Online gaming and unwelcome attention (long)

[Cosmasia]

I've experienced harassment (due to my gender) in various online games too, it happens to so so so many women.

The best thing to do is to block him (if the game allows it) and/or report him if he starts sexually harassing you in any way at all.

Women are taught to always be nice and the worst thing to do is to wound a guys feelings, well forget that. He has no right to demand any type of friendship or more from you.
Do you honestly want to be friends (even just casually) with him? What positive things does he do that outweighs this creepy behaviour so much that you are still in contact with him?

I recommend an immediate block and a complete stop to any and all communication with him. I think you'll find yourself extremely relieved after this.  And remember! You ALWAYS have the right to cease contact with someone - and you NEVER have to deal with a guy just to spare his feelings.

[gingerzing]

Women are taught to always be nice and the worst thing to do is to wound a guys feelings, well forget that. He has no right to demand any type of friendship or more from you.
Do you honestly want to be friends (even just casually) with him? What positive things does he do that outweighs this creepy behaviour so much that you are still in contact with him?

I recommend an immediate block and a complete stop to any and all communication with him. I think you'll find yourself extremely relieved after this.  And remember! You ALWAYS have the right to cease contact with someone - and you NEVER have to deal with a guy just to spare his feelings.

This!  Especially the bolded. 

Not sure that the guy told OP that he actually had autism, she just asked if it is a trait. (or how I read the post) 
But if this was happening in the real world rather than a game world, would you be passive to someone who is giving you unwelcome attention. Hopefully not. 

And don't respond to the "sad emails" at all.  That is the same as a guy in real life saying that you are mean or a nasty word or whatever.  Not worth it.  And plays into their little side game.   
(Side note,  in college I got called "Frigid" by a guy in front of his friends  and some of mine.  I was still pretty passive still at that time.  I looked him dead in the eye and said "no, not frigid.  You are just a jerk."  His game was to try to shame me into being "nice", I didn't like the game and refused to play.) 

[mikeylou]

What MMO are you playing? Most of them allow you to report harassment, which this certainly is. Can you report this guy? I think first you would have to tell him to bug off, though.

It sounds like Eve.  DH occasionally bugs me to play, but I really have no interest in playing a game where you can loose something worth several million isk (in game currency) instantly.  The social environment culture is a little bit different as well.  Or at least DH's alliance is.  I've done his jumps for him sometimes and his group chat windows make me think I'm in a 4Chan room.   

I pointed this thread out to DH and he says that Eve is a game that is predominately played by males with aspergers. 

If it is Eve, he says to bring it up to the leader of your Corporation.  The culture is definitely "coarse" and locker-room-ish, but men are sometimes protective of the lone girls they have in their guilds and they like to keep them.

[linux_guy]

<- mikeylou's DH.

First, dear, it's billions of isk (or tens of billions...) . Not just millions. Everything useful costs millions

Second, to address OP: You've already told him to stop, as you said, 'in so many words'.
Escalate to corp/guild leadership. If they won't do anything about it (and I'd be very, very surprised if they don't), then it's probably time to find a new corp/guild to fly with. And regardless, inform him that since he cannot respect the boundaries that you've tried to establish, that you are blocking him for harassment. If he attempts to go around the block, immediately report him and block the new toon.

My Asperger's comment re: EVE was somewhat in jest, but there does seem to be a LOT of shut-ins, bitter and angry former (and current!) military, mentally unstable (first hand experience speaking) special snowflakes, etc that play. There are also a lot of very, very intelligent (I mean, scary smart work on Wall Street as Quants smart) people that play, and there's a lot of just general social awkwardness. 

[AngelBarchild]

I play mmo's as well, and the standard rule is if you don't want to interact with someone then don't. Squelch/ignore and move on.

[TheVapors]

I agree with a lot of what has already been said. I just wanted to address a couple of things that you asked.

Is it wrong of me to find this suffocating and unpleasant?

Definitely not wrong. It IS suffocating and unpleasant. No reason to beat around the bush.

Do autistic people behave like this or is he making excuses?

I've found this to be a red herring so often. Being autistic is not an excuse for bad behavior. Rather, it's there to let you know how to go about making yourself understood to someone who may think a little differently.

It is never, never, never, never, never OK to let a behavior that genuinely makes you feel uncomfortable fly just because you feel as though you're supposed to put up with it for any reason. "But, he's has Asperger's" or "But, he's mostly a good guy" do not negate the fact that he is continuing to do things that make YOUR playtime unpleasant.

How can I get him to stop it without being rude and making him feel bad?

These two things do not go hand-in-hand. They never will. And it's best to stop equating them.

There are a myriad of ways to politely enforce your boundaries, and to get this man to stop annoying you.

These perfectly acceptable and polite tactics may end up giving him a case of the sadfeels.

Let's face it. Hearing from someone that you like that "Hey, you're smothering me" no matter how politely worded sucks a bit. You know what a normal response to that would be? "Well, that sucks. I'm really sorry that I didn't realize it, and that I've been making you so uncomfortable. I'll back off."

(Granted, an even more normal response is not sending sad faces to someone every.single.time. that they're busy elsewhere.)

His temporary sad feelings about being told of his own annoying behavior are HIS problem. That is not your problem. It is not, and will never be your problem to police another person's feelings. You cannot stop him from feeling bad about this. You are allowing the threat of his potential bad feelings to stop you from enforcing your boundaries.

I don't mind chatting with him but not every single day.  I also don't appreciate that I can't talk to other people without him joining in or making sad faces at me.  Some advice on how to get him to back off would be really nice, please.

Again, some really great advice has been given, so I won't add to that specifically. Mostly, I just want to say that while it's nice you want to consider his feelings, it's pretty obvious he hasn't considered yours. So firm up those boundaries. You don't have to allow your downtime to feel invaded simply because you don't want to "be mean". Rest assured. You're not being mean. You're going to be polite, but firm.

[nyarlathotep]

Echoing everything The Vapors said. I've been in this situation before, and if yours is anything like mine, he's trying to manipulate you into being nice to him.

Also, it is more than possible to have Asperger's/Autism and not be a jerk. Sounds like he's using his diagnosis as a crutch, TBH.

[Miss Unleaded]

Thanks everyone for confirming that I wasn't overreacting.  To clarify, he told me himself that he is autistic and tends to annoy others without meaning to because of it. Quite a few times he's said that he is never going to have a girlfriend because he 'can't handle people' and he's 'only nice and that never helped me'.  In hindsight it feels a bit like manipulation. 

I logged on again recently and sure enough, a minute later he started a private conversation and told me that he was doing better now that I was around.     So I decided to take your advice and spell out explicitly that he needed to back off because his attention was getting inappropriate. He basically said to 'call when you want to talk' and left the chat.

I hope it doesn't get unpleasant now but I do feel like a huge weight has been lifted now that I have told him flat out that he's been bothering me.

[greencat]

I find that regardless of the man's neurological status, it is always best and least injurious in the long run to tell men you are not interested in "I am absolutely not interested in you" when they start flirting - and definitely men that escalate from just flirtation into harassing behavior should be reported and blocked.

[TheVapors]

Thanks everyone for confirming that I wasn't overreacting.  To clarify, he told me himself that he is autistic and tends to annoy others without meaning to because of it. Quite a few times he's said that he is never going to have a girlfriend because he 'can't handle people' and he's 'only nice and that never helped me'.  In hindsight it feels a bit like manipulation. 

I logged on again recently and sure enough, a minute later he started a private conversation and told me that he was doing better now that I was around.     So I decided to take your advice and spell out explicitly that he needed to back off because his attention was getting inappropriate. He basically said to 'call when you want to talk' and left the chat.

I hope it doesn't get unpleasant now but I do feel like a huge weight has been lifted now that I have told him flat out that he's been bothering me.

Good! That spine of yours is looking quite polished. Well done!

[kitchcat]

I'm a big MMO player and one of my female friends and guild mates was having a similar problem with another male player (not in our guild). Basically she (who plays a healer) healed him in a large group setting a few time and he took this as sign that she was interested in him. He pm'd her constantly with aggressive flirtations and such. I jokingly suggested she respond to all of these message with this emote :| which we have now dubbed "the face." She did it consistently whenever he crossed the line and he backed off fairly quickly.

I didn't see if you said this guy was in your guild or not? If so could you change your team speak password so he no longer has access to y'all's sever? If you really don't want anything to do with him, just block him. I think most games have this option. If he's a good person to party with but you want his behavior to stop, say exactly that. "I'm not going to talk to you or play with you if you continue to talk to me like that." or "I really do not feel like socializing right now." Soon enough he should get the message. If not, contact a GM for harassment.

[TootsNYC]

I know this may sound mean, but if I were in your shoes, I'd just ignore him in chat and mute him on voice servers. In the long run it will help him to adjust and not act in the very disturbing manner you've described as people will begin to avoid him over it.

That's what I would do.

It's not my responsibility to coach an autistic someone into appropriate behavior. Certainly not in this situation.

Never respond to him. Ever. Block him if you can. And don't ever say "don't have time today"; he'll hear "I might have time tomorrow."

Or, on the public channel, say, "don't p.m. me, Joey--keep all communication on the game channel." Say it once, maybe. And then never again, not on another day.

Be terse, be ONLY focused on the game. And never, ever, ever respond to any off-channel communication.

I see you've directly told him not to contact you socially--that's great!

And I want to chime in to agree that you should not worry about making him upset. You don't owe him that. You DO owe him "being clear."

We really need to change our culture.

[LEMon]

Keep in mind:
you are not responsible for his feelings (i.e. sad), he is;
you are not able to make him happy as he is the only one who can do that;
you are nice and caring, and that can (and will) be used against you;
if you fill a gap in his life that needs to be filled (like learning to talk to girls in person by letting him substitute chat and voice), he will have no reason to make himself go out and do it.

Sounds like you are enjoying the joys of boundaries.  (Prepare yourself that he may start pushing again later, and you will need to remind him of the rules.)  You can talk to who you want to, and say, 'no' when you want and whenever.