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widowbits-blog · 1 year

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Victims Make for Nice Ladies

This story is two-fold:

Dealing with sexual harassment from the widowed edge

A widowed reaction to how I handled that harassment

Swapping COVID Shutdown stories one night, I shared the rare story about renting a room for the first time after living rent free traveling the world for 5 years as an international house sitter. I was not looking forward to paying rent but my business collapsed in 3 days once they called the shutdown. I had no job and no home. So I reached out to someone in my meditation group, which I’ve been participating in for around a year. He had mentioned at an event once that he rented out a room in his home from time to time and that if I ever felt the need for a stationary residence we could talk. So we talked during the first days of shutdown and struck up a deal.

It was clear in the first few days that he had a problem interacting with women. Covert narcissist with a hero complex. Okay. I realized that if this arrangement were to work, I could never take the bait with him and get into arguments. I needed to focus on myself. My work. My future. He would regularly try to push my buttons because he knew what made women angry and what made them scared. I know this technique. I didn’t quite know how I knew but he reminded me of past boyfriends and I decided with him that I would not follow the same path as I had in the past with men. I would react in the exact opposite way to him until the shutdown was lifted with my focus squarely on renting my own place.

After a few weeks, he acquired a girlfriend who distracted him from me, and I started getting secret requests (due to the shutdown) for overnight house sits. So our living arrangements, from my perspective, were working out. I would go on 7-14 day house sits and stay at the owner's homes with the love of animals and a space of my own. I’d check in for mail and belongings at my residence every few days. After a few weeks though, I had this insane feeling that he had been in my room. I thought that things had been moved but couldn’t be in any way sure. It was just a creepy feeling. I shook it off and regained focus. I needed to keep making money, paying bills, and raising my credit score to be attractive to leasing companies with nice apartments in the upcoming months.

Then the inevitable happened the following week. He put my mail in the neatest pile on the corner of my bed where I would see it when I walked through the bedroom door and took my shoes, which were to be left at the front door, neatly set on the bedroom floor at the corner of the bed under the mail. He wanted me to react by going out to him in fury waving my arms and confronting him about being in my room while he stood as the victim of my monstrous anger. A reason to ask me to leave without notice among other things; a reason to make his girlfriend jealous, a reason to get the passionate attention he’d been looking for from me. From his girlfriend. Who knows? Once again though, I couldn’t be 100% sure. Was it him? Was it his girlfriend? Was it me? Was I just nuts? I couldn’t really have that conversation with him without being sure of the details. I felt violated but I simply had no time to be violated. I refused to make my housing decisions out of desperation. I wasn’t going to live in a dump because I’d pick the first apt that would get me out of his place the soonest. Fuck that. I just did that very thing during the shutdown with this nut sack now doing who knows what in my room. Fact of the matter was, this guy was and may still be a freakshow. I wasn’t about to move the spotlight off of him by freaking out myself, so I cooled down and thought about an alternative move.

To buy myself some time I did not react. I was as nice as pie around the house. Syrup. Honey. Helpful.

And then it came to me. I bought a camera and placed in right atop my headboard with a flashing red light that’s easy to see when walking in my door.

Sure enough. 2 mornings later. I caught him. I thought the notification was a false read of shadows crossing in front of the lens but no, it was this motherfucker rummaging through all my things. He was smelling my desk lamp. My desk lamp? And shaking his head in disapproval at it. He was in my closet rummaging. And smelling. As I watched him rummage around I just filled with horrific anger. Horrific anger… and sadness somewhat for Joe. It was clear that he was on this mission to get my attention to direct emotions at him. How does he not see how starved he is for… something in his life? In our agreement, he said that he needed to store some things in my closet that he didn’t ever use but now it was clear that he would use that as an excuse to always be in my room with no regard for my privacy or rental laws. After another anger cool-down session from catching him in my room yet again that night, I took a few deep long breaths and called him: Joe: Hello? Me: Hey Joe. Listen. I see that you are having a tough time getting to your things in the closet and I want to offer my help in getting you to you stuff a little easier by moving your things into the hall closet. I’m really good at Tetris and can fit a ton of stuff in~ Joe: Um. Uh uuuh um. Did? Do? You have? …a…camera …. In your closet? Me: Something like that. Look, I can help you with this. I don’t mind. Imagine not having that extra uncomfortable stress of having to go into my room and having to go through all of my stuff to get to yours on a regular basis. That must suck for you. [My heart was beating out of my chest and my face was hot tamale red. I could feel it. I refused to cry. I was getting what I needed out of this arrangement with dignity.] Joe: … … … L- Lem- Lemme call you back. [He hung up] I took a few deep breaths and waited out in the yard. I needed the air. “You cocksucker,” I thought, “Common. Call me. I dare you.”

Remember when I said that there were 2 stories? Well this is the point where my story was interrupted by a woman in the conversation. She burst out to me, “Oh my god, you… manipulated him.” I replied, “Yes. Instead of being a desperate, defensive, violated victim, a game that I am used to playing, I utilized my other skills for a more powerful turnout in my favor and to a certain extent help out Joe as he clearly has a problem. She looked at me a little amazed, not sure what to do with me now. What? I didn't call the police, have him beat up, or simply suffer from an anxiety disorder that I'm on medication for? I could see her searching her mind on a non-sympathetic response. Then it dawned on me that if women do not react defensively out of desperation or fear, they are designated as evil, witch, cunning, and dangerously manipulative. In addition, that person, regardless of gender, is no longer the submissive. Therefore, those looking for submissives in order to gain power or just self-confidence have no leverage.

If women see the whole situation not just their perspective and make a move out of sheer logic to live their lives, not for an agenda, they are considered dangerous or crazy. Toxic. They certainly can be toxic because manipulation is a powerful thing. But what if that power were used, however, to debunk our programming as women, daughters, and mothers? What if that power were used to re-masculate men? Even lamp-smelling Joe. Sounds scary doesn’t it? But… what if we could train men to be themselves as creatures in this world with women without emasculating them by calling them predators and designating their penises as weapons of female and child destruction?

I started to observe this woman more deeply to find that she starts and maintains friendships by putting friends on pedestals and showing them off in groups without the friend’s permission. It looks like support but she chooses personal things about her friends to praise them to others about. It’s uncomfortable. Degrading. It makes her seem like Mother Teresa because she rains this uncomfortable praise that friends then feel obligated to accept as friendship support. Even Love. The thing about a widow putting someone on a pedestal is how the widow craves to knock them off. One is always slapped and blindsided in the process. Her wife is the opposite; quiet and looking to leave her marriage and her own ego. There was talk a while back that they might split up among acts of depression, but an odd accident occurred where the Quiet wife’s leg was broken in a few places during a walk one morning. No one can really understand how. So they stayed together and Quiet wife was cared for by Pedestal wife but Quiet wife couldn’t seem to get 100% better. Still in pain over time, she decided to fast for 14 days and is getting better but living as the martyr not eating and as a shadow under Pedestal wife who announces to the group what a trooper she is to cook a meal for us all while fasting. I can't quite tell who manifested the leg break but I see widowhood in both. I’m not really sure if Quiet wife knows of her widowed behavior but Pedestal wife knows of the manipulative skills that she is capable of and rides the border between extrovert in public and child regression in private. Yes. I used my widow skills to get myself out of a jam without publicly shaming Joe or causing a scene. Joe may have actually learned something about himself, no police were called or mutual friends dragged into the situation to take sides. I didn't need to be saved and neither did he. We each took responsibility for our individual positions in our situation and uncomfortably saw the situation through to the other side. Had I just taken the popular way out and completely lost my shit, that would not have been the case.

Before hearing my story, the Pedestal wife thought that she had me in her "praise game"… but she'd never met my mother. It would take a lot more than compliments to hook me in. Mother. That’s a story for another lifetime.

Back to Joe. He never called me again. That night he texted a refreshed version of our agreement where he said that he needed to be in my room with no explanation as to why. I reminded him that I needed the legal 24 hours notice. He agreed and then never entered my room again. He must’ve called a lawyer for advice who told him to get everything in writing. I immediately hunted for the right apartment in my price range and found a great little place in 2 months. I rarely slept in my room but his girlfriend was living there by then, which helped Joe and I keep up the facade. The first time I got back after our talk he was sweating balls when I came through the front door. His girlfriend was hanging a picture I think. I chose to be a ray of sunshine wishing everyone a big hello. He was beside himself with the unknown of what I might do or say or do in the future. I did nothing. I packed up as soon as I could and live the rest of my life in peace. Otherwise known as the best revenge.

He gave me a rave review as the best tenant he ever had when the leasing company called for a reference. I mean... I have the camera tapes.

#black widow #widow #Harrasment #metoo #Womenhood #Widowhood #Peace #him too #Manipulation #mothers #daughters #hermit #darkwork

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