Who is someone in your life that has actually made you a worse person?

I had a stalker, but my stalker was a friend. We were bros. He had some odd behavior, but I was never one to judge. When he came out as gay (we were both guys), I didn't care at all. He had some manipulative tendencies. He would always try get between me and a girl, whether it was a hookup or a relationship. With one of my exes, he became her best friend to the point she shared stuff with him that she didn't share with me. Of course, he came to me with those secrets and ended up causing an end to our relationship. I hadn't quite put all that together yet; all of his manipulation of my life. He told me eventually that he had feelings for me, and when drunk, even told me he had been obsessed. But he always said not anymore, and he was over me and just wanted to be friends. I was too trusting, and believed him, and thought his manipulative tendencies were just one-time mistakes, rather than seeing the big picture. He tried to become part of every aspect of my life. He would get upset at me if I did anything without him, and would constantly call me and text me to find out where I was, who I was with, what my plans were.

As I finally started to trust what my gut was saying this whole time, it was too late. He was friends with all my friends, and if I cut things off with him, he would spread lies and rumors about me. I ended up making the decision to cut him out of my life and deal with whatever consequences came.

Since then, I've gone from being an extrovert to an introvert. I get stressed about a lot of social situations that would never have phased me. The fallout wasn't as bad as I thought, a lot of my friends took my side and don't hang out with him much. They know I will not be around him. Thankfully, he moved a little distance away, but still tries to be best friends with a lot of people I know. I'm happy I've got a few friends that don't put up with his shit, even though there were many that think I'm a bad person for cutting him out of his life.

I suffer from a lot of anxiety and trust issues now. But I don't regret cutting him out of my life; the only thing I would change would be to have cut him out sooner.

The stories I can tell people about how crazy this guy was are insane. Things like storming into a room when I was with a girl alone, to stealing my phone when he thought I was talking with a girl, to being upset when someone else was helping me when I was sick, or getting housemates to agree no girls allowed at certain times so I couldn't be with the girl that would later be my current girlfriend, or creating a Facebook profile and talking to me to try to convince me I'm gay. Once, when my girlfriend was over, he had a few beers, and just sat on the other end of the room breathing heavily and staring us down. We left and slept in my car that night. There was a lot of crazy stuff I just try to forget.

He knows where I work, and my roommate wasn't thinking and gave him our address once. So I lock my doors and windows, because I know he has some crazy tendencies. But it's been a little over a year now, and there has only been a few Facebook messages from him. But there is a huge part of my friend group that thinks I'm a terrible person, and that's something I'm just going to have to live with.

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