When I was twenty-two I had a hella-stalker. I went out with her once, and got enough of a whiff of craaaaaaazy to make it a short one and lose her number.
The rest was pretty by-the-numbers. Lots of phone calls. (Teary phone calls! After half a date and no physical contact. WTF?) Hang-ups at night. She showed up at my house (thanks, white pages!) and wouldn’t leave. One day she apparently followed me to work and tried to talk to me there. (I caught hell for that, like it was my fault for “bringing my personal life into the workplace.” Again, WTF?)
I regret to say that a couple of days after she showed up at my work, she got her ass kicked by a (female, platonic) friend of mine after standing in my front yard and screaming obscenities at a closed door for what seemed like ages but was probably only a quarter-of-an-hour. I don’t regret to say that that was the end of it. (It could have gotten so much worse!)
No attitude of mine would have rendered her in any way normal. What makes a stalker a stalker is that they are lululululululululu – it’s not an eye-of-the-beholder thing, at all, at all. On the contrary, I think if a stalker latches onto someone who is flattered and responds kindly, it’s only a matter of time before their general f-ed upness scares the person enough that they flee and you end up in restraining-order-land anyway.
My sister married a stalker, and realized a few months into their wedding that there was something Not Right At All about him. Our entire family had to leave the province for a while over that one (although she had left home a couple of years before she got married) because after she tried to get away it rapidly escalated to the point where he was coming around to anyone who knew her and brandishing weapons, trying to find her.
When I lived in San Diego I started getting obscene phone calls. I tried hanging up immediately and blowing a loud whistle into the phone, to no avail. I realized the phone rang right after I got home and just as I was getting into bed.
Finally, I decided to talk to him, and see if I could find out who he was (and where) He had a distintive accent. I asked where it was from and he told me “Philly.”
I suddenly pictured a respiratory therapist I worked with occasionally. He had never spoken to me at work, beyond work related stuff. I asked him if he was (phillyguyRT). He said YES! Then he asked, since now that I knew who he was, would I go out with him?
I said no, and hung up. I then called his supervisor, who told me to “prove it.”
I had my supervisor (who was a friend) come to my house and sure enough, he called again. From work.
His punishment was to be transferred to day shift, putting him in my way even more!
I finally quit, moved, and changed my number.
I heard later, that he’d been fired for beating up his (female) supervisor, (above the unhelpful one). He beat her up because she “didn’t listen.”
Yes, and I almost shot her. It was a woman I had slept with a few times and then ended the relationship. One night while I was sound asleep I heard my front door bang open and someone start coming down the hall towards my bedroom. I jumped up, grabbed the gun I always keep next to my bed and stepped out of the bedroom to the hallway. Someone was coming towards me ( I have horrible vision without my glasses) and I drew down on the person shouting, “HOLD IT RIGHT FUCKING THERE!”
She said something stupid because she was extremely drunk but I recognized her voice. All of this took place in about 5 seconds. I didn’t shoot her but if she had continued to move forward I would have.
A year later she tracked me down in a different town and tried to break into my house (drunk again). I took her back to her hotel and told her I didn’t want to see her again and she should get counseling. The next morning she continued her drunk, tried to break into my house, got ran off by the neighbors and got picked up for DUI (she stopped at a bar and a bartender took her keys away and called the cops. In Montana. you have to be extremely, incredibly, unbelievably drunk for a bartender to do that.)
whistelpig