A man is suing a woman after she declined to turn their friendship into a romance, according to court documents. Photo / File
A man is suing a woman after she declined to turn their friendship into a romance, according to court documents. Photo / File
In what could be a landmark court case, the CEO of a Singaporean drone-racing company, K Kawshigan, is suing former friend Nora Tan Shu Mei for the equivalent of $3.36m in Singapore’s High Court for not becoming his girlfriend.
The ABC reports documents show the dispute began in 2016 whenthey met at a social event and developed a friendship.
By late 2020, their relationship became “misaligned”, and Tan eventually told Kawshigan that she only wanted to remain friends, which upset him.
Kawshigan claimed he suffered emotional trauma after Tan rejected his romantic advances and only wanted to maintain a friendship with him.
He threatened legal action for financial damages he alleges have arisen from “negligent infliction of emotional distress and possible defamation” when Tan tried to restrict contact with him and impose boundaries.
Tan has since obtained a protection order against Kawshigan and has lodged harassment proceedings for damages, covering costs she has incurred to pay for extra security at her home, as well as personal counselling.
The man is suing the woman for approximately $3.36 million. Photo / Getty Images
Despite the backlash, Kawshigan lodged a High Court lawsuit against Tan for $3.36 million, claiming “indefinite loss of potential investment, rehabilitation and therapy programmes to overcome the sustained trauma, as well as reductions in his earning capacity”.
In another separate case, he sued her in Singapore’s Magistrates Court for $26,492 in damages, claiming she had breached an alleged agreement to “improve their relationship”.
However, the court ruled that there was no such binding contract and struck out Kawshigan’s claim as an abuse of process, describing it as “manifestly groundless and without foundation”.
The case has attracted criticism from gender equality advocacy group, Aware. It expressed its concern after learning about Tan’s traumatic experience and stated that “women do not owe men their time or attention, much less their friendship, love, sexual activity, or emotional labour”.
The organisation highlighted how concepts such as the “friend zone” perpetuate the notion that women should be sexually attracted to the men in their lives by default.
It added that the complaint appeared to be an instance of Darvo, which stands for “deny, attack, reverse victim and offender”, and is a common tactic used by abusers to cast themselves as the injured party and punish actual victims for their resistance.
