playing head games with a girl who doesn't know the rules

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Okay, in my women’s studies class, there is this man who, right from the beginning of the year had this attention seeking behavior in class.
He would ask really reactive questions in a class of 200 women just to see the result.
In the tutorial (when I was going) he would monopolize the whole hour by asking even more provocative questions.
Every one else chose to react to him.
I chose to completely ignore him….give him no energy at all. Which I did for most of the students in that class.
But I wouldn’t look at him and I would just carry on in the tutorial like he hadn’t said anything.

For the whole first term in the lectures, he sat near the center on the far right of the class.

My seat is at the very back on the left of the class. i have to sit here or i'll fall to peices. (yes a little fixated)

Since I dropped out of the tutorials, he has started sitting closer and closer to me.

Now he sits either right in front of me, or right beside me.

So I’ve stopped going to the lectures. My friend Susan tells me that when I’m not in the lectures, he sits right in my seat. a territorial thing that other mammals do it seems.

I am still refusing to give him any attention at all because I think that is what he is looking for. But I can’t sit beside him and I can’t sit somewhere else. I can’t confront him or have anyone else confront him either because that would give him too much satisfaction. but i can't bear to sit beside him. i hate him and i wouldn't be able to concentrate in class.

It’s kind of ironic that I am experiencing a subtle form of harassment by a man, and its making feel unsafe in the one class you’d think would be a safe place for women.

But I will NOT give him the satisfaction of seeing a reaction from me.

I really hate people sometimes. It’s hard enough for me to interact with the ones that I like!
any suggestions.

don't let him stop you from going to class! College is waaayyyy too expensive to let some idiot make you miss out on class!! !! By not going, he wins. Just move to a different seat the next time he sits near you! That'll sure show him you don't want to be near him! If he continues to bother you, just tell him you think he's an idiot and you don't want him around you. If he still bothers you after that, talk to the professor after class.

Thanks Alex,

i just have a hard time sitting in a new place in class. i like things to stay the same or i have trouble concentrateing on the lecture it. is kind of pathetic because i usually arrive an hour early just to sit in the same place every time. i'll even sit through other lectures just to keep me seat! lol.

but you may be right. this may be a good opportunity for me to try and change that.

Perhaps you could have some small poession and fix it into your mind that you sit with poession. Then you can move it/him/her with you.

Probably he has asperger's too and my be the reason for the way he's acting and treating you.

nah.

he's just a jackass.

Bark at him. It works for me.

i may just try the barking!
thanks

Actually, I would have to agree with barking strangely enough. It is a weird action, definitely not what he is looking for but could get rid of him.

Wow, if a girl barked at me in a womans study class i may just find the whole incident slightly ironic.

Yeah, flip the situation on him. Figure out something that you can do that would unnerve him. Something to throw him off balance. Hell, stare at him with a blank expression until he looks away, that'd be sufficient to bother most people.

thanks for the advice.

the class is tomorrow night, so i'll see what i can do

Also, if he insists on still sitting by you, after class, start rambling about random topics-especially ones having to do with "girl things".

well, thanks for all your advice.

it worked. i came to class prepared to deal with him and he didn't bother me. sure he sat near me, but i was so ready to bark at him or just stare blanly at him that nothing he treid to do to annoy me worked. at the break he actually moved seats! so i think he noticed that i had my defenses up and backed away. he probably only preys on 'vulnerable girls' and that is the energy i was putting off earlier in the term.

so thank you all, i have learned my lesson: just because it's a 'women's studies' class doesn't mean i can let down my defenses.
for me, being a woman and having autism means that i am often vulnerable to being taken adventage of or harrassed because i don't understand what is going on socially. so this has been a good lesson in self defense.

thank you

Glad I could help.

Women's studies. *Shivers*

I got tricked into going into a class on feminism deceptively titled "gender communications". My penis and I haven't been on speaking terms ever since.