Just to be upfront - I am neurotypical and if I use incorrect words in this post to describe the other person involved, I am very sorry and would like to be corrected, if you are willing to invest that energy!
BG - I (29F) worked in an entertainment center as a food server from January 2018 to September 2018 (I usually stick around places longer, but this restaurant had the rudest clientele I've ever dealt with and I couldn't take it anymore lol). This place hired a fair amount of differently abled (both physically and mentally) people to work as hosts/concierges; one of them was a man (30M) whom I'll refer to as Dave.
I wasn't 100% sure what made Dave aneurotypical, exactly, but I do know that he is about 15 years old mentally. We chatted a fair bit during downtime, mostly about movies, since we both loved them. When I left the center in September, I accepted a friend request from him on facebook, along with a bunch of my other coworkers, so that I could keep in touch with them. Dave sent me a facebook message immediately after, saying that I was the sweetest girl he'd ever met and gave me his phone number, "if I ever needed anything." I was really touched by this, thanked him, and said I hoped I'd get to visit soon so I could say hi to everyone. I figured that was the best way to end this professional relationship - let him know that I enjoyed working with him and would like to see him and all of our coworkers again sometime.
For the past 2+ years, he's been pretty consistently messaging me on facebook, asking how I'm doing and how everything's going. I usually use fb on my phone and I forget to open up my messenger app a lot, so I miss a lot of these messages/forget to respond to them in a proper amount of time. Often, when I do open messenger, I'll see a string of messages from him that I've missed for weeks - nothing inappropriate, just "hi, how are you" and "merry christmas" etc etc.
Initially, I would respond to him if I caught the message; however, as time went on and I kept seeing a string of messages from him whenever I opened messenger, I started to feel weird. I couldn't tell if he was messaging me to be friendly or if there were romantic intentions behind it. If it were the former, I was working 3 jobs and could barely afford any free time for my family, much less develop a friendship with someone I had worked with two years ago in the way that they wanted. If it were the latter, it was obviously inappropriate for me to encourage it in any way. I didn't really know how to handle it, and I stopped replying as much.
I participate in local stage stuff, and I started running my own monthly show in 2019 at one of the bars I work at. I made facebook posts to promote the show, and lo and behold, Dave started showing up to them. It was kind of adding a new level of stress to my shows - he'd come and want to talk to me while I was setting up and dealing with the performers, and when the shows were going on, he was always sitting at a table by himself and seemed really disappointed that I couldn't spend time with him. It was clear to me that he wanted more than friendship. When COVID-19 hit, the show was obviously cancelled; I was sad about losing it, but a little relieved that Dave wouldn't be able to come to my workplace anymore.
Throughout quarantine, he's been messaging me consistently. I responded a few times, but I've been actively ignoring him recently. I didn't know what to do - I couldn't give this guy what he wanted, friend-wise or relationship-wise, and it felt cruel to tell him outright that I'm not interested in him romantically when he hadn't expressly stated that he's interested in me. It wasn't right to just ignore him, but I didn't know what else to do - any response just seemed to give him hope.
This all came to a head yesterday - he sent me a facebook message saying that he was dealing with COVID-19, and that he wanted me to know that if he didn't make it, he'd always really liked me. I didn't open the fb message, I just saw the message in my phone's notification center. I have been stewing about it since.
I feel so horrible and guilty - I don't want to encourage him/give him false hope, which I feel will happen if I respond in a friendly way, I don't want to reject him because I don't know how he'd handle it and if he is sick, I'd just be adding to his misery. Also (this is dark, and I hate thinking about it, but I feel like I'm ignoring reality if I don't acknowledge it), if he is deathly ill right now, I'll feel like the worst person ever no matter what I do. Lead a very sick man on, or reject a very sick man who just made a romantic confession?
Dave is a legitimately nice person, and I don't want to upset him, but I don't know if there's a way to deal with this where I don't hurt him. I cannot be the person he wants me to be and it seems like he's pinned a lot of his hopes onto me from afar.
tl;dr - my coworker from two years ago, who is differently abled, has been continually reaching out to me in an attempt to develop a relationship and confessed his feelings point-blank yesterday because he got COVID-19 and is scared he won't make it through. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this? I've asked a couple of friends, and they said to just ignore his message, but I think that's the wrong way to go.
Submitted February 19, 2021 at 10:41AM by halzbellz https://ift.tt/3qBmzMJ
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