Sympathy for the weasel

I realize that doesn't sound super sympathetic. He definitely wasn't the devil, but he was something. 

Before I get into issues of death, communication, and misogyny, this is a recap of our history and interactions in the hopes of answering all questions (which is lengthy). It is also my attempt to offer some understanding to him.

Two people that I care about a lot are very sad about his passing. One of them said, as we were texting: "He could be a jerk for sure. He could also be funny and considerate."

I never really got that side of him, but my time with him was limited. People contain multitudes, and that's important.

We met in 1st grade and went through to grade 5 in the same school, but usually not in the same class. I never really got close to him. I didn't really like him, but I couldn't point to any specific reason. With most of the kids I didn't really like back then, I usually knew why.

There was a boundary change for Chehalem in fifth grade. At the time, elementary school was grades 1 through 6, then junior high for 7 through 9, and high school for 10 through 12. 

Most of the kids affected by the change started the next year at Aloha Park. Those of us who were going to be sixth graders could choose to remain at Chehalem for our final year of grade school, then on to Five Oaks for junior high. Otherwise, Chehalem fed into Mountain View for junior high. Both Mountain View and Five Oaks fed into Aloha High School. 

Four of us chose to do have our final year at Chehalem, but he went to Aloha Park for 6th grade. I suspect he was not that attached to anyone at Chehalem and was glad for the change.

I know he was picked on for being fat. I was too, but being a heavy kid with his name when Fat Albert was a popular cartoon was not great. I know people "joked" about it, but I don't know how much.

At Five Oaks we ended up in the same social group. That consisted of some girls I really liked and some guys who were mostly not that great, but we still did things together. All but one of those guys was mentioned in his obituary, which seemed a little weird. 

Things we did together included plays and drama class. I gave up plays in high school and the rest of the group didn't. I saw all of them some in high school, but mainly I was doing other things.

We had a brief encounter at the ten-year reunion. Everyone was talking about him losing weight, which he had. I mentioned him looking different and he seemed irritated. I really did not handle that well, partly because in the back of my mind I was thinking that I still don't like this guy, but also he had gone from red-headed to blond and I was fixating on that, though I didn't actually ask. Did it naturally lighten? Because it was really red! Did he bleach it and then color it? Did he lose his hair and it grew back differently? Was there other cancer?

(One factor that comes up in some of these stories is that I am probably not completely neurotypical. Years later I still wonder what was going on with his hair and probably most people did not think about it that much.) 

The next major interaction happened around 2008. I was newly on Facebook and campaigning hard against another guy from the junior high group who was running for office. I had also come to learn that candidate had been really abusive and awful to multiple people I cared about. Albert was not the abuser, but he tolerated it and was not helpful. I did hold that against him, but I was late to the party and those were not my stories.

Anyway, through mutual acquaintances I heard that those two had been discussing my blog and the page hits it was getting. I then got a friend request from him. I was not going to accept it, but I didn't feel right just ignoring it because of our shared history, so I sent him a direct message explaining that.

He wrote back a really angry message insulting my blog in a way that was supposed to be a "Gotcha! I know about your blog!", except I thought the reason I gave made it pretty clear that his interaction with the blog was why I was not accepting his friend request. I knew that he knew about it, but maybe I did not communicate that clearly. 

I blocked him then and didn't think about it anymore. 

Around the 20-year reunion in 2010, I started hearing from a lot of classmates (all women) that he had hit on, using the exact same phrasing. In at least two cases he also aggressively hit on friends of theirs, apparently from going through their Facebook feeds. 

At least one of those women started the conversation because he had been badmouthing me. She was trying to see if we'd had a bad breakup or something, like were we rivals for his affection?

I kind of laughed that off, but I saw the light go out of her eyes when I repeated his pickup lines; she had thought she was special. Some women had worse experiences, and for some it was mildly annoying or surprising, but there were at least a couple that were really disappointed. 

Plus he was in a long-term relationship the entire time. 

I had forgotten about him badmouthing me. I was pretty sure I had posted about his relentless hitting on classmates before so searched. Yes. 2010. It mentions the badmouthing and the digging for information there. At the time I probably just wrote it off as him still holding a grudge, but it could have been an a strategic attempt to undermine my credibility. 

When I say that some women had much worse experiences than me, for at least two, that included looking at their Facebook friends and finding additional women to hit on, where the friends were requesting intervention. There were also some overly angry, maybe even frightening, responses to refusals. That message I got back in 2008? That tracks, and seems to be a reaction to setting a boundary.

I believe his spree of hitting on classmates happened shortly after a lot of us were getting on Facebook and right around the time of the ten-year reunion, which makes sense. It went on for quite a while after, but I can see where suddenly being in touch with people again felt like an opportunity. (Our class has not been immune to reunion-related hookups.)

Almost done.

I don't actually remember which election it was when he was overbearingly correcting everyone's political posts and comments and getting blocked. I'd had him blocked for at least a few years by then, so I never saw his posts

What I did see was replies to him on other threads, which gave kind of an idea. In addition, whenever I would mention unfriending or blocking someone, I would get a few questions of whether it was him (or sometimes Kirk, who in some ways was very similar but with whom I had much less interaction). 

I actually don't even know what his political leanings were. It sounds like his general view was "I am smarter than you; even if you said something right you are still wrong in a way I must explain to you!"

Sounds Libertarian.

I do know what it's liked to be picked on. I know some of that continued even into high school. We had some common ground there.

For a long time I believed my real life would start and everything would be great when I finally lost weight. I never did, but I have sometimes thought that if I did, I might resent people who treated me differently then. I could also end up really disappointed when it didn't fix everything. That might have been a factor for some things with him (with structural misogyny also being huge).

From our interactions at school I do remember some attempts to make things about himself and get validation. I suspect that was something he did want a lot. I was not good about giving it to him, what with not really liking him and also this being around the time when I discovered that attention-seekers were my people-pleaser Kryptonite. 

I can also comprehend how -- if you are not enough for yourself -- aligning with someone who is perceived as more powerful -- even if that is through their mistreatment of others -- makes a certain sense. I don't like it, but I get it.

That's what our relationship has been through my eyes. 

The hitting on women and getting angry at boundaries is why I think of him as a creep. The need to demonstrate his intellectual superiority to everyone is why I think of him as a jerk. That is still not all he was. Maybe some of him being funny and considerate was part of trying to be ingratiating to get more validation; I could have been kinder about that. 

We all have our flaws, and none of us are only our flaws. 

I can feel sorry for him. I still don't like him.

I feel somewhat bad for complicating things for people who did like him, but there was another side of the response that made it feel very necessary.    

I think that's a pretty complete background. Friday through Sunday are different topics, but next week I will try and explore some of the other issues that have come up through his death.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2010/01/ive-always-had-such-crush-on-you.html