For Your Consideration
After I stopped blaming myself for the mess that had transpired and after I had confronted the allegations of whorishness and man-eating, a few things still didn’t make sense to me.
In the absence of guilt, I was able to meditate freely on the matter.
I have presented in this article things I didn’t mention in previous articles because they didn’t seem to be relevant.
But in considering these seemingly irrelevant happenings, I realised the real, ulterior motive for the harassment and bullying I went through.
I also refer back to issues mentioned in the Why I Quit Series.
Clues
October 2012: What MS said to me is a clue, the whole “latent lesbian” thing, refer back here: https://nerdingouthard.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/why-i-quit-timeline-2011-may-2013/
November 2012 Gaza Demo
I had been at a conference with John Pilger as a speaker. I sacrificed the opportunity to meet him in order to go to the demo. I did a bunk.
AC passed by with a bucket, this time he didn’t scrutinise my outfit. He asked, “You here with P?” He said it with a knowing look. I did not understand why.
When I said I wasn’t, he walked on(collection bucket duty) and then looked back, his face formed into a Wallace & Gromit face(cheeks bulged out to the sides), he was biting his lip and seemed intensely anxious.
I had my hand cupping my right ear trying to hear the speakers better. It was heaving.
Kitchen, Fundraiser December 2012
Touching my sides. Squeezing past me in a kitchen that was small but not so small it warranted her putting her hands on my waist and back to get by.
I didn’t think I was in any danger since PH didn’t have a penis with which to graze the back of my thigh. I know that move. I didn’t realise that she was either lesbian or bisexual.
Kitchen, Fundraiser February 2013
We had just finished talking about AC and how it wasn’t going anywhere.
P!nk’s song Try came on the radio.
I said, “I love this song. It makes you want to get up and try again.”
I wasn’t talking about AC anymore. I was talking about getting on with life in general. I had a great deal of weight to lose and I couldn’t wait to get back to my fully capable and athletic self.
She said, “Why him? What do you see in him?”
I heard jealousy in her voice. I considered it might have been desperation and at the time I figured it might have come out wrong, in the wrong tone.
Did PH want AC for herself?
I kept quiet. I didn’t want her to know all the things I found attractive about him.
All this time I saw AC as the prince. I didn’t realise what her ulterior motive was.
Joey
I was hesitant to include JSC in the original piece. I had a suspicion that he had been got to by PH.
Getting proof from him proved difficult especially when you consider she had been putting about the whole “stalker” slander about me.
And my own read on him is that he’s a good Jewish boy who doesn’t want any trouble.
Sorry, JSC, you’re in the narrative.
I first noticed JSC noticing me in September of 2012 at a STWC stall outside UMSU.
Then for the second time I noticed him noticing me in April 2013 when I was on campus helping students for the Close Guantanamo Campaign.
I didn’t understand why. I was overweight, not particularly attractive at that time. But I analysed the look he gave.
It was a look of a recognition of mutual do-goodery.
The thing is he recognised me and only acknowledged me and not my hijabi’d colleagues.
Does he know them already, they didn’t acknowledge him.
Maybe my not wearing a hijab makes me more approachable. Is he looking for an interview? Was he looking to talk about the do-goodery of anti-Guantanamo activism that he seemed to like?
He was just popping out to lunch when he glanced at me again, I was talking to a student involved in the campaign and a concerned student who was enquiring about Shaker Aamer.
Handling two conversations and JSC eyeing me, my face must have expressed quizzical consternation. He looked down. I think he might have been discouraged by it. On the way back from lunch, he’s avoiding me.
I could have looked and smiled at him briefly but I was concentrating on the guy I was talking to about Shaker Aamer. It would have been rude to break away from him.
Consider my interest piqued.
I looked him up online. Before you say “stalker”, oh right you already did; Muslim students who got politically active at UoMSU were being monitored and targeted by this one rabbit-toothed guy who had links to the Henry Jackson (Islamophobic) Society.
He was on a fast-track with a newscasting company, I’ve forgotten which. Presumably for services rendered to Islamophobic fear-mongering drivel.
We had a lengthy conversation. He quoted to me the signed confession of Moazzam Begg, who was/is involved with Cage Prisoners (POW Advocacy Group), as evidence of admission of terrorism.
The thing is that confession was signed under duress of torture.
Any contract made under duress(economic/physical threats/physical acts of violence) CANNOT hold up in court, it would be ruled null and void, since the contract was made under duress and is therefore ultra vires.
I learnt after the fact as to who he was.
So I looked up JSC to see if he was right-wing or a neutral, an average Joe.
He was a follower of Jews Against The Racist EDL. Good lad.
There is an unspoken comfort in making friends with other Semitic people. I had met one Jew in the past who treated me like dirt, but to stereotype would be to cut yourself off from friends. That how I see all racism.
But when you do find someone who recognises the equality of human life regardless of ethnic or religious background, you can enjoy that feeling of comfort with other people who were just as British as you but treated differently growing up because of different religious and cultural practices.
I told PH about him. She seemed to disapprove of me pursuing AC from the very beginning. And I thought she’d be pleased that I was moving on.
As I told her, she was looking up and to one side, probably searching the faces she’d seen before.
I didn’t think she would interfere since JSC had nothing to do with STWC or Counterfire.
But I think she did.
I think she spread the whole stalker thing to him and I think that’s why he started actively avoiding me on campus when I was there to try to help anti-war student events and trying to encourage a STWC student society group.
Obviously, when that rumour goes around, that sh** tends to stick.
Days after I told PH, on one of the times I was at UMSU, I went up to enquire about student society forms and procedures. JSC clocked me, stood up, hitching up his trousers a little and went to take a break.
I also noticed a female UMSU student liaison officer treating me weird as well. We had little contact before but she seemed to be interested in Palestine the time previous.
Explaining the ham flicking
“Porking”
Late May/ Early June TE and I started chatting
TE was asking me about dietary laws in Islam, particularly about abstaining from and avoiding contamination of pork-products like ham and bacon.
I declared a bawdy euphemism, “The only porking I want is in the bedroom.”
I have this on FB chat.
I think it’s gross to equate pigs or food to sex. But no reasonable person would ever talk to the one they love as if they were a piece of meat, least of all unclean meat.
Not if you know what’s good for you.
We were having blokey banter. It didn’t mean anything more than a blokey low-brow comment. It was said for laughs, and laughs only.
[BTW there IS a Kosher version of that euphemism but I’ll keep it to myself to prevent Muslim and Jewish women from being harassed.]
And yet this is likely what spurred PH to make that comment.
After the 12th June when it became abundantly clear AC was not interested and that I was free to pursue other men, on the 22nd June 2013, PH made that ham flicking comment.
She construed “porking” to mean not the physical act of sex [like the word “tolchoking”] but that pork is illicit in Abrahamic religion and lesbianism is illicit and so pork-products equals sex?
It’s not a transferable euphemism, but I guess that didn’t stop PH.
What was “flicking bits of ham” supposed to represent? Labia?
Since when was rubbing cold cuts on someone’s face erotic? *
Eeewwwww.
*Why do The Hairy Bikers come to mind? Valentines Special, 2015.
Seriously:-
Did she not realise that throwing/flicking bits of ham/bacon at Muslims is one of the most common threats fascists make on message boards?
Is she not aware of the pig’s heads being left at mosques?
What the hell kind of a come on is that!?
Moron.
The reaction from TE and RH now makes sense.
TE looked down and withdrew into a socially inert state, perhaps afraid he was about to be found out as a gossip or a snitch.
RH looked over at TE, pointed, covered his mouth and then laughed. I registered it, but I didn’t understand the significance of it.
I think TE spread the whole “porking” thing to PH, PH then decided to hit on me with this unmitigated racist failure of a pick-up line.
Monopolising My Time
PH asked me to come over one weekend to count a bucket of donations for The People’s Assembly. She offered to bring me back the next morning. Strange. Cooking and hosting took all day and evening. Counting money does not. I declined.
I could hear a cheeky smile on her face as she said in response to my decline, “Just being social.”
I had already seen her twice that week. Once for a pre-meeting and the second time for the event itself. The change needed counting but I didn’t want to spend my Saturday or Sunday with her.
I was knackered and I needed to recharge.
She got TE to come over and from his experience as a greengrocer he had a machine that weighed money. Saved on counting individually.
I didn’t detect anything creepy about it, but I just didn’t want to see her again that week.
I found it strange how she was treating me like dirt one minute and then the next wanting me in her home to come count change.
It felt oppressive.
My Job Prospects
At the top of 2013, I told PH that I needed to get back into work.
What I didn’t tell her was that I could not deal with the stress of group politics, the apparent lies she was spinning Alistair, and that for as long as there are lies I could not trust her.
Turns out I was right. Even before I judged her to AC, she was monitoring my messages to AC.
She asked to take a look at my CV. Gave me feedback.
I have since gone to a professional for free advice. He was very helpful.
Then she got me a role at Salford UCU as an admin assistant.
Weeks later she mentioned it was the gayest union branch in the country and she gave me that same evil grin.
In August she asked me to hand out leaflets for the People’s Assembly at Gay Pride.
KR said to PH, “Oh, you’re not coming this year?”
I didn’t go because my instincts told me not to.
Was this woman(PH) grooming me?
I worked in earnest for the cause, but she decided to take advantage of how desperate I was for work and just decided to play this game of making me appear gay in the public eye by insinuation, by association and by inference?
3rd September
There’s something I left out because I didn’t think it was relevant.
I didn’t want to hang around reception and have my face known as one who never takes out any books because they are not a student/library card-holder.
I just mentioned how while I was waiting for her to come out of her building that I talked to a student. We’d noticed each other around campus and when we saw each other again that day the conversation started naturally. He said he noticed me from French class. I told him I was not a student and that I was an anti-war activist.
He was perfectly pleasant.
After I relayed this story to PH, she said, “Good for you.” I detected a slight effort but not much.
Then I said that, that morning on my way into Manchester, I chatted to a young doctor on the train.
I said “chatted” not “chatted up”.
She replied, “He must only be an F2.” There was something in her voice that was trying to deter me from him.
Jealousy that I could make it with a doctor?
That wasn’t my intention. I talked to him because I think it’s always good to know a doctor.
If you’re reading this I think I remember your name as Alex.
Then, after checking out a group of Mediterranean looking young men, PH made her ignorant comments, relishing it.
Her comments were made based on ethnicity and religion being the same thing, more identity politics aka racism.
In retaliation for me saying back in August that I was after a Muslim man. It was jealousy.
She wasn’t going to allow me to enjoy the male form as far as she could control it.
She framed up my interest in men/heterosexuality as some kind of unconscionable female chauvanism.
But I think looking back, she wanted the attention I had to give, to the right man, for herself.
I didn’t realise words were her kink.
As much as I have been told I have a way with words, writing naughty messages and talking dirty are not things that move me on a deep level.
That is only a precursor to the next step in establishing “intimacy”.
My kink is pretty straight-forward. And I’m not releasing that to the public. Let’s just say it’s gender specific.
But that’s why she was so ready to run me down and insinuate that I was a slut*, because if she couldn’t have me for herself, she was going to make it so that no one would ever come near me.
*WHO IS this stud muffin supposed to be whom I have supposedly been shagging? …You got his number?
A Further Note on Jealousy
Somewhere between me closing the book on AC and PH becoming involved with TE, this old woman started accusing me of flirting.
It made no sense whatsoever that she felt she could “correct” or otherwise control my writing or communications.
After PH and TE got together the remarks became spiteful, painting me out to be a slut.
She couldn’t have me for herself, she got bitter.
4th October
I now think she made an issue of the attention I paid to men, not out of a sense of moralism(some guys like being treated like a piece of meat, a really buff piece of meat), but out of a sense of jealousy.
She also raised the issue of things I had written as Facebook posts.
This woman may have been taking my posts too seriously; as if I was addressing her personally.
Creep.
Her strategy was two-fold:
1. Single White Female
That time she kicked her legs up at me, there was this instinctual feeling: You remember the scene in The Silence of the Lambs where Buffalo Bill(played by Ted Levine) is dancing around semi-naked with his willy tucked between his legs? Yes, THAT’S what it felt like.
Utter revulsion. It was intense for him but he was clearly deluded.
Here I was being patient. Trying not to come on to Alistair too strong. All this time she was putting the kibosh on it.
Whatever was being said, if he cared, he’d ask me. But he didn’t.
During this whole thing it felt kind of “Single White Female” and that’s what this was.
Alistair was the puppy the psycho killed(played by Jennifer Jason Leigh).
I remember Alistair was cute, he seemed loyal like a puppy dawg. He remained loyal to the wrong person.
She continued to isolate me from other men who either praised me or in whom I expressed an interest.
Was this her strategy? To cut off all options that I would be in such a desperate emotional space as to go for the very last non-option?
It is sickening.
Who has self-esteem THAT low? That they would settle for someone they don’t actually love?
That’s gross.
2. Easy Lover
It’s a song by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey.
For two summers in a row I had this song on my playlist. I like me some Phil Collins. I like the guitar on this track.
It’s the story of a man who decides to give his mate some advice on this girl.
He advises his friend to stay away from her. What the song doesn’t tell you is the motivations behind Mr. Just Being a Good Friend.
Usually, at least in my experience men talk shit about women to their mates because THEY want to have a crack at her themselves. And if it doesn’t work they’ve got that failsafe excuse to fall back on.
This is essentially what happened to me.
But this time it was a woman.
She couldn’t get me so she gave me a hard time and became verbally abusive.
Just like other men who have harassed me. They couldn’t get what they wanted, and then threw all their toys out the pram.
All these things she said (Read below “Fantasy”) were her making excuses of being ignored, rebuffed indirectly.
- She isolated me by spreading gossip about me sexually.
- She monitored me/stalked me by other colleagues. (According to TE)
- Took fb posts way too seriously. (She brought this to my attention on the 4th October 2013)
Even if she were a man, this would still be harassment.
The sleazy skeevy shitbag that needs firing.
I didn’t realise SHE was the next Comrade Delta.
Fantasy
There were different stories that were intimated to me by people close to PH.
1. Telling MS that I was interested in her. What MS said October 2012 is indicative of that.
2. What she said to her daughter gave me the distinct impression that she was painting a picture of me being an oppressed woman.
While my brother and I did argue from time to time, he wasn’t abusive. A bit arsey at times. Things improved greatly since I stopped being sa homemaker to support him.
The one who was oppressing me was PH and her lackeys.
What was the fantasy, that she was saving me?
From my culture? (Or rather, her bigoted ideas as to my culture.)
From my brown-ness? She did mention “The white working class” a lot. (I love my shade of brown. And participating in activism was not me “trying to be white” or trying to be more accepted somehow.)
And so selfless(!) was her saviour-hood that she would take her reward for saving me in sex?
:S
3. On the subject of PH and MS’s non-break-up, she said, “He’s just going to have to take the hint.” That phrase again.
4. Telling TE she was into me.
TE and I were talking about PH not dumping MS officially before moving onto TE.
TE said to me, “She’s just really bad at having those kinds of conversations.” He looked over at me meaningfully but I didn’t understand what for.
It seems to me that PH played that role to gain sympathy from TE.
TE also wrote via FB chat, “I know you like P.” Couple that with the threesome comment and you have something really weird going on.
5. That AC was not interested in me in the least when he did show signs of interest.
MS wrote to me in discussing something else, “That was a different situation.”
6. Telling AC and JSC I was a stalker in order to isolate me.
All fantasies in order to push her story.
Projection
PH accused me of projection but it was in fact PH who was projecting onto me:
- Her own hatred of religion
- Her own lesbian tendencies
- Her own stalkerish behaviour
Revenge
Slut-shaming. In revenge for that fact that she couldn’t have me for herself, she made spiteful remarks and spread rumours of me being loose. The kind of rumours that can get a woman raped.
She may still be trying to paint me out to be a slut. Fact is; I’m not. No woman should ever be threatened with rape on the basis of rumour or on the basis of having many partners in a lifetime.
PH can only justify calling me a slut by reference to the misogynistic and ignorant view she has of Islam.
In reality I am just as human as anyone else. I just try to be responsible about who I share myself with.
But that doesn’t seem to matter to PH: If she couldn’t have me she was going to punish me for it.
Reality
Isolation & Control
Before hitting on AC back in 2011, PH seemed to be talking smack about me to MDS and AC. Perhaps she was jealous of young blood and therefore competition for the attentions of the higher-ups in Stop the War/Counterfire.
I believe that after AC showed PH what I had written to him, PH wanted whatever mild sexual potency I had, for herself. (It was only mild. I can get much less suggestive and much more graphic in my words.)
In my opinion, based on what I observed and have learnt since, that she was monitoring me via TE and likely AC too, she went about isolating me from other men by calling me a stalker and a weirdo.
And when I showed attention to others and got positive feedback from others, she showed jealousy. And became spiteful.
I have a normal libido, I keep it to myself because I haven’t found anyone I want to share myself with physically. But as long as I wasn’t giving that to PH, she was going to make my life miserable.
Just like the guy who sexually harassed me on my first temping assignment.
______
I want to ask MS and TE if they realise how far this could have gone. That this might have ended up like scene out of a Linda Blair prison movie.
They believed her so much, I could have been assaulted. Would they have kept quiet?
Unstable Personal Relationships
In February, PH expressed that she was no longer interested in MS since he was no fun to be around after a bereavement in the family.
It seemed cold of her to judge him that way. That just because he was not emotionally available to her, because he’s dealing with bereavement, which can take years to get over, she was going to bin him off.
After the fundraiser dinner in February, I asked MS if they were still together in March, he said yes.
She didn’t break up with MS officially until after she got together with TE.
She seemed to be bitter, abusive, controlling towards me until after the 3rd September when she realised I wouldn’t keep her abusive comments secret. THEN she latched onto TE and then acted as if I was after TE.
On the surface it appeared that she was jealous of my interactions with TE. But the other instances of creepy encroachment didn’t make sense.
Sensitivity to LGBT Issues
I emailed PH last week to discuss what had gone on, and to check if she really had done all this nasty, degrading mess in order to get in my knickers. If she was in fact LGBT. And if she was officially out of the closet. Or out of the closet to everyone else but me.
She asked if I wanted to meet up.
I said no. And that we should do this by email.
No reply since. Unsurprisingly.
I have no idea what this woman might allege against me if I went to meet her. If there’s no CCTV, I’d be screwed. There’s a chance she’d make up another fantasy.
I read up about sociopaths, that they use things you’ve said against you.
I can imagine her huffing and puffing, turning her face red and squeezing out a single tear(like on the 4th October 2013), saying that she missed my face.
Bull. Shit.
I am not entertaining such foolishness. She can either put it on paper or do one.
Protecting Myself Further
At the time in 2013, after I realised PH was a dirty liar (after she lied about not saying anything offensive to me on the 3rd September) I avoided having any time outside of public meetings i.e. at the pub after meetings.
I avoided her on the evening in September for An Evening to Inspire after the event.
PH, MS and TE were going to go to the pub, I said I had to go get something to eat.(The truth.)
I noticed PH’s mouth twist and contort as if she was restraining herself from speaking.
Inner monologue: Yeah, I know you crazy. Crazy is as crazy does.
There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to be around her without objective and reliable witnesses.
Present day: If you have been following my dating & relationship blog, this(the set of fantasies) is why I have been so cruel and sweary when referring to the situation.
There are two ways to deal with a sociopath who won’t take help.
1. Record the shit they say.
2. Have nothing to do with them.
I would add a third: Do not entertain in any way, their delusion towards you. Break their delusion by presenting evidence contrary to their narrative.
She appeared to have trespassed into my personal life with an ulterior motive that was completely unwanted.
Upon learning of this ulterior motive, I have made it abundantly clear that I have never found PH attractive in any way.
Asking For It?
There is nothing I have ever said or done with the intention to flirt with her or give her any impression that I was ever into her.
Looking back I wonder where she might have gotten the idea that this pursuit of hers was consensual.
Or maybe that didn’t matter. Consent didn’t matter.
She didn’t get my consent to see what I had written to AC. Or to TE. Or to JP.
She didn’t have my consent to spread rumours about me being interested in her (according to MS).
She didn’t have my consent to violate a reasonable degree of privacy and confidence.
She violated that along with AC, TE, MS, probably JP as well.
Her will seemed to matter more than my privacy.
Freedom of speech and the Data Protection Act don’t seem to mean much to her.
If it doesn’t go along with her narrative, she wasn’t going to have it.
Gender and Double Standards
To treat this as a crush is sick. If this were a man, the course of action she took would be considered insidious, evil and manipulative.
This is not a doddery old lesbian/bisexual with a crush. In my opinion, PH is a sociopath.
I know full well from a previous relationship that “love” does not seek to isolate, control or manipulate.
It is utterly bizarre that this woman saw fit to generate or conjure up a relationship in front of other colleagues, one that forces and coerces the intended target into a relationship that is completely unwanted.
It further justifies my unrelenting and public rejection of this crazy old woman.
Take Responsibility
If you don’t take action now, someone else is going to be bullied, or worse, assaulted.
TE never could lie to my face. He has a tell. And he is the one I would like to cross-examine in person, face-to-face. I wonder why he is difficult to reach nowadays.
In my opinion PH is a sociopath. If you allow this to go unchecked, you are enabling an abuser to do this again to someone else.
This was constructive dismissal based on:-
Race/Religious discrimination
Sectarian discrimination
AND
Sexual harassment
PH made activism in Manchester a hostile environment. One in which I did not feel safe. Especially when I realised she was capable of lying about what she said on the 3rd September.
Please see the truth, and stop this from happening again. It wasn’t right that it happened in the first place. It’s not right that she’s lying to cover it up.
What matters now is how you, the leadership, deal with it.
Don’t let this happen again.
nerdingouthard 