Comment on this story
comment
A Singapore man is seeking more than $2 million in damages against a woman who traumatized him after she rejected his romantic advances and told him she only saw him as a friend.
The man, identified in legal documents as drone racing manager K. Kawshigan, claimed in a defamation lawsuit due to be heard in Singapore’s High Court next week that the woman’s rejection caused him “enduring trauma” and ” loss of earning capacity”. The lawsuit the woman is contesting seeks approximately $2.3 million in damages for alleged damage to the friend zone.
A separate case filed by Kawshigan in Singapore Magistrates Court was dropped last month for abuse of procedure and the woman’s lawyers said Kawshigan was ordered to pay her legal costs. In that lawsuit, he had sought nearly $17,000 and alleged that the woman violated an “offer” she had made, which included an “offer of space.” [Kawshigan] to share inspiration, struggle and achievements” and “to meet on the basis of mutual availability, beyond coffee habits”.
The woman had argued that the The $17,000 lawsuit was an abuse of procedure because it was “brought for another purpose” to compel her to “comply with his demands, including resuming communications with him.”
The lawsuit illustrates a Challenge for women around the world: That men are sometimes entitled to their affections. “Women do not owe men their time or attention, let alone their friendship, love, sexual activity or emotional work,” said Aware Singapore, which campaigns for women’s rights and gender equality, in a statement accompanying the lawsuit. “Attempting to request or coerce these things, through legal means or otherwise, may constitute harassment.”
Singapore is ranked 49th in the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, making it the second most gender-equal country in Asia after the Philippines. Japan has long struggled with gender income inequality, and only whispers of feminism in South Korea can spark a sharp outcry. However, like many other industrialized nations, Singapore has struggled with sexism and misogyny, such as the proliferation of incels, or involuntarily celibate, anti-feminist men.
Ahead of the election, South Korea’s feminists are battling sexist backlash
Kawshigan first met the woman in a “social setting” in 2016, according to the district court’s ruling. “Over time, their friendship developed, but problems began to surface in September 2020 when “they became misaligned in terms of how they viewed their relationship.”
The woman considered Kawshigan a friend, while Kawshigan “regarded her as his ‘closest friend,'” according to court records, which stated that she asked to see Kawshigan less often, which angered him. He said such an action would mark a “step back” in their “relationship.” She, in turn, said they need to set boundaries and urged Kawshigan to be “self-reliant.”
Kawshigan, according to the verdict, “didn’t respond well to that.”
He sent the woman a letter in October 2020 threatening lawsuits for damages for “emotional distress and possible defamation.” She told Kawshigan that she felt really uncomfortable. He threatened that if she didn’t comply with his demands, she would suffer “damage to her personal and professional endeavors.”
The woman agreed to attend counseling sessions with Kawshigan, which court records say kept his legal threats at bay. But after about a year and a half of counseling, she felt the exercises had become meaningless, she said, as Kawshigan “seemed unable to accept her reasons for not wanting to have a relationship or connection with him.”
She obtained an injunction against Kawshigan, who then filed the lawsuit in Magistrates Court while the other case was pending.
Kawshigan said in an email that “since important proceedings are pending,” he would not comment until the case is decided. Kawshigan represented himself in both cases, according to court documents.
Siyuan Chen, associate law professor at Singapore Management University, said Kawshigan’s claim was “probably unfounded”.
“The alleged harm suffered must be materially due to something, be it a contract or a claim,” he said, adding that the district court’s ruling showed that “neither can be established.”