I went to college with this guy 10 years ago and I considered him a friend up until this year. Something changed in him, and he constantly needs to put me down and I don’t know how to handle it.
We’re both 28, for reference.
Last year, he reported me to the college because I was doing students’ homework for them for some extra cash. He said that what I was doing was depreciating his Diploma. I guess I get it, but what kind of friend would try to get me in trouble for something as harmless as doing people’s homework? He didn’t ask me to stop first or talk to me about it first, he just flat out reported me. Some friend.
Edit: I’m not saying what I did was not wrong. If he valued my friendship, he would have talked to me first. And I would have valued our friendship enough to stop.
I ended up dropping out of the program because of stress. He graduated this spring. I congratulated him and genuinely was happy for him. He then sends me this really childish text, bragging about how he graduated and I didn’t. Here’s a quote from part of the conversation. No joke, this is word for word:
“Hey [my name], just letting you know that I am an engineer now and you aren’t. Also I just got hired at [his work] and am making $34 now just to start. There will be a party at [local bar] to celebrate my graduation. You should come. There will be resumes being taken, you should submit yours, because people like me always need assistants. Even though you are not an engineer by any means.”
I thought, maybe he’s being intentionally arrogant as a joke that I’m supposed to get. But that’s not the case, this kind of talk continued for months. And he means it to be hurtful.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I blocked him on everything I could think of.
A little bit of background information, I recently started my own business making custom tools. This quote was a part of what he commented on my Instagram picture of one of my tools yesterday:
“You should stop posting these online, it’s really embarrassing because your [tool name] is such a failure. I should redesign all of it for you because I’m actually an engineer at [company name] and have a lot more experience. I could actually do it right, unlike you. I just might help you if you ask me nicely.”
Like, what the hell did I do to deserve that? I don’t know why I let it even bother me because of how obviously immature he is being.
I didn’t respond. I blocked him on Instagram too, but now he’s trying to message me on LinkedIn. Blocked him there now too.
I’m still friends with his brother, so it’s impossible for me to completely block him out from my life unfortunately.
I almost want to explain to him how narcissistic he is, and how his messages are an obvious cry of mental insecurity. I know that that would just be fueling the fire though, and would solve nothing.
He deserves to be put in his place. I don’t know if that’s possible though without me becoming just as petty as he is.
How should I handle this? He’s bound to see me in the future, so there’s no avoiding his bullshit.
Thanks
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Dude this shithead isn’t your friend. I have enemies who have more respect for me than this guy does for you…
Dump this dick
You were commiting fraud. He did nothing wrong by reporting you. Don’t want to get reported? Don’t commit fraud.
He shouldn’t be saying what you wrote. Nobody should be saying something with the intention of being hurtful.
Both of you are wrong. The only thing anyone here deserves is for both of you to stop and move on. Ignore the other person, eventually they’ll get the idea.
You were commiting fraud. He did nothing wrong by reporting you. Don’t want to get reported? Don’t commit fraud.
I’d agree if they were colleagues/strangers. I would never report a friend for that. I’d voice my opinion at the most but reporting them is effectively nuking the friendship.
Well, ok, but you’d think he’d at least talk to me first? If he genuinely had an issue with it, I would value our friendship enough to stop.
What you were doing was big enough to go straight to reporting. The way he saw you as a person probably changed. Its really not surprising he didn’t talk to you first.
I mean if you were sharing homework answers or olds test, or even cheating on your own test that would be different. You were compltly doing others homework for money. You keep saying that they still did the tests. Well depending on the class, the homework is a big part of the grade. Not to mention all the added free time they get by not doing homework. Extra time to study, less stress, and a boost to their grade. Plus you were doing this for money, not to help a friend or so they would help you with yours. AND it was multiple people, many times throughout the class. On scale of severity, what you did isn’t the absolute worst possible but it’s getting close.
This is only the second or third time that I’m talking about it with anyone else. I didn’t know it was this serious.
I could tell, that’s why I went in depth. I’m surprised you didn’t get expelled.
I guess I could have, eh. I did end up getting in trouble for it. I had a research job that they fired me from.
Different people consider different things serious.
The guy is massively toxic to you. Why do you want to keep that around? Just cut him out of your life. Someone like that isn’t worth anyone’s time or your second chances. It’s like he genuinely wants to hurt you. Both by rubbing in the fact that he graduated and also destroying any of your chances at succeeding your business. Fuck him.
That is unless, you’re not telling us the full story and you’ve done something to him. Then maybe you can understand why he’s going out of his way to hurt you… Either way that friend isn’t going to work.
Well we are only getting your side of the story, and it is not uncommon for people to omit facts about a situation that makes themselves look bad.
It would have been nice for him to talk to you about it first, but thats only a courtesy and not a requirement. Its possible that law or school regulations require reporting and do not allow for him to talk to you about it, as it may include him in the action. Its also possible that he felt slighted by something you did, even if you aren’t aware of it.
Either way, what you were doing was wrong and his reporting you was not a wrong action. His way of treating you is a wrong action.
Both wrong, both should ignore each other and move on.
And you who is supposed to be innocent is saying “you could have at least tried to guilt me into stopping even though I knew what i was doing was fraud”
I second the person who says you need to bring this public behavior to the attention of his employer.
He reported you for misconduct and the sword of damocles swings both ways.
Indeed he should do this, after all he’s mentioning his employer.
Either that or shank him in a tasteful and thoughtful manner.
Please do not do this. If this is who the “friend” is, his employer will figure it out. OP was reported for actual fraud. Please do not be so petty as to attempt to ruin a person’s life based off an internet commenter who has heard one side and has no understanding of the involved people’s mental state or life situations. It wouldn’t work anyway.
Sure it does. I’ve done it!
Code of Conduct and ethical behavior are for everyone, not just people who follow the rules in college. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Now, professionally, I’m under an exceptional amount of scrutiny for ethical behavior and I very much should be! I work with marginalized and underrepresented people! They are easy to exploit and are very protected by the law, as well as our ethics. I’ve reported others for their unethical behavior (as well as conducted conversations about appropriate interaction with the people we support).
What that means is, my (metaphorical) nuts are at the band saw every minute of every day. I am absolutely fine with that. It needs to be that way. And if I have a reportable offense, if I ever refer to my actual employer by their name online, I hope to God someone reports me. Because I need a reality check, and I need one badly.
Goose, gander. Rules for thee, rules for me. The poster isn’t somehow allowed to be abused because they did something in the past (which they paid for!) by someone with a superiority complex. That person isn’t somehow immune to the consequences of their actions just because of something OP did in the past.
Is he maybe autistic?
He can’t have suddenly turned autistic.
It’s the damn COVID vaccine!/s
Yeah you can’t suddenly become autistic
He has dyslexia.
The best way to get back at someone is to have a great life. Ignore him and block him, and carry on with your great life.
He’s obviously insecure, fragile, and arrogant. Move on - you’ll never win anything by stopping to his level, and you’ll never convince him to change his ways by putting him in his place. The older you get, the more you realize quickly people just aren’t worth your time.
When you see him next, just ignore him. When he gossips about you to his brother or your friends in an attempt to get a rise out of you, laugh and ignore him.
Have a great life, and fuck that guy.
Well said - great advice. Giving this guy as little room in OP’s head as possible and concentrating on having a good life is the best answer
And I will have a good life :)
Thank you. Spot on.
My one addition is to consider how you will handle this as time goes on. Will you laugh it off to mutual friends with a “Why would I care what he says? There are a million people who’s opinions of me matter more.”? When would you consider it actual harassment? What impact would it have to have on your life to effect your mental well being enough to take action, and what would that action be?
I pose these questions because proactively answering them can put you in a much better situation in that happy life. Most likely, it will also mature your opinion of the situation over time, allowing you to be just the right balance of firm but level-headed on how you alter those plans when and if the time comes.
As time goes on, I’d rather not think about him at all, but for the rare times that I do, I would want to laugh it off, because his way of bragging is actually kind of funny.
Sounds like you’re in a healthy place, that’s great.
I’m actually an engineer at [company name]
Bro it’s petty revenge time. [Company name] needs to see these messages and asked if this is representative of their company values.
Likely would be difficult to get those messages in front of the right person at said company. Also bit hard to for them to verify it is not some scam. I wouldn’t bother but it is a nice thought.
This is my thought too.
Being the bigger person is all well and good but sometimes petty revenge hits different.
You do not wanna mess with narcissists though, it’s not worth the trouble.
Last year, he reported me to the college because I was doing students’ homework for them for some extra cash. He said that what I was doing was depreciating his Diploma. I guess I get it, but what kind of friend would try to get me in trouble for something as harmless as doing people’s homework?
One who believed that you had already betrayed him, apparently. That’s not an excuse for ongoing harassment, though.
In many academic institutions, including some of the highest reputed engineering schools, your former friend would have been considered equally guilty if he failed to report your academic dishonesty. Asking you to quit cheating would not be an acceptable alternative; that would be concealing your violation.
Dude is still being a harasser, which is also unacceptable conduct. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But you’re still pretending you did nothing wrong. That’s not super great either.
The irony is that the students that I did homework for graduated, and I didn’t
That’s not irony, it’s karma? Consequences? Definitely not irony, though.
Would you report a valued friend for the same thing? Honestly, I’m curious. Maybe I’m out of touch.
If your response to anything is ever ‘stop snitching’ then you already know your doing the wrong thing.
Maybe you just don’t know the definition of “irony”. People use it improperly all the time. I don’t think anything in that song by Alanis Morissette is actually ironic.
Personally, I don’t think there’s ever an excuse for cheating; academically it really only harms the cheater. People in college offered me a lot of money to do their work for them. I never accepted, but I also never tattled on them. Grades honestly, really, don’t matter in the long run.
stop worrying about these people giving you grief about it… they don’t matter either…
You’re right. It’s hard not to take things personally sometimes, but I guess learning to not care so much about what others think is something that can improve with practice.
the ability to ask people for feedback is a great strength… i wouldn’t try to stop you from doing that… but it sounds like you know what you were doing…
Are you sure you were ever friends? I wouldn’t treat my worst enemy that way.
I’d just straight up tell him to leave you the fuck alone.
At one time, yes we were friends, and I believed that we had mutual respect. That all changed one random day, and he just lost all respect for me.
Fuck his mom and/or dad…or just beat his face in one day out of nowhere and walk away
fuck this moron, drive on with your life, he’s a bucket of nuclear waste
Yeah, but like, after he throws a bottle of bee pheromones through his window, right?
I mean if you have such thing handy, if you’re going to synthesize it and supply the critters I’d advocate murder hornets. or if you’re really evil and brave, bed bugs
This guy sounds like a text book narcissist. The worst thing you can do is tell a narcissist they are a narcissist. It will do nothing and will only make them double down. The best thing you can do is cut them out of your life.
I had a similar situation when I was in my 20s. Friend I had that I’ve known since highschool would always make remarks about how I got so lucky with my job. Because I was making decent money (more than him) without a degree and he was an engineer. It didn’t matter that I worked my ass off and put in thousands of hours, I was lucky.
If I would ever push back or say something he would just double down. I couldn’t bring up the fact that I didn’t have parents that paid for everything while I was in school, so I had to work and go to college at the same time. I finally realized that was just the way he was going to be, so I limited contact with him. However, his comments never went as far as what you are describing. So, I think you’re doing the right thing by just blocking him.
I highly recommend reading the book Emotional Vampires. It teaches you about the different personality types you’ll run into in the working world and how to deal with each type (when you can’t just avoid them). I wish I had read it 20 years ago.
What I would have done is reply on that comment where he mentioned he works for X pinging the handle of that company on the social media asking if all of their employees harass people online, that way they’re forced to do something about it because it becomes public. If they don’t act on it people looking for their handle might end up finding your answer and that might dissuade people from doing business with them.
this poor dude is just jealous and fearful of your natural mojo
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Ignore him. Narcissists really hate that.
