Teenage Boy Called 'Heartless' For Throwing Out Cupcakes Given To Him By A Girl He Says Is 'Stalking Him'
People have called him cruel, but if the roles were reversed would we have any sympathy?
cottonbro studio / Pexels Navigating teenage crushes is no easy business—especially when the crush is unrequited. That's the situation one teen boy on Reddit recently found himself in, and he's been called "cruel" and "heartless" for the way he handled it.
In a post to Reddit's "r/AmITheA--hole" subreddit, where people go to suss out whether they were in the wrong in a conflict, he detailed what went down when a girl he called a "creepy b-tch" took an unwanted shine to him. His response to the girl definitely left some people shocked, but not everyone thinks he was in the wrong.
A teen boy on Reddit threw the cupcakes a girl gifted him in the trash because he says she is 'stalking' him.
The boy, a senior in high school, writes that the girl has been "following me around for a few months," which he finds "creepy." But her crush on him goes far deeper than just following him around school.
He says she has been recording him and posting Photoshopped pictures of them together. He has "caught her recording me multiple times" and that his friends showed him an entire Tumblr page the girl created full of pictures edited to make it look like they are a couple.
He has also confronted her on several occasions, but he writes that "she always scampers off when I start talking to her and telling her off." He adds that he has had to block her on multiple social media platforms because she keeps sending him "detailed DMs about her weird fantasies of me."
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The boy has reported the girl to both the dean of his school and his parents, who have refused to do anything.
Even after showing the dean the DMs the girl has sent him, the Dean, whom the boy calls "completely useless," has still refused to act. The boy's parents have been similarly unmoved. "My parents don’t care at all about how she’s creeping me out," he writes. "They think I should be flattered."
The situation escalated when the girl approached him with a box full of cupcakes after figuring out which lunch period he has.
He writes that the girl "ditched class to come stalk me and find out which cafeteria space I was sitting in for lunch." He knows this because a friend of his has a class with the girl during his lunch period, and reported that she wasn't in class that day. He said he was "extremely pissed" by the gesture, told her he didn't want the cupcakes, begging her once again to leave him alone. The girl apologized several times but kept trying to force the cupcakes into his hands and lap.
Friends have called him "cruel," "heartless" and "savage" for throwing the cupcakes in the garbage.
When the girl wouldn't leave him alone, the boy called her a "creepy b---h" and then took things into his own hands, throwing the cupcakes in the trash as she watched. The lovestruck teen began crying and ran off as some of his friends laughed. But others excoriated him for how he handled it, saying that it was "uncalled for." Now, he wonders if he took things too far.
Commenters on Reddit were disturbed by what the teen boy described, and agreed that he is being stalked.
"You should honestly take all the DMs and Tumblr to the cops," one Redditor wrote, and several others agreed. One person pointed out that in some places, the teen boy's situation could even be considered stalking in the eyes of the law, including potentially under federal legislation like Title IX.
"Two unwanted contacts is legally stalking [in some places], ask for a restraining order," one person urged. "Document everything," another user wrote. "Make sure your friends can back up your side if this becomes a legal issue..."
"...[F]ile a complaint with the police and if all of that comes to nothing, it's time to get a lawyer involved. She's stalking you and it's not harmless or funny."
Others pointed that if it were the teen boy stalking the teen girl instead, there would be no question about whether this was sexual harassment.
"Imagine if the genders were reversed," a user mused. "A man takes secret recording of a girl, puts their pictures up together on the internet, repeatedly follows her even after being told to stop?"
"Everyone would be saying to go to the cops." They added, "The school administrator who said the [he] should be flattered ought to be ashamed."
The boy's dad came in for criticism on this basis, too. "I might also say to your dad 'if some guy was following Mom around and posting pictures of her online, would that be flattering?'" one person suggested.
"It's ridiculous how sexual harassment towards men is ignored as an issue," another user lamented. "I can bet if the genders were reversed [he] would be getting more sympathy from his friends."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.