It's 7:39pm on Wednesday, 15 January, and I'm sitting here with my mother, watching the Australian Open. Thanasi Kokkinakis is playing the British player Jack Draper, and I'd like to see Kokkinakis win this game. He looks like he might have injured his right shoulder, but he is playing at the top of his game.
Where I last left off, I told you that I had returned home from Cambodia. My friend Peter from the hotel was sick on the day that I left, but I had left cards with a tip for everyone at front reception, and in his card, I put my number. A few days after I got home, he messaged me, and we started up a conversation.
I am going back to Cambodia in December of this year, and we started talking about when I return. Things were a little bit flirty, and then I brazenly asked if he was married with children. At first, he didn't answer and dodged the question, but then I used Google Translate to say in Khmer that he obviously didn't understand my English. He then answered that yes, he got married three years ago.
Initially, I thought maybe we could have a naughty little affair, but when I logged into Facebook, I saw that he had looked at my profile. The way I could tell this is that when you look at someone's profile on Facebook, you then appear as someone they might know. I never look at anyone's profile because of this, but he appeared as someone I might know, so I added him as a friend.
He accepted me, and I couldn’t believe this, but he had more than 2,500 friends. That is huge; no one I know has that many friends on Facebook. I, myself, have only got 427. After he accepted me, this gave me the ability to search all of his photos, and when I did, I could see photos of him with his wife. She is absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea why he would even be looking at me—that’s if he was in the first place. She also looked like a real sweetie, so any naughty thoughts I'd had about him instantly dissolved.
It's not who I am to have an affair either. I believe all women should stick together and not get involved with each other's husbands and partners. There needs to be a universal sisterhood that adheres to this, and after seeing this beautiful young woman, I realised that that is exactly what I'm going to do.
In saying that, I still really like my friend Peter, so the next morning, I sent him a message that started with, "Good morning, my brother, how are you today?" He then started calling me sister, and that's where we are at now. We message every day and have light conversations, and I love to talk to him. But I've cultivated a situation where things are definitely well within the friend zone between us.
A while back, I told you about Roger. Roger is the widower of my Nanny's niece. We crossed paths around twenty years ago when he was with his then-wife, Eliza, and I found him attractive. He is a tall, big South African with what I thought was a sexy accent.
We crossed paths again at Nanny's funeral, and while we didn't speak there, I messaged him on Facebook when I got home, and we talked for a long time. I found myself slightly attracted to him again until he said some racist things, like he wouldn't let black people into his home, and I cut all contact with him.
I hadn't heard from him since, but on New Year's Day, I got a message from him on Facebook wishing me and a Rebecca a Happy New Year. I wrote back and said thanks, and he said he was currently traveling back from South Africa. Then he said, "chat soon."
I didn't really think anything of it, but then last Friday, I thought I would send him a message and say hi. He was at work, but we got into a conversation. I told him I was writing a book, and he started to give me encouragement about writing it, telling me I was still young enough and I had plenty of time. I didn't like that—it made me feel gross to have him give me intrusive affirmations like that.
Things then got a little bit flirty, and it was something I didn't really know how to get out of. On one hand, he was saying that he had no confidence with women, and then he would start talking about his deceased wife. Then he would say something about how he wants to go down on me and talked about how good he is at that. This made me feel like I was going to throw up.
I should have stopped the conversation as soon as he started talking like that, but I genuinely felt so sorry for him. I think it was a big deal for him to be talking to a woman like that, but in retrospect, it is so disrespectful to me. I don’t know where along the line I gave him permission to talk to me like I'm some kind of whore. Not that there's anything wrong with being a prostitute—it’s the world’s oldest profession, and I support a safe working environment for all sex workers—but for me, it makes me feel disgusting to hear a complete stranger talking to me like that.
He then sent me a dick pic. I was not happy and I had asked him not to. He then kept asking me to send him a photo of myself, and I was just saying there is absolutely no way I would, and I said no. He asked me what my fantasy was, and I was just about to say goodbye when I said I didn’t have one and just out of sheer curiosity I asked him his. This is what he said:
"I like to watch ladies wee on me then eat them out after. And live anal play on both sides. Love lace on a lady too. Please don't think bad of me."
I think he meant "love anal play." I hate myself for my response to this. I didn’t want to be rude about his fantasy, but I was repulsed by it. I recognise that everybody has their secret desires, but to suggest that I would participate in something like this was as insulting as it was nauseating.
I told him I’d never done anything like that, and he asked me if it turned me on. I said that I didn’t know. The conversation wound down pretty quickly after that. He kept saying that he knew he’d turned me off, and the thing is, I couldn’t be turned off because I’d never been turned on in the first place.
He then sent me a meme which said:
"Don't ever put me in a situation where I have to step out of character because I'll show you some colours you didn't know came in the crayon box."
I asked him what he meant by that and he said:
"Different side of me I am a Gemini so I have a twin and he is horrible. Still waiting on your answer did you like what you saw"
So, he got kind of threatening. He then sent me messages saying that I am beautiful, followed by one that finished with, "Don't let anyone tell you different." This is the ultimate backhanded compliment. This man turned out to be so creepy, and this is a classic example of why I don’t want a man of my own.
He continued to ask me to send him photos of myself, which I refused to do, and then he tried to talk dirty, to which I was not responsive. We ended the conversation with Roger saying the ball was in my court and that he would love to have one night with me. I haven’t contacted him since, nor has he contacted me.
I used to think I was a pretty good judge of character. I sometimes get a real sense about someone without being too judgmental. But I was wrong about Roger. I know the reality is, he’s just a man, and by not sticking up for myself, I allowed him to talk to me like I was a cheap piece of trash. I was balancing the pity I felt for him about the death of his wife and the personal disgust I was feeling about what he was saying to me.
I may have misjudged his character, but I have not misjudged my own. It’s not good enough for me to have a random man talk to me in an overtly sexually suggestive manner and make assumptions that I would have sex with him. It is also not good enough for him to then turn around and make threatening remarks because I’m not interested in him. I, and all women, deserve so much better than what this creep has put on the table. I pledge to always stick up for myself and never take any crap like this from any man ever again.
I haven’t been with a man in 12 years this year. I haven’t had much opportunity, haven’t wanted to, and I basically stick to myself. I also know I will never be with anyone again, but if I did, it would be a mutually respectful interaction and not some bottom-of-the-barrel, cheap, and nasty act, which should only be reserved for the toilet.
It's now 10:04pm, and it hasn’t taken me two and a half hours to write this—I’ve been watching the tennis as I’ve been typing away. Kokkinakis is up 2-1 and is winning 4-3 in the fourth set. I love it when the crowd gets behind an Aussie like this. They are on fire tonight, and so is he.
