Jock I liked back in prep school used to glare at me. Revisiting this psychological thriller
When I was a ninth grader/freshman in prep school I liked a jock. For context, I was a brown/South Asian girl, fairly competent at athletics but not super good or anything, very bookish and opinionated and into politics/history/debate and he was two years older than me. So he was a junior and then later a senior (while I was a sophomore at the school), and he was very WASP-y white.
He had held the door open for me once and we barely had any interactions. What little interactions - passing each other by in the hall, seeing each other etc. we did have he was normal and nice to me. I had a very schoolgirl crush on him so once I glanced at him flirtatiously and I saw him react with friendly surprise and a kind of an 'oh?' expression. I think I did this a couple more times but he didn't seem interested or into it so I backed off. However, I continued looking at him/seeing him but without flirting as I was a little fixated (not an excuse, but I learned later I was ~on the spectrum~ hence my somewhat impolite staring though at the time I didn't know- and I do feel I did stop staring eventually/withdrew).
Anyway, once I was leaving class to go to the bathroom and he bursts out of the stairwell and looks at me with hatred, his body bulking and towering over me. Keep in mind he was really tall and I was like 15 and five foot four - he was 17/18 at the time and six foot something and also a football player. I think I paused and I stepped back in surprise like what the fuck was that???? And it was very silent and ambient, nobody else was in the hallway. I also remember I felt like it came out of nowhere, like I hadn't seen him in a long time or I hadn't been looking at him either so it felt incredibly unwarranted and unfair.
But after that, every time we'd pass each other by - and it's a small school so duh we are going to see each other - he'd glare and posture. He'd fix his glare at me and hold my gaze as we passed each other in the hallway. Once he was in a group of friends and I passed by - I think I was alone - and he literally shifted his head to the side and went out of his way to glare at me. It was obviously intimidation in retrospect but at the time I blamed myself and felt embarrassed- like I overstepped or made him uncomfortable, so maybe that's why he was acting this way. I had obviously stopped looking at him and withdrawn emotionally but he kept on doing it and it lasted at least a year if not more.
From what I remember, I would just look back at him with widened eyes and be silent and anxious. I don't think I ever broke though like I kept emotional composure as he did this LMFAO. I also didn't tell anyone because I was so ashamed. Even if it was VERY VISIBLE in the hallway looking back LOL. He and I never spoke either which made it feel more insane like a psychological thriller almost.
But he'd look very emotionally dysregulated and angry as he was looking at me. And even vulnerable. The stalemate/climax moment came when I was walking down the hallway and I see him and I'm like oh no. Here we go again. We met each other's gaze kind of furtively and I think my eyes were lowkey friendly/humorous (like..oop) because I knew what was coming even if I was NOT looking forward to it LOOLLL. He immediately starts glaring and his body tenses like he's mad as hell against me. I looked back with a fallen expression but still composed. His eyes softened but he also seemed really angry and then confused.
He looked wounded and like he wanted me to say/do something even as he was glaring at me. We both looked at each other and his eyes widened and he got this perturbed look on his face and then his eyes dropped, and he looked overwhelmed and vulnerable. He grimaced. And then he locked eyes with me and started glaring again. At this point, I made an effort to move my gaze to the side - which was harder to do than it should have been cuz he was attentively glaring at me - but I did that then I walked straight ahead of him. After this, he stopped doing it as intensely or rather the weird dynamic halted.
So... what was going on? Was he racist? Trying to assert dominance? Did he feel attraction and was he getting emotionally defensive about it? Was he trying to signal something to his friends/ the other jocks (since I didn't 'fit in' that crowd or whatever)?
As an adult woman I've encountered abusive dynamics or men trying to dominate me in a similar fashion - although in actual interpersonal, intimate relationships - so I'm revisiting and trying to understand what happened here. As I think this was my first experience with this archetype.