Those situations you worm your way out of and think "that was FDS"

Had a situation recently:

I work in a female dominated workplace and a man has been employing a lot of behaviours we talk about on here:

1. Triangulation: Trying to pit different women in the group against each other

2. Trapping you in conversation, particularly if you are tired or distracted and more likely to fall into further traps

3. Treating you like a therapist in order to

3a. Trick you into handing over your own sensitive information in return

3b. To monopolise your time

3c. So you feel sorry for him and give him a pass, or take on unpaid labor

4. Moaning about wife and hinting at divorce to women who have known him longer. Implying he is single to women who don't know him so well.

5. Latching on to the most naive woman of the group, particularly when more established and older women are not around to intervene.

6. Trying to place himself in the middle of people or as an authority that's allowed to judge over everyone.

7. Sophisticated, audacious, and well timed lies in order to pursue an agenda.

8. Takes up a lot of space.

9. Women his own age don't get on with him.

10. Massive gossip.

11. Expectation of being coddled.

12. Ignoring workplace culture cues around appropriate/inappropriate topics of conversation.

13. Seeking validation for his questionable behaviour using wedge issues or irrelevant truths.

14. Creating the appearance of validation for his behaviour when someone pushes back, by manipulating group dynamics.

15. Use of small gifts or favours to encourage reciprocating.

16. Paying very close attention to the flow of information around the group, good at dropping bait to gather more info, implying he knows more than he does to verify info, and using other ways of fishing for information.

While its been useful to be able to spot and identify this, what was most useful was being able to articulate how it works to my manager. I was able to say "X person got me to do Y thing I'm unhappy about using strategies A, B, and C. He did Z in the aftermath. So he's followed this system of A B C Y Z, which is definitely premeditated."

Now he can't use a defence of incompetence or claim me as an enabler because I could identify AND articulate the grooming behaviour on the lead up and cover up behaviour afterwards. He made a judgement call his worst case scenario is that he'd get caught for the main event and not the rest of it. He will learn that consequences for behaving like this in our shared environment are unpredictable and worse than he predicts.

As we all know, men like this can have catastrophic effects on an environment if they're not caught, and retaliate if they're caught but its not dealt with right. Dealing with this properly has saved a lot of people real heartache.

This is what happens when you engage with the core of FDS and practice it in your life. Read the handbook. Read the historical mega threads you stumble across with loads of comments people write. Watch good YouTubers. Read good self help books. One by one start slowly unravelling yourself from low value people and environments. The hours aren't wasted.