The Manager Who Got Too Close: A Story of Manipulation, Confusion, and Healing
She singled me out, showered me with attention, then pushed me away — leaving me to pick up the pieces. This is how I reclaimed my power.
When I first started working at the store, I could never have imagined that one person would change the course of my life the way this manager did. I had freshly turned 23 when we first met. For context, I am also a female. She was 31. She seemed like just another manager at first, but very quickly, she became an important figure in my life. Looking back now, I realize that the relationship we had was anything but normal—and it’s taken me a long time to fully understand the depth of her influence and the damage she caused.
I will admit it, I was attracted to her from the moment we met. She was striking, but it wasn’t just her appearance that drew me in—it was the way she treated me. She gave me an unusual amount of attention right from the start, making me feel special in a way that no one else at the store did. Her compliments were frequent and at first were professional and surface level but gradually felt and turned personal. At first she gave me normal compliments related to work such as “You’re doing really well today,” “You have really neat handwriting,” “I like seeing you taking initiative”, but then she’d gradually start saying things to me like, “You smell really good today,”or“I love seeing your hair pulled back away from your face; I can see your pretty eyes” while simultaneously tucking a stray hair away from my face behind my ears, and she would tell me how cute I was with and without makeup on. Her favorite compliment to give me was her telling me how cute she found me. For a while, I couldn’t go more than 42 hours without her giving me a compliment or calling me “so cute”. These remarks made me feel noticed, but over time, they began to feel like something more—something that felt more personal than professional.
At first, I didn’t question it. I liked the attention. I liked that she seemed to see something in me that others didn’t. But as time went on, her behavior became more and more confusing. It wasn’t just the compliments; it was the way she looked at me, the way she’d touch me when she walked by, the way she’d smile and sometimes bite her lip at me in a way that felt odd. She would touch me frequently—on my arms, my back, my sides, and even the nape of my neck, and when she wanted me to follow her somewhere, she would hold my hand. It wasn’t long before her behavior started feeling increasingly weird, but I didn’t know how to handle it. There were moments when she would “drive-by” touch me, running her hand across my back, nape of my neck, shoulders, arms, and sides as she walked by. Each interaction felt charged with something I couldn’t quite name, but I knew it wasn’t normal. I just didn’t have the words for it at the time. It felt like she was playing with me, constantly keeping me on edge, making me feel special one minute and then coldly distancing herself the next. Her touching me stopped for the most part when the pandemic protocols were put in place.
One day, I was handling baby clothes on the sales floor and asked her where they should go. She looked at me, and instead of answering, she just repeated, “So cute… So cute…” over and over again. At first, it seemed like she was talking about the clothes, but then I realized she was looking directly at me while saying it. Her tone shifted, and it felt like she was talking about me. It made me confused, but once again, I didn’t know how to respond. After I interrupted her repetitive response by asking “but where do they go” she snapped out of it and said “oh, just put them somewhere over there.” I thought it was odd because she didn’t actually tell me where to put them and just told me to find a place for them. She excused herself almost immediately afterwards and then I went to find a place to put the baby clothes.
There was a moment that had happened very early into my career, about 2-3 months in, that still stands out to me when I realized how much she seemed to be hovering around me, though at the time, I hadn’t fully grasped the extent of it. One instance I remember clearly happened after my shift one day, during the winter holiday season, when I had gone to buy something on the first floor of the store. I wasn’t wearing my work uniform since employees weren’t allowed to be in uniform while making purchases, so I looked like any other guest, dressed casually in a bomber jacket. She was the manager on duty at the time, and as I made my way to the front of the store, she stopped me with a playful, cheeky tone, asking, “Whatcha getting?” I told her what I was buying, and she let me continue on to the back of the store to get in line at the register.
Since it was the holiday season, the line was long, and as I waited, I noticed her hovering near me. She would walk by, sometimes looking over at me, as though she was keeping an eye on me. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it felt like her presence was lingering. Then, she walked right up to me, put her hand on my shoulder, and physically turned me around so she could look at my jacket. She seemed excited, almost flustered, and exclaimed in front of all of the costumers around us, “I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT!” before walking away, giddy and clearly delighted. Looking back, this was a moment that made me realize her interest in me seemed to go beyond the professional or casual—she didn’t hesitate to touch me and physically move me, even in front of customers, as if it was perfectly natural.
It was only later, after talking with a former employee, that I realized how much her hovering around me had caught others’ attention. This former employee was one of the first friends I made at the store; we had met at the interview and became close right away. She told me, “She was sweet, but it was very clear that she was giving you special attention. We all saw it. I saw her [drive-by] touch you and hover around you often, and when she would always take you off the sales floor or bring you into her office, I always wondered what was going on back there. Something about you being overwhelmed, I think. Wherever you were, she wasn’t far behind.” Her words made me look back at all those small moments where she seemed to be nearby, and I began to realize that this wasn’t my imagination—other employees had noticed her unusual attention as well.
In hindsight, it was as if she was always there, hovering around me and finding reasons to initiate these little interactions. I hadn’t fully processed it in the moment, but her behavior made me feel like I was under a spotlight, being watched and singled out in ways that didn’t seem to match the dynamics she had with other employees.
Back on Black Friday in 2019, she had asked me where I lived, and when I told her I commuted from a nearby town, taking the bus from my local mall’s park-and-ride every day, she seemed thrilled. She told me she knew exactly where that was, mentioning that she also lived nearby and had attended a local university. From that day on, she would regularly bring up and remind me that we both lived close by, almost as if she found meaning in the fact that we shared a connection to the area. It wasn’t just a passing comment to her; it became something she loved to emphasize. At the time, I felt flattered, like this connection made me stand out to her. But looking back, I can’t help but wonder if it was a hint of something more significant. From that moment on, I noticed that we were often scheduled to work together. Whether it was intentional or not, I found myself working with her more often than not, and every shift with her felt like it had an undercurrent of tension.
When I first learned about her transfer to my local mall’s store during the pandemic, it struck me as strange and felt different from being just coincidental. During the pandemic, I also ended up transferring to the mall store out of convenience since it was so close to where I lived. I found out she transferred to that store before me after the fact. But her transfer there felt strange and out of place. She was the only Associate General Manager from the premier store and yet she was moved to a smaller location. Other managers were assigned stores that made sense based on where they lived. Another manager was sent to a separate nearby mall that was near her home. The premier store even brought in other managers to fill the roles that she and the other manager left open. So despite her being stationed at my local mall, it was clear that the premier store still needed her, and her absence was significant.
At the time, the General Manager at the premier store was reassigned as a Neighborhood Store Manager, overseeing the premier store as well as three additional stores. Because of this expanded role, I assume the GM wasn’t around the premier store as often as before, making the presence of an AGM even more critical to keep the premier store running smoothly. Her transfer to my local mall, then, didn’t add up. As AGM, she was more necessary than ever at the premier store to fill in while the GM managed her other responsibilities. Yet, instead of staying where she was most needed, she was at the mall, MY local mall, the same store that I had chosen to transfer to, and she got there before me.
I wasn’t the only one at the mall who seemed to think that something was off about her transfer, too. Another employee mentioned that the mall didn’t feel like the place she was supposed to be. According to her and the rest of the mall staff, the mall was another manager's store; he was the ASM there and had previously been the store manager before she came in and took over. This employee even told me that she had mentioned she came to the mall because “she knew people there,” but she had given me a different reason, saying that “the premier store didn’t need [her] at the moment.” Given everything, it felt as though she wasn’t being fully honest with me. It seemed more likely that she might’ve chosen to be at the mall, rather than being sent there out of necessity. This employee had later told me she noticed something weird going on between her and me but she wasn’t sure what it was. She just knew something was off.
Knowing how she often brought up that we both lived nearby and that she knew I commuted from the mall, it started to feel like her transfer there wasn’t just a coincidence. This connection she had always emphasized between us now might’ve seemed like part of her motivation to be at the mall. Her presence there didn’t feel right, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that her transfer was less about business needs and more about something personal she hadn’t shared.
It was strange—almost surreal—watching her slip into my personal world so seamlessly at the mall. She wasn’t just my manager anymore; she was suddenly interacting with people who had known me my entire life. She met my twin sister, my younger brother, and even my aunt. It was like my worlds were colliding in a way that I never anticipated.
The strangest part? She was on a first-name basis with them. Hearing her casually say “Hey, [Sister's Name]”, or “Tell your [Aunt's Name] I said hi”, or jokingly say “[Brother's Name], have a ‘wonderful’ day” felt like a boundary had been crossed—one that I never consciously agreed to. And then there was a former classmate of mine who I graduated high school with. She came into the store often because she and her family collect a certain item that we used to sell. The moment she learned she and I had that connection, she started treating this classmate with familiarity simply because of her association with me.
I hadn’t even realized how close she had gotten until it was too late. It was like she had inserted herself into my personal life without me ever letting her in—she just walked right in and made herself at home. And yet, I never got that close to her world. I never met her family, her friends. It was always her stepping into my space, never the other way around.
It made me uncomfortable in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. The mall had always been my childhood mall, a piece of my past, a comfort zone, a part of my home. But once she was there, it felt like she had claimed a part of it—like she had taken something that had always been mine and made it hers, leaving me feeling like a guest in my own space. Every time I saw her walking through my childhood mall—meeting my family members and family friends, former coworkers from past jobs, speaking to childhood friends of mine, and even my school teachers—I remember thinking, “This isn’t happening… this isn’t happening… this isn’t happening…” It made her feel that much closer to me—too close. I never told her how uncomfortable, weird, and surreal it felt to me. She was my manager. I was her subordinate. We were at work. We were working. Technically, we were both supposed to be there. I didn’t know how to bring it up. I didn’t know if I should. So I didn’t.
Before this, there was the day of Santa Con in December 2019—a day that still haunts me. I was struggling with anxiety on the sales floor, so another manager moved me to the back to process mugs to help me calm down. She found me there, clearly noticing my distress, and motioned for me to follow her into the manager’s office. What happened in that room is something I’ve replayed in my mind over and over.
She sat on a filing cabinet, leaning forward, her blazer unbuttoned and her chest was accentuated, and her body language was just odd given the context of the conversation we were about to have about my anxiety. She smiled at me and asked, “So, what’s been eating you? What’s been making you so anxious?” Her voice was soft, almost teasing, and the way she looked at me made my face turn beet red. I was embarrassed, caught off guard, and unsure how to respond. I covered my face with my hands, and when I peeked out at her, she was grinning and giggling at me, and said with a sultry voice, “I love your nails.” Everything felt so out of place in that moment, but it was clear she enjoyed watching me squirm. It was as if she took pleasure in my discomfort.
This was just one of many interactions where her behavior crossed the line, but it was one of the moments that stood out the most. It felt like she was toying with me emotionally, pushing boundaries that I didn’t know how to navigate.
Another incident that has stuck with me happened when we initially returned to the store after being furloughed during the pandemic. Normally, she would take her break and eat her meals in her office, but on this day, her office was blocked off by boxes, so she sat in the break room instead. I was sitting further away, and there were other employees closer to her, but instead of talking to them, she turned around and struck up a conversation with me. We ended up talking for the rest of my break, and throughout the entire conversation, she stared at me intensely, following every move I made. When I got up to leave, she tracked my movements with her eyes and her entire head, not breaking eye contact. It was such an intense, visible gaze that other employees could have noticed too. This interaction left me overwhelmed by her attention.
Earlier that same week, during training to reopen the store with new COVID protocols, I was in her training group. I must have made a reaction with my eyes that she noticed, because she looked at me, giggled, and said, “Oh…” When I responded with “Yes?”, she said, “Your eyes…” The other employees in the group looked at me, but I’m still not sure what I did that caused her to react like that.
Then there was the time I was verbally harassed by a group of guests at the store. One of the other managers witnessed this and announced on the walkies that I needed to step off the floor to collect myself. She, hearing this, ran down from her office, that was a couple floors above, to where I was. She told me “I ran down here as soon as I heard… Would you like to talk?” I agreed thinking she was going to comfort me about the situation that just happened. She brought me into the managers office, but instead of comforting me about what had just happened, she turned the conversation into something entirely different. She told me I needed to focus on things that made me happy and told me to essentially leave her alone. I hadn’t even gone to her—she had come to me, yet the conversation became about her needing space. It was upsetting and made an already awful situation even worse.
One thing that really added to the emotional confusion was when she would say things like, “I’m very proud of you,” “I adore you,” and “You can trust me.” She said it to me multiple times, and in those moments, it felt like she genuinely cared for me in a way that was deeper than a professional relationship. It left me constantly questioning what was going on. Was she my friend, my mentor, or something else entirely? I could never pin it down, and every time I thought I had an answer, her behavior would shift.
One day, I was feeling nervous and anxious because she was nearby. I tried to avoid her, subtly moving away to “recover” an area of the store whenever she got closer, almost as if I was trying to subtly “escape” or “run away” from her. But she noticed. I saw her from the corner of my eye getting closer, and the more I tried to subtly distance myself, the more determined she seemed to catch up to me. Eventually, she caught up to me, reached out, and placed her hand on my shoulder to stop me. With a serious tone, she turned me around, leaned in close, and looked me in the eyes and said, “You can’t run away from me.” Her words sent a chill through me, and I felt trapped, unsure of what to say or do next. My mind must’ve blacked out because I don’t remember what happened after that.
As these interactions piled up, I started to realize that something was very wrong. I was becoming more emotionally dependent on her, even though her behavior made me feel confused. She had moments of warmth and care, but they were often followed by coldness and distance. She’d check up on me, offer advice, and sometimes even show concern for my well-being—like when she noticed scars on my arms and told me she didn’t want me getting hurt. But then, she’d pull away or act dismissive, leaving me confused and hurt.
These moments were confusing, but they weren’t the only side to her. There were times when she seemed to genuinely care about me, and that’s what made it so difficult to understand what was really happening. When I got COVID, I called the mall store to let them know I wouldn’t be able to come in for two weeks. She answered the phone, and her response was comforting. She told me, “The first thing I want you to do is breathe. You are going to be okay, and I know you’re going to come out of this just fine. I really care about you a lot. You are strong, and you will get through this.” Her words reassured me in that moment, and it seemed like she genuinely cared about my well-being.
But even in moments like these, the warmth she showed was always followed by coldness. After I returned to work from an unrelated hospital visit, she didn’t seem to care at all. In fact, her behavior towards me became even colder, more distant, and it left me feeling abandoned and confused.
Her behavior wasn’t just a string of isolated incidents. There was a pattern of emotional grooming, manipulation, and drawing me in with affection and attention, only to push me away when I got too close or became too dependent on her. I didn’t recognize it at the time. The affectionate and close-knit environment at the store made her behavior seem more normal which also blurred the lines further. Her cycle of hot and cold left me constantly questioning myself—what had I done wrong to make her pull away? Why did she seem to really care about me one moment and then act indifferent the next?
One of the most painful moments came on her last day at the store. I had built up the courage to express my feelings to her, to try and understand what was going on between us. But when I finally spoke up, her response was brutal. She told me, “I want nothing to do with you” and “we will never be friends.” Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. After everything that had happened, after all the attention, the compliments, the touching, the transfer, the confusion—she completely shut me out. I felt abandoned, betrayed, and deeply hurt.
After she left, I spiraled into a deep depression. The emotional rollercoaster she had put me through had taken its toll. I self-harmed, and though at times she noticed my distress, her attempts to show care felt hollow. It was like she knew she had hurt me but didn’t want to take responsibility for it. I was left to pick up the pieces on my own, trying to understand how someone who had shown me so much attention could just walk away and act like none of it mattered.
The reactions of my colleagues and managers only added to the complexity. Another female manager seemed to understand what was happening between her and me long before I did, but I can’t say for sure. She comforted me when I was crying in the dressing room, hugging me, telling me how proud she was, and even kissing me on the cheek. It was a moment of genuine care, and I’ll always remember how she looked out for me.
I often think about the long-term effects her actions had on my life, even in ways I didn’t realize at the time. I’ve struggled with my weight my entire life, however after she had came back from her leave of absence and started pushing me away, I began stress eating to fill the void she left, using food to comfort myself every time she was dismissive or cold toward me. I didn’t know how to cope with the sudden shift. She had been my comfort, my stability, and without that connection, I felt lost. Every cold interaction, every moment of rejection—it all drove me to find comfort in food. By the following year, after she told me she wanted nothing to do with me, my binge eating spiraled out of control, and my weight skyrocketed. The stress and heartbreak of losing her, coupled with the unhealthy ways I tried to numb the pain, took a serious toll on my health. By the next year, I was experiencing heart issues, and I knew I couldn’t keep living like this. I sought help from my doctor, who referred me to a specialist, and I underwent vertical sleeve gastrectomy, and since then, I’ve lost a significant amount of weight and am now half the size I was when I was binge eating. My surgery was about reclaiming my health, but it’s undeniable that the emotional stress she caused played a major role in the path that led me here. And now, every time I look in the mirror, I see not just my own strength in reclaiming my life, but also a physical reminder of the influence she had on me, for better or worse.
She, on the other hand, never took responsibility for the emotional harm she caused. She hurt me deeply and then walked away as if nothing had happened. I didn’t quit. I stayed at the store because I refused to let the space where I was hurt define me. I reclaimed that place as my own, and now, the store is mine—not hers. She can’t hurt me there anymore.
It’s been years since this all happened, and though I’ve made progress in healing, I know that the scars of what I went through will stay with me. She hurt me in ways I’m still trying to fully understand. She took something from me—my sense of safety, my trust, and part of my emotional well-being. But I’ve also grown stronger. I’ve learned how to protect myself, how to set boundaries, and how to reclaim my power.
She might be out there living her dream life now, but that doesn’t change the fact that she caused me immense pain. I don’t know if she’ll ever acknowledge the harm she did, and I’ve accepted that I may never get closure. But despite the trauma-bond, I’m determined not to let her define the rest of my life. I’m still here, still fighting, and I know that I’ll continue to heal. And now I get to remember her for longer than I’ve known her.
