Twig55

Hi @Ch0c0, @pressAtoQUEER and @nonmerci. Thank you very much for your responses. I took some time to digest your advice and have taken action to terminate my relationship with my friend, though it makes me sad. I believe it is the best thing to do, all things considered, especially as I agree that my attempt to salvage our friendship makes it seem to him like there is a chance. I have an apology from him and an agreement to keep his distance in writing. I will still report everything to my manager for the record, but hopefully this will be the end of it. Thank you for giving me the confidence to get to this point. I think I will be able to handle this now that I have taken this step.

Hi. New to this forum, but was on AVEN many moons ago. I have a problem. I have identified as aro for about 6 years and nothing has happened to change that. Yesterday, a colleague, who is also a friend, sent a global 'fuck you' message to the entire company so I called him to check that he was ok (he was working from home). I'm still not clear on the whys and wherefores of that email, but he started gushing about his undying love for me. When I say gushing, I mean he wouldn't stop talking about it even after I gave a firm 'no never' response. He told me things I wish I could erase from my brain and another friend of mine was creeped out by when I described it to her. Now, this person is a friend and if he's having other issues then I acknowledge that he may be using his apparent love for me as a way to vent other emotions. I don't doubt that he does love me, only I think his behaviour was so odd that I can't reconcile it with his normal behaviour. If he is experiencing an emotional break, I don't want to make things worse. At the same time, I am incredibly uncomfortable with the whole situation. I sent him a forum post that explained how it feels to be aro and brushed aside (for all his claims of respecting me, he ignored almost everything I said), which he read and then called me to discuss. I picked up, and ended up hanging up on him when it was clear that he had read the words and then totally forgotten them within about a minute of conversation. Since then, I've had a couple of messages on WhatsApp and one text message, all some variation of 'I love you'. I'm worried about work on Monday because he seems unable to take no as no, regardless of any other problems he's got going on. I'm worried it may escalate to the point of having to speak to HR. I'm also slightly worried he might turn up on my doorstep, he was so out of character. I suppose I'm looking for advice on how to navigate this. Ideally, I would like to pretend it just didn't happen, but I don't think it's fair to completely deny what he feels any more than I think it's fair that he's ignoring me right now. So things can't be the same. I intend to speak to my manager to make her aware so that I can easily start HR proceedings if I feel the need to, but I don't want it to get that far. Does anyone have any insight into how else I can deal with this informally? Or can anyone who is romantic give me some insight into what sort of things are good/bad to do/say in this situation? I just don't know how to handle it.