I just need to get this off my chest because I’m conflicted and confused about what to do.
For context, I work remotely and knew Mark(28M) from our work server. He was the mood maker and the clown of the server, always loud, so it gave me the impression that he was an approachable guy.
We began chatting, and I discovered how much of an oversharer Mark is.
In just the first month I knew him, he disclosed that he has a big trauma because he lost his ex tragically, has mental health issues, and that “he knew no boundaries whatsoever because of his fucked up past.” And apparently he also grew up poor and destitute that he’d fake coupons to get free stuffs. Keep in mind he shared me all of this—the good and the bad—in such a boastful manner. That he got fired for sexual harassment twice but it was just a misunderstanding and he was the oblivious victim. That he deliberately hooked up with a married woman for his sexual needs. That he had a photo of his jizz splashing right on his chin from jacking off (he kept it because it was so perfect or whatever reason, dear lord). You get the gist. So icky.
At the beginning, I’d vent to him from time to time, but I always had the impression he was looking down on me because I didn’t suffer as much as him. We both hailed from not so well off backgrounds and have to save, but because I came from a third world country, it feels like he was comparing down to me too. He’d often give me unsolicited advice to save up money when I expressed my desire for stuff. That my old stuff is good enough, I still have other stuff. Oh, he’s also open about how much he has saved up (~30k USD, he lives in USA). So when he was tryna dissuade me from buying stuff, he basically said he could spend freely because it won’t be detrimental to his living conditions, implying that my life would absolutely implode because my currency is so much weaker and that poor people should save rather than buy nice things. It was just overall very demeaning.
Meanwhile, he has compulsive spending on expensive watches while working minimum wage.
I wish that was the extent of my issues with him, but we are only scratching the surface.
But the thing with Mark is, Mark looooooooves his sexual dirty jokes. And coupled with his extreme oversharing tendency, you get the worst of both worlds. Boundaries after boundaries stomping.
I just feel uncomfortable overall. I sometimes made double entendre jokes, nothing explicit, or cuss, but it feels like he took it as a sign that he could escalate the chat to extreme territory.
Once, I asked him for some tips about my romance novel, it was innocent, very innocent. And then I thanked him for the tip, which got him excited. He kept suggesting more paragraphs and dialogues.
He said he was so good at sexting
so he typed smut paragraph and dialogue for me when I didn’t even ask.
and I felt so uncomfortable, I told him politely to stop and that’s enough three times.
but he thought I was saying that wasnt good enough and keep pushing to write more for me.
I felt like I was unilaterally being dragged into a sexting, and the feeling of being violated wouldn’t go away. Which bring us to now.
I hadn’t been replying to him, and I think he sensed it too. He kept trying to engage in a conversation with me, over and over and over again. It made me really uncomfortable. I wonder if I should just keep ignoring him.
TL;DR an online coworker has been acting creepy and making me uncomfortable