I haven’t written about it — it’s been far less overt than what you described here. For instance, a guy will ask for my email because he would LOVE for me to take a look at something he wrote (“Please, I would so appreciate your feedback on this, you’re such a great writer, blah blah blah…”) and next thing I know, he emails to say he doesn’t have anything for me to look at, but he wanted to let me know how attracted he is to me and maybe we could “explore things.” I’ve had stuff like that happen a lot and it’s infuriating.

And then if I call them out, they get defensive. “I’m just expressing my feelings. You’re the one who opened the door.” Ugh.

Bait and switch is what it is. Pure and simple.

What I relate to the most is that feeling that I owe someone something — because they complimented me, because they respect my work, because they think I’m beautiful. Or when they tell me how unhappy they are in their life and I suddenly feel like any boundary I set down will hurt them and I don’t want to hurt them… Again. Ugh.

This piece really spoke to me, as you can see. ❤