a valentine for the man who began harassing me in 2013 and thought it would be helpful to message me on twitter in 2020

i really, really didn't want to ever think of you again. you don't deserve a claim over any real estate in my mind, but alas, here you are again, trespassing boundaries that were never yours to cross.

"it's all in your head," i kept telling myself at the beginning. maybe it's just a cultural difference. maybe i'm reading too much into things.

"it's all in your head," when you befriended my then boyfriend, who told me that i was overreacting and that you were a nice guy.

"it's all in your head," after every inappropriate message you sent me outside of work, every inappropriate stare that made me try to hide myself behind my arms, every inappropriate touch that i very carefully withdrew from, but only slightly enough to not offend.

"it's all in your head," every single time i told you that i felt uncomfortable, to which you would respond with “i meant no harm” and continue to do the same exact things anyway.

"it's all in your head," when you told me about how much you hate your wife and how tired of your children you are before starting to draw closer and closer and –

i knew you could ruin my career. i wanted to believe it was all in my head. i felt apologetic to you and hateful to myself. but for what reason? these feelings did not logically connect with what i knew was happening. you didn't just merely make me "uncomfortable." you made me doubt my intuition, you turned people against me, you made me fear for my respectability at work, you made me feel cheap, naive, ashamed. not for anything i did or who i actually was but for the image that you projected on me.

the saddest part of all this is that you were only one of eight. one of eight to make me feel this way in the short span of three years. the first three years of a career i thought was a dream come true. and you weren’t even close to being the worst.

you say you wish me all the best, but i want you to know that i couldn’t be more indifferent to you. this is the last time i will ever think of you.