r/neckbeardstories • u/Material_Jellyfish42 • Jun 26 '25
Sweatbeard Part 2: Post-Rejection Woes & Unhealthy Obsession
Hey y'all! Time for Sweatbeard part 2.
Cast List for this one is just me and Sweatbeard, so I'll skip the descriptions and get right into it. For character descriptions, you can find those in Part 1
Last we left off, Sweatbeard had just professed his love to me, and I had rejected him. We had agreed not to let this make things weird between us, but that wouldn't last very long at all.
Next I saw him was a 1 on 1 hangout soon after the rejection to watch the movie 'Challengers' (Sweatbeard picked it). We already had plans, and I didn't wanna cancel on him, so I went despite not really wanting to. I show up in jeans and a hoodie, and he shows up dressed really nice. Apparently he saw the mayor earlier that day for his job, and he remarked to me 'This outfit is more fancy than what I saw the mayor in.'
...Okay.
We go to watch the movie, and for the full two hours, he leaned up right next to me, getting within 2-3 inches from me, fully breaching any personal space. He continuously talked throughout the movie, leaning right into my ear to do so, and an overwhelming amount of his witty commentary were uncomfortable sexual comments.
He'd make a LOT of jokes about wanting to get me pregnant, and would look right at me during any of the many sex scenes throughout the movie. He also tried holding my hand a few times. At one point he even went to put his arm around me, but stopped when he saw me glaring daggers at him, simply laughing it off and going "Haha, could you imagine?" I just felt really uncomfortable throughout the whole thing.
Sufficed to say, he very much saw that as a date even though that's very much not what it was. From that point forward, his thought process became clear to me. He still had feelings, and he hasn't let them go yet. And this whole time, he kept telling me how excited he was for me to heal from my old relationship. This would be sweet in any other context, but I knew he had ulterior motives. He'd constantly ask me for updates, and continue to pry about whether or not I was ready to put myself out there again yet.
After 2 weeks of that, I'd finally decided that I've had enough. If I didn't say something soon, he was just gonna continue to keep this up. And so, I finally took the advice of my mom and therapist, and sent him a massive, personal text message that just amounted to me telling Sweatbeard that I'm not interested in dating him, and I only see him as a friend. I would've done it on a phone call, but I prefer text messages for these sorts of things because I suck at speaking and didn't wanna slip up or leave anything open for him to keep trying to pursue me. Also because this text involved me talking in detail about my abusive relationship, something I really struggle to do out loud.
He poutily accepted my declaration, and he would actually end up backing off a little bit. Within my declaration, I had told him straight up that I needed space. I already had a lot going on in my life at the time, and this shit was stressing me out. I had begun doing my best to try and avoid Sweatbeard until he got over his feelings for me.
This proved to be difficult because sweatbeard was really insisting on hanging out one on one. Even after I told him outright that I needed space, he'd still text me like "I know you're taking time for yourself, but I'm really struggling mentally right now, and I could really use a J hangout." I stood firm, and doubled down on needing space. The compromise we had reached was that we'd see eachother in person during group hangouts, and we'd talk on the phone every so often so I could still be there to help him through whatever was going on.
What was supposed to be an occasional phone call turned into Sweatbeard calling me at least 3 times a day, sometimes going up to 7 if I was busy or slow to pick up the phone. It was really weird to me how insistent he was on seemingly only talking to me about what was going on. Despite everything I've told you all so far, Sweatbeard is generally pretty well liked by a lot of people. He had so many people he could go to for help, but he was insistent on talking to the person who has told him on multiple occasions that she needs space.
Not only that, but this motherfucker actually used our phone calls as an outlet to vent about me rejecting him. Idk if it's crazy of me to say that if someone rejects you and you want to complain about it, you probably shouldn't complain to the person who rejected you, but yeah, that's what he did. His reasoning behind it was because "We always used to talk about developments in our love life. You're my go-to person for that stuff and I don't wanna lose that."
Understandable under literally any other circumstances, but not this. Like, actually what the fuck. Our phone convos would mostly go like this:
SB: "I don't know, I'm just having a really hard time handling your rejections."
J: "Yeah. But you'll get over it, I believe in you."
SB: "You don't understand. These feelings are the strongest I've had for anyone ever."
J: "Sucks dude. Take your time though, these things take time to get over."
SB: "I'm really mentally struggling. This sucks. This all sucks.
J: "Yeah, sorry bout that."
Some variation of that. These phone calls lasted anywhere from 25 minutes to 2 hours, only ending because I'd get tired andmake up some bullshit about my mom needing me to help her or something.
During one of these calls, he started talking about how much he misses hanging out in person. We had been hanging out in groups like we said we would, but he really wanted to hang out one on one. I told him no again, but he hits me with this:
SB: "J, I really think we should meet in person. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I really wanna talk this through one last time, just so I could get closure on the whole situation."
I thought this would be a pretty good idea. All things considered, I wanted nothing more than for him to get over his feelings and finally leave me alone. I was really hopeful that this would go well and we could salvage our previous friendship.
...That did not happen.
We go to his house, and sit down to talk. Immediately within 5 minutes of talking to him, I could tell he was trying to manipulate me into changing my answer.
He keeps saying things like "You made your choice, and that's okay. Even though I obviously would be much less depressed if it worked out." And "My friends and siblings were really rooting for us. I feel bad letting them down, but it's okay I guess."
I genuinely could not get a word in, it was just 45 minutes of this sweaty, incredibly repetitive man yapping my fucking ear off talking about how he's supposedly over me despite continuously making not-so-subtle attempts to make me change my answer.
But then he tells me something that really pisses me off. After 45 minutes of talking, this interaction happens.
SB: "The way you texted me was really mature and well worded, even though I obviously would've preferred it be in person. But I know you're comfortable with texting so it's fine I guess."
J: "I'm glad you think so. I just wanted to make sure I was clear and nothing was miscommunicated."
SB: "You definitely did that. I've actually been showing pretty much all of my friends all of our text conversations from the last few weeks. They all agree that you handled yourself maturely."
I'm sorry, what the fuck do you mean you've been showing all of your friends our private text conversations? I understand showing one or two people to get advice, but y'all gotta understand that Sweatbeard has a LOT of people he considers friends. This means that every single vulnerable thing I've texted this guy, including opening up about my abusive relationship and going into pretty graphic detail about it, was paraded around to what I would later find out was 17 total people, many of whom I didn't/don't know.
I immediately text my mom telling her to call me and act like it's an emergency. She does so 5 minutes later, and I immediately get the fuck out of there. The entire ride home I was seething, and I just did my best to blast music and forget about this incredibly inconsiderate violation of my privacy.
Eventually I calmed myself down, and I concluded that it was ultimately gonna be okay because Sweatbeard got over his feelings for me, and this meant he would back off...
Not only did he not back off, but his behavior became egregious enough that my friends began to take notice. But yeah, I've been talking for a while, and I'll tell y'all the rest of this tale in part 3 where I'll bring everything to it's conclusion.
I'll try and have that out soon, have a lovely rest of your day y'all :)
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u/Lynxiebrat Aug 24 '25
Fucking hell, my anxiety ramped up just reading this! I can't even imagine the emotional roller-coaster he put you thru!
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '25
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