I have a friend I’ll call Ethan. Back in 2017, he developed feelings for a coworker at a diner where they both worked. It seemed obvious she liked him too, and she even kissed him at a party. She waited about a year for him to make a move, but he never did, and eventually she met someone else and moved on.
Ever since then, Ethan has been full of regret. He went from being outgoing and social to withdrawn and down most of the time.
Now it’s been nine years, and he’s still stuck on her. He hasn’t tried to meet anyone new. When we go out, he talks about how much he regrets missing his chance. Around couples, he gets moody and makes comments about how happy everyone else looks.
What really worries me is that he’s told me he sometimes sits in his car outside her workplace and watches her. He says it casually, like it’s normal.
I’ve told him multiple times I don’t want to keep hearing about this same situation from nearly a decade ago, but he doesn’t stop. Today, he kept asking if he still had a chance with her, and I finally snapped. I yelled at him to move on and said it wasn’t normal to still be this hung up after so long.
He got angry, told me to leave, and later texted me, “You’re not a real friend.”
You’re focusing on the argument, but that’s not the real issue here.
Your friend has crossed a line into dangerous territory. Sitting outside her workplace and watching her is stalking. It is not harmless, and it is not something you shrug off because he’s sad. That kind of behavior can escalate, and it puts her in a position where she could be unsafe without even knowing it.
So no, you are not wrong for being upset. If anything, you have not taken this seriously enough.
You need to have a very direct, very serious conversation with him. No yelling, no dancing around it. Look him in the eye and tell him plainly that what he is doing is not okay, that it is stalking, and that it has to stop immediately.
Do not soften it. Do not joke about it. Do not let him minimize it.
And you need to be prepared for him to get defensive or angry. That does not change the truth.
Here is the part you may not want to hear. If he keeps doing this, the woman deserves to know. She has a right to be aware that someone is sitting outside her workplace watching her. Her safety matters more than his feelings.
That does not make you disloyal. That makes you a responsible adult.
You can still care about your friend and want him to get help. In fact, you should push him toward counseling because this level of obsession after nearly a decade is not something he is going to fix on his own.
But caring about him does not mean protecting him from the consequences of behavior that crosses a line.
Right now, your job is simple. Tell the truth clearly. Set a hard boundary. And if he refuses to stop, you do what is necessary to make sure she is not kept in the dark.
That is what a real friend does. Not someone who goes along with something dangerous.