sensual and pleasant chemistry quickly dwindled. His behavior switched to sweet and naughty to complete perversion and aggression with no tenderness or bonding to balance it out.

This is where I realized I was an inexperienced and unsophisticated gal in the dating realm who had not paid any mind to the ‘levelled up-no dusties-dark feminine’ rhetoric on the internet, which I came to realize would have helped me. Alas, much needed wisdom finds us when we encounter a problem, in this case, a boy.

It's always that first instance of emotional devastation and heartache that sends us on our way through a journey of introspection and uncovering the dark truth about human nature.

Returning to the story, as his behavior and treatment toward me worsened because I wasn’t giving him what he wanted, I called it off after 3 weeks.

Blocked on Facebook and unfollowed on Instagram.

And so began my trip down the rabbit hole of realizing and understanding the true nature of males and how they completely differ from women.

But about 6 months later he sent a follow request for my Instagram and I accepted. I accepted because he had been on my mind for most of those six months.

For the worst reasons. For reasons surrounding shame, embarrassment, anger and rage.

I wanted to stab this guy in the fucking throat.

But I did meet him once more after this 6 month hiatus, and this was mainly due to the fact that I got a graduate job and was leaving the university altogether and leaving the possibility of having contact and therefore, any closure with him.

And even though I went through emotional devastation (Yes, I’m that sensitive. A 3 week blunder with a guy that I didn’t even sleep with had me rattled) and had built up so much hatred and resentment toward this guy - I still hoped for some reconciliation.

To be clear, not reconciliation as in reuniting. I mean simply going for the chance to remove bad blood and at least be on good terms with this person - I did not want to feel any sense of animosity because I hated carrying that energy with me. I don’t want to hate people.

But when I met up with him, it was the same old shit.

Certainly no evidence of reflection on his side, just evidence of him seeing this as another chance at acting on lust.

I was enjoying the physical affection but also not being assertive enough when asking for closure and not being vocal in resisting his advances enough.

Same old shit.

No we didn’t have sex if that’s what you’re wondering, we just danced around it as per usual.

Toward the end of our meeting, he started the conversation of how we should go forward in defining this dynamic, really in an attempt for him to make sure that I knew he was not looking at anything beyond our superficial interactions. When I asked him what he wanted going forward - he said he wanted to be friends. Friends who may meet for coffee once a month. Cool.

I didn’t object to this because I didn’t want anything from this guy apart from an apology for not giving me anything I wanted, not even decent conversation. Ultimately, I knew this male was just a vessel of a harsh lesson that came my way and that I walked into.

In the months that preceded, he’d still watch my stories, like my stories and respond to them on social media etc.

At first I’d engage and then about a month after the last time I saw him, I stopped responding to his messages and stopped contact completely.

Over the next few months that followed he sent a message then deleted it. Then he doubled-messaged me on Instagram with the first message being a picture of the view from the place we last met. I opened the photos and read the messages and simply left him on SEEN.

By the end of the year I had him blocked on Instagram.

So now he’s blocked all my social media, Facebook and Instagram, and he doesn’t have my number.

But then in the beginning of 2023 he found me the only place he could. LinkedIn.

He sent a request which I declined. He then sends a message which landed in my InMail inbox.

And it turned out that he ‘follows’ me - since he couldn’t get me to accept his connect invitation, he followed me instead. I didn’t even know I had the functionality.

I also had LinkedIn Premium, I can see exactly who looks at my profile and how they found me.

He found me by SEARCH - not some mutual or suggestion - SEARCH.

He then, on average, proceeded to check my account once a week or fortnight or month

He even was the FIRST person of 100 people to like my promotional announcement on LinkedIn.

This interval checking went on from January through to September. And that doesn’t mean he stopped in September - in September I canceled my LinkedIn Premium subscription so I could no longer see who was looking. For all I know he’s still stalking.

Anyway, moving forward.

It seems like I could have the last laugh considering I was the one to cut the cord and he was the one to continue to stalk (probably a Scorpio) but at the end of the day, there is no denying how much hurt I experienced and what a negative effect this matter had on me. In my anger I sought to make sense of his ill treatment of me, and I started learning. A lot. I learned a lot about the psychology behind motive and behavior in men and women and physiological differences in males and female bonding.

No man is your enemy, every man is your teacher.

And so moving beyond the pain of embarrassment, betrayal and rejection, I have decided to become a student of, not just myself, but the male and female psyche and the science and spirituality behind the male-female dynamic.

For those of you have started or are interested in the same learning journey, these are channels of the talented people whose content I consumed and continue to consume in my learning journey:

SheraSeven

Mindful Attraction 2.0

Teal Swan

Rabbi Manis Friedman

And let's not forget sacred scripture:

Human Nature by Robert Greene

Why Men Love Bitches by Sherry Argov

Seduction Mystique by Ginie Sayles (an OG of the ‘dark feminine-level up-kept wife’ sphere)

Here’s to our metamorphosis.

All my best,

Carlina