I agree on documenting, but not sure about going to HR anytime someone is making you uncomfortable. HR isn’t your friend. If you dated a co-worker and now want no contact with them other than polite professionalism, and the guy is saying hi to you and showing up in the break room, and that’s the extent of it, you are going to look like you’re bringing the drama to HR. If they were to ask him about it, he’d be like, “well, we had coffee. And she asked me to have coffee again and I said no, and she said why not?” And he’d be telling the truth.

Now, if you had said, no contact except polite professionalism, and stuck to that, and he was, say, always coming by your desk for no reason, or pushing you to participate in some project of his, or maybe even spreading rumors about you, that I think crosses the line into harassment.

Fair points, Kate. Just…don’t assume he’s just confused. Assume he’s doing all of these fucked up things intentionally. Stay alert and vigilant.

My old job (which I left in November) I had a lot of people who reported to me but I had about 10 direct reports that I grew pretty close to. I just found out one lost his battle with cancer. He left about 2 months earlier than expected. I JUST spoke with him two weeks ago and was going to invite him over to my new house in a few weeks. He was just diagnosed a year ago, beat it, and it came back just that fast. He was only 56.

Now I’m at my new job, sitting here, not really wanting to be here.

I’ve been looking for a new job for about two months, however nothing is good as this one. Basically any other job would be a step down from this one. There is a dream job that I applied to, but they never got back to me. So, I’ll just keep looking. We work in different departments now, so I almost never see him. But when he wants to be seen, he is seen, like this morning. So, I’ll prepare for some of those appearances. I know he does it so he can have some leverage over me, some sort of “here I am, look at me, look at what you’ve lost”, sort of thing.
I actually blocked his number yesterday. I also got out of every group chat I was with him. I also asked him to leave mi family chat (he was still in there). I blocked him on Instagram (earlier I had just unfollowed him, but he was still following me) and deleted him from my followers. I also blocked any friend in common we had so I can’t see anything. I doubt he’ll talk to me (knowing his ego, me telling him to pretend I was dead yesterday may have been a slap in his face) but more of his displays will come.

You telling him to pretend you’re dead isn’t going to stop him from doing the same shit. That’s still engagement on your part – it’s a reaction. I think the best way to make him go away is *consistently* zero interaction (blocking is your best friend) and zero reaction (as far as he can see, you give no fucks whatsoever).

Ale, to be clear, I don’t think your ex is some monster. I just don’t think he’s a nice, normal, well-adjusted guy. He doesn’t have some master plan to ruin your life, but something about his negative interactions with you is actually gratifying to him, and that’s dangerous for you. I think he sounds extremely emotionally immature. When I was a little kid, I knew how to push people’s buttons, expecially my brother’s, and would do it deliberately to upset him, get him in trouble, pick fights, make him look stupid, etc. As an adult, I still know how to do that, but I feel bad for my brother so I am nice to him. In relationships, I know my partners’ insecurities, and it would be very easy to take advantage of that and say incredibly hurtful things. But good, well-adjusted people don’t do that. They don’t break up with someone and keep jerking their strings and continue to hurt them. Only someone very fucked up does that, and I feel like he would keep going with it and get even worse if you let him. He’s not redeemable. You couldn’t have a functional relationship with a guy who has no regard for your well-being. He’s not just dense, he enjoys this.