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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2026-08-10 15:40:07+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/radiohd1996

My [18F] friend [22M] won’t stop calling me a teetotaler. I didn’t mind it until today, when he left three bottles of vodka outside of my dorm room door

TRIGGER WARNING: alcoholism, obsession

Original Post  May 22, 2016

Throwaway because some of my friends know my real username and I don’t want them to see this. Also, I’m sorry if this is messy, all of this just happened and I’m still disturbed.

I don’t drink alcohol because I don’t like the taste and because I don’t find being drunk appealing. Simple enough, right? I don’t judge or berate people who drink and everyone I’ve met at college has treated me with the same respect.

At the beginning of spring semester, this kid named Dylan came back to the speech team that I belong to after spending the fall semester studying abroad. He was a senior. During the fall semester, the other seniors didn’t throw any speech team bonding parties, and when Dylan learned this, he started throwing parties every weekend. I went to the first few, but eventually I stopped going because everyone got really obnoxious. At the first party, Dylan called me over to take shots. When I explained to him that I don’t drink, he scoffed and kept pressuring me to do it. He didn’t stop until another senior on the team stepped in to tell him to leave me alone. He apologized and never pressured me again.

I still went to the next few parties because I loved spending time with the team, but eventually everyone’s behavior got to be too much. Dylan was no longer pressuring me to drink, but he kept calling me a teetotaler (someone who abstains from drinking alcohol). He never used it in a way that got under my skin, otherwise I would’ve told him to stop. He just kept referring to me as “the teetotaler” both when he was talking to me and when he was talking to other people. It made our team members angry, and even though I told them it wasn’t a big deal, they were still pissed at Dylan. This was when I stopped going to his parties. I didn’t want to deal with neither my team members nor Dylan and their arguments about an issue that honestly didn’t bother me, especially because they only argued when they were drunk and consequently were getting absolutely nowhere.

After I stopped going to his parties, Dylan started talking to me more. During practice, he would partner with me and help me write my speeches, and I improved so much this semester because of him. He even started to hang out with me outside of speech team. We got lunch together. He helped me study (we’re in the same major). He became a friend that I trusted and genuinely liked. He still called me a teetotaler whenever he got the chance to, even when alcohol was obviously not within the context, but it was clear that he was just teasing me. I have a thick skin, so it doesn’t bother me when people tease me for not drinking. For me personally I’d rather be sober than passed out on the floor at a frat party. Most people who tease me for not drinking end up in that situation. So yeah. I only have an issue when people pressure me to drink. Which Dylan did once and then never did again, and he did apologize and he seemed sincere. So for a while I was okay with being friends with him.

Then today, when I got to my dorm room, I found three bottles of vodka lined up outside of it. The one in the middle had a red bow tied on the neck. Taped to the bow was a note that said “;) <3 – D”.

Instantly I started panicking. I didn’t know when they got there, how long they’d been there, or how many people saw them sitting there. I left early this morning and I came back just now (it’s 8ish), so I have literally no time frame to work with. I grabbed the bottles and put them in my mini fridge.

I know it was Dylan. Who else could it have been? Even though he graduated a few days ago, he must still be on campus. Plus, he knows that I’m staying here for the summer, and he knows where my dorm room is.

I’m extremely creeped out. I’ve never had any romantic feelings for Dylan. I only see him as a friend. Clearly he feels differently, but why would he feel the need to put three bottles of vodka outside my dorm room door to show me that? That’s super fucking weird. Especially because I’m living on school property and I could get in gigantic trouble for this. No school authorities have contacted me yet, so I’m guessing that nobody important saw it, but I’m still wary.

I don’t want to be friends with Dylan anymore, but should I talk to him and figure out why he did this? I want to know why, but I know that it isn’t always best for people to know the reasons behind things like this. If I should talk to him, what should I say?

Also…what should I do with the vodka? Any suggestions barring “drink it” are welcome.

tl;dr: the first time I hung out with my friend Dylan from speech team, he pressured me to drink, but he ended up backing off and apologizing to me. However, he started calling me a teetotaler, which didn’t bother me, but it did bother the rest of our friends. After I stopped going to his parties where all of this was taking place, he started to hang out with me outside of speech team, and we became genuine friends; he kept calling me a teetotaler, but again, it didn’t bother me. But today when I got back to my dorm I found three bottles of vodka sitting outside my door. They were from Dylan. They’re in my fridge now. Should I talk to Dylan, and if I should, what should I say? Also, what should I do with the vodka?

EDIT: So I've calmed down now. I dumped the vodka down the sink and threw the bottles away. I haven't talked to Dylan yet. No one from my school has contacted me yet.

To elaborate a bit more on Dylan as a person, because now I can think straight:

He loves to drink and get shitfaced. That's why he was so upset that the seniors on the speech team didn't throw any parties last semester, and it's why he kept pressuring me to drink at his first party.

He's also very flirty with everyone. Everyone meaning all the girls he knows. He's flirty with me even though I never flirt back. He's flirty with his female friends (unless they have boyfriends). He's flirty with girls he meets at parties. He hooks up whenever he gets the chance. In terms of pressuring girls to do things with him, I've never seen it happen, but one time a guy on the speech team was trying to take advantage of a girl while she was drunk at one of Dylan's parties and Dylan stepped in, yelled at him, and asked him to leave. So he seems to care about consent. If he didn't, I certainly wouldn't have been friends with him for so long.

Neither of these parts of his personality crossed my mind that much until now. I don't think he's an asshole, just creepy. His flirtatious behavior flattered me, but because he behaves that way with everyone, I didn't think anything of it. That's clearly not true anymore though.

I know that I should have included all of this when I originally posted and I'm sorry that I didn't, I was in panic mode. I was honestly very disturbed and I was thinking about all of this when I originally posted but it never made its way into the post and that's my fault. I hope my edit makes everything more clear.

TOP COMMENT

MidnightMalaga

I wouldn't read this as a romantic gesture, honestly, but rather an idiotic continuation to a stupid joke as a graduation gift.

Some people who drink see those who don't as actively passing judgement on their choices and have a problem with that. These people are morons, but they definitely exist. Sounds like Dylan falls squarely into this category.

I'd just text him and tell him that everyone on your floor really enjoyed his leaving present, and suggest he ask what they'd like next time he's feeling so generous. On the off chance that this was a romantic gesture (which, again, I'm 99% sure it wasn't), this'll make it clear you read it as buddies. On the other hand, if this was one last dig at your teetotalism, this'll show him you're still cool with other people drinking while making a different choice for yourself. Plus it'll make it clear that he wasted his money, which will hopefully hurt at least a bit.

Update May 24, 2016

I’m back with an update! Thank you to everyone who commented on my original post. I appreciate it very much.

I woke up the morning after I originally posted to find a text from Dylan. It was sent at 3:47AM, so pretty late. It said “Did you get my present?” with a bunch of winky faces and laughing emojis. It also looked like gibberish. What I typed out here is what I think he was trying to say, and that was after looking at it for a few minutes. I think he was drunk when he texted me.

I texted back “Yes I got it, and my floor really enjoyed it! What are you gonna get them the next time you’re feeling generous?”

He didn’t respond.

A little while later my RA knocked on my door and asked to talk to me. She said that she had seen three bottles of vodka outside my door the day before and asked me where they went. I told her that they were given to me by a friend and that because ...

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A little while later my RA knocked on my door and asked to talk to me. She said that she had seen three bottles of vodka outside my door the day before and asked me where they went. I told her that they were given to me by a friend and that because I don’t drink I poured the vodka down the drain and threw the bottles away. When she heard that she walked down the hall to the trash cans, which hadn’t been emptied yet, and she found the bottles. I left the note and the bow on the one bottle. When she saw them she didn’t say anything for a few seconds and then told me that because I haven’t been problematic before, she wasn’t going to report me. She said that she knows I don’t drink and that she thought it was very unlikely that I kept the bottles, but she just wanted to be sure. I thanked her and went back to my room. I’m happy she was so understanding!

About an hour after I talked to my RA, someone knocked on my door. It was Dylan. As soon as he walked in I could tell that he was drunk. I don’t know if you can wake up drunk from having been drunk the night before, but it seemed like Dylan was experiencing that. Or maybe he was drinking early in the morning. Either way it was clear that he had been drinking.

He asked me why I gave the bottles to the people on my floor. “It was only meant for you” he said. I told him that he knows I don’t drink and asked him what the fuck he was thinking putting three bottles of vodka outside my door in a school dorm where I could get in huge trouble for alcohol possession, especially because I’m underage.

He started laughing his head off. “It was a joke!!!” he said. I angrily told him that I didn’t find it funny because it could’ve gotten me in serious trouble. He kept laughing until I said “I don’t mind you calling me a teetotaler, but what you did really creeped me out, and it’s grounds for not being friends anymore.” When he heard this he stopped laughing and looked at me. For longer than a few seconds. It was turning into a stare. I asked him why he was looking at me like that and he just said that it was a joke before he started cracking up again.

At that point I decided that I was getting nowhere, so I asked him to leave. He started to protest but when I told him that I would tell my RA if he didn’t leave, he left pretty quickly.

He came back again that night around 9PM. When I opened the door he asked me if he could come in. Surprisingly, he seemed sober, so I said yes.

After I let him in, he apologized for making me so angry. But he admitted that the only thing he remembered about this morning was that I was super pissed at him, and he wanted to know why. I reminded him that he left three bottles of vodka outside my door when I live in a school dorm…he kind of had an oh yeah…shit look on his face when I told him this. He apologized and said that it was really stupid of him to do, and that it was a dumb joke. He asked me where my RA was. “If she hasn’t talked to you yet I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” he said. I assured him that my RA already talked to me, I’m not in trouble, she knows they weren’t mine. He seemed relieved to hear that.

I asked him if he was drunk when he put the bottles in front of my door. He said “maybe…” and laughed. He said he put them there in the evening. So they weren’t sitting there for more than a few hours.

I did some thinking then. If he was drunk when he put the bottles there, he was probably drunk when he wrote the note with the heart and the winky face. Because of that, I didn’t mention the note.

Also, the fact that he was drunk this morning, and that he couldn’t remember why I was angry at him this morning, seemed like red flags to me. I brought this up and said “I’m kind of worried about you.” (Which I am, this is the truth.) “You drink way more than is normal, even for a partying college senior. You should be careful you know.” He laughed it off and said it wasn’t a big deal. I pressed on and said “You’re at the right age to stop this now. I don’t want you to turn into an alcoholic.” He laughed again and made awwww, the little teetotaler cares about me-type jokes.

I got frustrated at this and asked “Why do you even drink so much anyway?” He stopped laughing and looked kind of puzzled for a few seconds. His response was that it makes everything easier. I asked him to elaborate. He then looked somewhat uncomfortable and didn’t make eye contact with me. I told him that if he drinks this much and it’s because it makes everything easier for him, that’s not a good sign.

He shrugged and said nothing still. I guess all this time everyone has assumed that he just drinks a lot because he’s just another moronic college student and no one has ever asked him exactly why he drinks so much. That combined with the fact that he’s always extra flirty when he’s drunk made me more concerned. He’s flirty when he’s sober, too, but he never actually takes it further unless he’s drunk, at least from what I’ve seen and heard.

He asked me why I was being so quiet. I asked, have you ever done anything seriously romantic with a girl, like telling her you like her or asking her out, while you were sober? He gave me an apprehensive look but then said “…no, not really…” I asked him what he meant, and for the next half hour he talked to me about his experience with girls. I learned that he’s never had a serious girlfriend, just flings. He carries out most of his romantic interactions while he’s drunk because he feels stupid doing it when he’s sober. By the end of this conversation I told him that if he ever wants to do anything seriously romantic with someone else beyond just hooking up, it can’t be tied to being drunk because that isn’t a good way to start off a healthy relationship.

Then he said “I know. That’s why I want to tell you now that I like you.”

I froze upon hearing this. I wasn’t expecting him to be so forward… When he saw how uncomfortable I was he quickly said “What? What is it?”. When I still didn’t say anything he said that if I don’t feel the same way, that’s okay. If he made me uncomfortable just now, he was really sorry. He said that he just figured that he should tell me this now while he was sober.

I told him I wasn’t interested in him that way. He looked disappointed but he said that it was okay. I told him that he really needs to get help for his developing drinking problem, or what is already a drinking problem, and although he didn’t say anything to that, he looked like he was thinking about it.

Things were then kind of awkward for a few seconds until he asked me why I thought he put the bottles there. I admitted that I thought it was a romantic gesture and that because of that it creeped me out. He burst out laughing. First he apologized for creeping me out. Then he said that if was going to be romantic, he would at least give me wine, not vodka. He added that if he was going to try to be romantic in general, he wouldn’t take the alcohol approach, considering that I don’t drink at all.

We joked around a bit more and soon the conversation turned to other things. Eventually we said goodbye and he left.

I didn’t expect things to turn out this way, but I was relieved to hear that the bottles were just a joke, especially because he was drunk when he did it. He even offered to talk to my RA for me, which I think was a good sign. I’m also satisfied that I had the opportunity to bring up his drinking problem to him. It really seemed like no one else has ever brought it up to him before. Which is sad, but at least it happened now.

As for him having feelings for me…now that I know the bottles were a joke, I feel less creeped out. I think the fact that he was drunk while he did it, and that he didn’t mention the note, and that he can only do seriously romantic things with girls when he’s drunk, point to him being socially awkward more than anything else. And because of that I’m no longer seriously uncomfortable. I no longer think that he was trying to get in my pants. Or even if he was, he isn’t trying to anymore. He literally said that he wanted to tell me that he likes me while he was sober. All this time he might have been telling girls that he likes them while he was drunk and it always ended badly, so he decided to do things differently this time around. Who knows? But I didn’t tell him that I don’t want to be friends (I’m still thinking about it), just that I’m not romantically interested. I know I said that I don’t want to be friends with him anymore when I originally posted, but that was when I was freaking out and before all of this happened, so I hope that some of you understand why I’m still mulling it over.

Also, just to reiterate: him calling me a teetotaler doesn’t bother me. At all. The only things that bothered me were him pressuring me to drink, which he did once and then never did again, and then him putting the bottles in front of my door, which turned out to be a joke that he apologized for. If him calling me a teetotaler bothered me, or if it felt derogatory to me, I would’ve told him to stop. It never feels that way to me. It always feels like a joke or friendly teasing, both of which I don’t mind. I understand and appreciate the concerns of the speech team and of some people who commented on my original post, but honestly, it’s not a big deal.

That’s all I have! Thank you everyone for helping me out!

tl;dr: my RA came to talk to me. She knows I don’t drink and she just wanted to confirm that the bottles weren’t mine, so I’m not in trouble. Dylan also came to talk to me. I learned that he put the bottles there as a joke, he was drunk while he did it, and also, that he might have a drinking problem. I brought this up to him and he didn’t know what to say. After more talking I learned that he drinks alcohol so much because it makes him socially comfortable. He ended up telling me that he likes me, and when I turned him down, he was disappointed but said okay. We ended up talking about other things and the conversation ended on a good note.

edit: Just wanted to add, I'm not an idiot, as some of you seem to believe. It's not like I think Dylan's apologies and the story behind his alcoholism make me think he's an a-ok guy that deserves to be trusted. I never told him that I want to be friends, and I never said that I still want to be his friend. Just that I was thinking about it. Obviously I've decided to keep my distance from him now, after reading all of these comments, but just because I'm 18 and Dylan is 22 doesn't mean that I'm not aware of the "senior guy preying on freshman girl" scenario. I don't live under a rock, people. I appreciate the concern everyone has for me, but please, keep comments about me being naive to yourself. And not only on this post, but all over r/relationships, because I read this sub regularly and comments that personally target the OP without offering any advice only drive them away when they came here for help.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I would scared to be around him if I was op. Good on her for keeping her cool. Doubt I would.

Top reddit comment:

It's interesting that OP's first thought were that the bottles were a romantic gesture.
My first thought was that Dylan was being an asshole.

The same way someone would gift a steak to a vegetarian.

Honestly, I think it's both in this case. Dylan straight up admitted to liking her, and even if he says it was just a joke, I doubt the two aren't connected.

You know how primary school boys will sometimes bully girls they like? It seemed just like that.