For about a year after I cut off all contact with an ex, he continued to find ways to reach out to me despite complete silence from my end. I blocked him because I was fed up with his emotionally draining behavior and the drama he caused, but the drama didn’t end there.
- Roughly a dozen texting apps Seriously, I don’t know how he managed to find so many apps that let him text for free from a different number. This was probably the main way he managed to contact me. Sometimes he’d play nice, but after realizing I wasn’t going to respond, he’d spiral into long, angry rants. I blocked these numbers too.
- Plenty of voicemails Some of the aforementioned texting apps also offer voice calling, which was a bummer for me. I often discovered funny voicemails telling me to pick up my phone and/or unblock him. But I was done with the negativity he brought into my life and the unhealthy dynamic we had with each other. I didn’t want to keep having the same unproductive and hurtful conversations we’d had a thousand times before.
- Money with memos When you send money to someone through an app, there’s an option to include a memo about what the payment is for. My ex took this opportunity to include messages directed to me instead. He sent me hundreds of dollars which included messages ranging in tone from apologetic to downright cruel. I immediately sent the money back with no memos in return. If I was a petty person, I would’ve been about $600 richer.
- Texts to my mom He asked my mom to tell me to contact him. The texts were as innocent as can be, with smiling emojis and all. Meanwhile, he was sending me angry or frantic messages. He probably assumed I wasn’t telling my mom what was happening and that he still appeared innocent in her eyes. She would show me what he said and just brush him off one way or another. Eventually, she stopped responding altogether just like me.
- Fake Instagram accounts After realizing I would block any real account he made, he created a fake account about puppies so he could secretly follow me. The account seemed suspicious so I blocked it, and my suspicions were confirmed when he soon sent more furious messages through a text app. He made yet another Instagram account in which he posted selfies of me with angry captions. I reported the account a few times, but for all I know, it’s still active.
- “Super-liking” me on Tinder There’s a special option on Tinder called “super-liking”—if you swipe up on someone instead of left or right, the person will be able to see you liked them. During my brief stint on Tinder, I happened to come across my ex’s profile. Apparently, he had already seen mine because he “super-liked” me. He later sent me distraught texts (gotta love those text apps) because he’d seen me on Tinder. I found it hard to believe I’d done anything wrong, especially considering he was also on the app.
- Having our mutual friends talked to me on his behalf On a couple of occasions, our ill-informed friends tried to mediate things in his favor. For example, they said they’d come by to pick something up for him that didn’t actually belong to him. They assumed it was a normal-ish rocky breakup and both parties were equally unstable, but they didn’t realize they were essentially helping my ex harass me while I was trying to move on with my life. Once they were made aware of the whole situation, they did what they could to convince him to leave me alone.
- Showing up at my house This is definitely not OK, it’s stalking! Even if I didn’t feel physically threatened, I had every right to call the police to get him to leave. He came to my place on multiple occasions with no invitation, so I was close to filing a restraining order. Luckily, he happened to stop by once when my intimidating friend was visiting—they had some words on the front porch and my ex never came over again.
- Calling me from jail One morning, I got several voicemails informing me that an inmate was trying to contact me. I didn’t know anyone who would possibly be calling me from jail so I didn’t pay it any attention. Later that night, my ex texted me from his dad’s phone saying it was he who had called and that he was fine now. Apparently, he spent the night in county jail. I still don’t know why he was there in the first place.
- Attempting a “final” goodbye If I had a nickel for every time he said this was the last time he was contacting me—complete with dramatic goodbyes and insincere well wishes—I’d be rich. It was probably just a way to convince me to finally respond to him, bait for “closure” and all that. It also often included threats of suicide, which never happened. He never heard a word from me and eventually stopped contacting me after nearly a year of harassment.
