Right now, however, I want to share another situation that has caused a big headache. I'll try to encapsulate my story since I don't have many pictures to post and I don't think you all want a lengthy post anyway.

There's a guy. Let's call him Neil.

I don't know how old he is, but he's about 10 years older than me. Give or take. 

Neil and I came to know each other through a mutual friend, he hit me up on Facebook and we talked for a while. I expected our conversation to be a one-off incident since we would be rehearsing together for an event in about a month. However, since I came back from Shanghai (weeks ago), he has been talking to me every single day. Gradually I started feeling very uncomfortable as:

1. He literally hits me up every. single. day. I have not gotten a day of peace without him messaging me. It has gone to the point where he just does this:

1. (Supposed to be number 2 but blogger isn't cooperating) He invites me to have lunch with him/bets lunch with me (UPDATE: he does this to everyone so it's not a big deal thank God). Can we keep in mind he is a lot older than me? Nobody is going to go out with you alone especially when I don't know you.
2. He rants...quite a lot. On Facebook, to other people, to me, about everything. Not that that's illegal, but I really didn't know how to reply him as I didn't know his situation. Plus, I did not want to talk to him and prolong the conversation anyway.
   
   Furthermore, it hinted that he was quite a bitter person. He had a temper for sure and he held grudges over quite a few things. 

Then over the weekend we had a communication problem. I was supposed to go to his place at 230pm for a rehearsal. I picked a day when he had activities so the amount of time we had to spend on rehearsal was controlled. He initially wanted me to stay for a few hours (he had to leave at 6/630 so around that time) but I wasn't having that. I intended to stay for 1.5 hours max because I did not feel safe around him (my mom agreed to go with me). My mom also refused to let me stay beyond 1.5 hours, so we were both on the same page.

I was about to tell him that I could only stay until 4 when he told me that his appointment had been pushed forward by 2 hours. (logically, if he had to leave at 6/630, he would have to leave at 4/430, yes?) I thought this was perfect and told him it was ok. He asked if I could come earlier but I said I had other matters to attend to, so no.

When I confirmed with him that I was leaving at 4 he got a shock and what preceded thereafter was a string of frustrated text messages from him. It ended up with him saying that if he had known it was such a short rehearsal he would have rescheduled.

Honestly, I didn't owe him anything. I was doing him a favour by helping him for free (the rehearsal was for an event) and he was expecting me to give him a lot of my time to rehearse since apparently "(I) would like more time" to him.

I ended up not going.

I had better and other things to do and he was frustrated because I was not giving him the amount of time he expected me to give him.  He implied that only him and I were rehearsing together which was a RED CODE ALERT. It sounded so sketchy...he never really talked about what we were exactly going to rehearse; every nuance lead up to a situation that sounded like a recipe for disaster. 

I had a bad feeling about all this right from the start. I felt very uncomfortable each time he talked to me because he seemed to cross the line every time. He seemed like a good person, but what do I really know about him? I won't subject myself to people who think I'm too nice to reject their requests. I'm not free labour to be exploited. 

Thanks for listening to my rant. I hope we're all on the same page that we do not put ourselves in unnecessary danger just because we don't dare to say no.