Annoying e-mail

[redbird]

So, on alt.poly someone asked whether the women on the group had gotten email from the resident misogynist troll, Orlando Fiol, I think with the goal of seeing whether zie could come up with any correlation between those who had heard from him and those who hadn't. His pattern appears to be to send a relatively innocuous email to a woman, then push for more intimate correspondence, and eventually blow up and call the woman in question a bitch when she either says explicitly that she doesn't want to have sex with him, or tells him that she doesn't want to spend as much time on the correspondence as he is asking for. On-group, he behaves as though he believes that poly women will have sex with anyone, and therefore it is discrimination when a woman turns him down. This is one reason why I and many other people, not all female, have him kill-filed.

I posted, saying that I'd gotten one message from him, asking an innocuous question, and that I had not answered the email, but posted the information to the newsgroup, because I didn't want to correspond with Orlando, but am generally happy to talk about chocolate. That got me an almost immediate emailed response, demanding to know what my beef with him is, given that he has not come on to me or devalued my intellect. He actually asked "Why am I apparently unworthy of corresponding with you?" This fits his pattern: someone who doesn't want to be his friend, for whatever reason, is accused of thinking s/he's better than he is. (If I offered someone friendship, and was turned down in a way that felt condescending, I would not be inclined to pursue them, because I'd expect that even if I could convince them to spend time with me, they would continue to be rude and condescending.)

I have followed up to myself on alt.poly, explaining why I do not want to correspond with him, and telling him that I will consider any further email from him as harassment. I don't know whether this will make any difference; he has a history of ignoring "do not send me email" requests, demanding to know why he shouldn't send email, and claiming that his right to an explanation trumps other people's right to be left alone.

My post (minus headers and the quoted previous post) says

OK: For the record. My beef with Mr. Fiol is that he has harassed many of my friends, and that he is either incapable of, or unwilling to, consider women as independent people who have desires and agendas that may not fit his. I do not choose to correspond with people, of any gender, who harass my friends. I do not choose to correspond with people who behave as though they have the right to sex with someone, regardless of that person's desires.

Orlando, I know you're reading this. Do not email me again. If you do, I will consider it harassment, and will contact your ISP.

[I had thought about posting this friends-locked so I didn't need to worry about copyright issues, and quoting his entire email, but it is more important to me to make this public, and name the idiots (for those of my friends who aren't on alt.poly), so I've paraphrased instead.]

Comments

Re: Annoying e-mail

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i wish alt.poly would stop engaging with orlando. i mean, we all know what he is; he's gone on like this for years now. it's time to let it go, IMO.

ignoring his email years ago has worked well for me. he sent a follow-up reproaching me for not answering his first attempt right away, and i ignored that one too. i haven't heard back since. he wants the attention; don't give it to him.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, ignoring him hasn't worked for me - after the initial interaction (ending with a request to not email me again), I've been emailed by him on at least three separate occasions (I don't keep that careful track). I've had him killfiled the entire time. Serene seems to have a similar problem. I suspect you just don't post enough on topics that trigger his "must email" urge (music and BDSM are on the list for sure).

The evidence I have seems to be that other men telling him he's a creep is the thing that registers with him the most.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i think that i mean something other by "ignore" than a lot of people.

i am, btw, not blaming the victims here; i realize he is an arse and will follow some people around. but i also think that one can ignore such people anyway, and pretty much eliminate any impact they have on one's life. (i am talking about people like orlando, not actual stalkers. orlando, no matter how much of an entitled twit, isn't presenting a real threat to anyone.)

when i say i ignore somebody i don't just mean i hope quietly that they won't contact me again. orlando hasn't, but there have been kooks and trolls from news.groups who used to be as much of a pest as he is (or worse; at least he doesn't make death threats). when i ignore somebody, i'll killfile them, i don't reply to their email or posts, i'll page past other people's inclusions of their posts (here's where i find it somewhat annoying when a group doesn't stop engaging with a troll), and i will not even read anything from them that might reach me -- if they're particular twits, i will direct their email to /dev/null (i did that with some people last time i tried to reconnect with alt.poly, and since orlando is one of them, i have no idea whether he might have contacted me again). i also don't refer to them in other posts, or on my LJ. if i find myself ranting about them, i will stop myself and channel the rant into something else. i ignore them wholly and entirely. even if they don't ignore me.

because talking about how much they irk me isn't ignoring. it feeds the attention grab. even if they don't know it, it feeds it because they take my time away and use it up for their idiotic crap. and that is what i am stopping when i truly ignore somebody.

ignoring them is something _i_ do regardless of whether they kindly go away immediately. pretty much by definition people i end up ignoring are people who don't go away easily. but when i act as if they don't exist, i feel freed from their presence. and doing this in the long run will IME stop their pursuit because it doesn't pay off. it's been a long time now since i've had threatening emails from some of my "favourite" kooks.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

:::nods:::

I have such individuals kill-filed.

He wants attention and does not deserve it.

Alas, he attack new women, or I'd be fuming that anyone answers him *ever*.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

Alas, he attack new women

ah yes, there's the rub. but i feel that's possibly better solved by writing a public response to those women that supports them directly rather than harping more on orlando.

i made a mistake once of privately warning somebody i liked a lot off of a person who gave me very seriously bad vibes and whom i was publicly ignoring. she didn't like that (and i can understand why not), and has disliked me since. *shrug*. there isn't a good way one can do this sort of thing; i am unlikely to do it in general unless i know the person i am warning very well -- this was an exception and i probably needed to learn that lesson again not to stick my nose into other people's love affairs even if i really worry about them.

this sort of thing can be really problematic, and i thought about it again due to the OSBP and the resultant "women back each other up" project. backing people up without first asking them whether they want that can all too easily take their agency away.

i don't have a good answer. i suspect there isn't one.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[redbird]

There are a few people who I have told that yes, they should tell me if they have those bad vibes off someone. I may or may not act on their warnings, but I will want to know and will not blame them for it.

A piece of that is that I trust their judgment, including that I trust them not to warn me off someone because, say, that person turned them down romantically or for a business or artistic collaboration. (Because zie screwed my friend over in one of those contexts, yes, but not for a simple no or for any and all breakups.)

From many other people, a similar warning likely would go over badly.

Re: Annoying e-mail

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't have a good answer, either.

You are, I believe, absolutely correct that backing people up (in certain ways) takes away their agency: this is a core principle taught here in community work theory...and is somewhat well understood anyway.

You will appreciate that some threads in Usenet, and some individuals, aggravate me beyond belief.

:-/

Re: Annoying e-mail

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I warned someone probably 30 years ago; he was a guy who really courted the new women in the group -- dinners, flowers, theatre, boat trips -- and then dropped them. When we talked to him about it, he said he was just making friends. So when I told this woman about how the guy acted, she was furious at me. She was sure I was trying to make her drop him so I could have him and I figured if she was that paranoid, maybe she deserved him. He courted and dropped her and she left the group. I heard about 10 years ago that he'd actually gotten married.