Well… I didn’t find it weird, because I can easily see myself doing the same thing, after my hopes about a woman were risen. I pictured it the following way : I come back to my car, put some music on, get half dreamy half thoughtful (what should my next step be?), smoke a couple cigarettes, enjoy the night, the music, my dreamy state…I’m pulled out of it when the light goes out, feels awkward and leave. No real need for a “good reason”.
Of course he might have called a friend to tell him how it went with the girl he drove home: “I tell you, I’m not sure. She let me in, prepared me a tea, didn’t mind me sitting on her bed. I was pretty sure we would end up in the sack, but suddenly, she asked me to leave. She kept sending mixed signals. And I really dig her” “You know, girls are weird like that. You should invite her to your next session, if you have a chance. You’ll see how it goes”.
Or any number of other things. Including of course planning to stalk her. But Occam’s razor tells me it’s not the most likely explanation.
I really don’t see how the screen name enters into it.
All’s well that ended well.
After accepting a ride, it’s hard to say no to a request to use your toilet. The cup of tea you could have declined, however. But what was in your favor here was that he was a friend of a friend…sure he would have liked to bed you but he wasn’t going to get carried away, because he knows your friend.
IANAL but I don’t know what the cops would do for you. It doesn’t sound like he did anything overtly wrong.
I don’t think you need to spell it out for him, pre-emptively, in big letters or anything. Just don’t accept any more rides from him. If he asks you for a date be blunt of course.
I parsed it that way, too, and thought, “Sort of weird.” But if he was only outside long enough for the OP to change pjs, then not so weird. He could have made a phone call, smoked a cigarette, etc. That’s only a few minutes, really.
The 3 am cup of tea is maybe a little rude, but also maybe not. There was the pub crawl, people have been drinking/feeling laid back. Doesn’t seem SO weird. Though I guess if it was someone I barely knew and I just wanted to go to bed, I probably would’ve made an excuse like, “Sorry, I don’t have anything to drink–don’t mean to be rude, gotta get some sleep, thanks for the ride.” The guy doesn’t sound like the most socially ept (can we say that?) if the OP clearly wasn’t interested in engaging in conversation, but I don’t see “stalker.” I’d just ignore it if I wasn’t interested and if he doesn’t get the hint, then I’d say something.
I’m also a 20 something year old female so looking at this personally, I guess it might weird me out a little. I’ve also had experiences where I made stupid mistakes (well, actual judgment errors–I don’t think the OP did anything all that dumb, to be honest) and then felt all, “Oh no, what if I get stalked?” Pretty hyperbolic–I’ve never actually been stalked.
My first thought reading the OP was that the guy was wide awake (maybe works nights and didn’t realize not everyone is on the same schedule as him) and not looking forward to being alone after a night with friends. Might have been looking for a little friendly chat rather than sex.
The OP is upset about a situation she feels (erroneously) she’s brought upon herself. I don’t think rolling eyes, laughing at her, or telling her she’s the creepy one is at all helpful. She already feels bad; why make her feel worse?
I wonder what the ride giver would think if he read this?
And this 3 am equals creepy somehow as well lurking in the background. Uh, lady you left the bar at some ungodly hour. Of course he is going to BE at your place at O creepy AM !
As for the outside thingy. I’ve spent many a minute sitting out front in my car. And I am pretty sure I wasnt stalking my man friends, most of my women friends, coworkers, or most of my relatives when i was doing it.
I’ve gone out for dinner with friends and come back (hopefully) a bit more collected and with some examples of why he hit my creep-dar.
At the pub he did not strike me in any way as clueless, fumbling, endearing, etc. He projected a very alpha-male personality. He led a lot of tunes and ordered drinks a few times for people who said they didn’t want one, saying things like, “You’ll thank me for it later” or “Come on, it’s the weekend!”
He called me stupid when I said I thought my bag had been lifted. In the car home, he harshly criticized my playing and timing for about ten minutes which he capped off with “…but that’ll get better with practice, if you’re lucky”. He was not very polite or respectful to me, but I thought he must be all right because he was friends with people whose judgments I respected.
I did not make him a cup of tea. He repeatedly asked for one, but each time I said it was late and I had work the next morning. He said, “Oh, well…” and continued talking. This happened three or four times.
While he sat on my bed and talked (it was a fairly self-important monologue about musicians he knew and what was wrong with them), he brushed my side with his hand several times while gesturing. I moved away each time. I ended up standing because I had scooted to the end of the bed, and he leaned back against my pillows, patted the duvet and said, “Relax!” I said again that I had work the next morning.
My flat is too small for chairs, it’s a single room. There is a bed, a hob/oven, a washing machine, a half-fridge, and a bathroom, and that’s about it. My bed is the only non-floor space to sit, but I feel that he should not have sat down for a chat at all. He said that he needed to use the toilet and that was it.
His car drove off literally two seconds after I turned out my light, and it was hard to miss seeing it outside. I wasn’t looking for it specifically, but I do think that it is too much of a coincidence to write off that he just happened to drive off two seconds after I turned out my light.
This is untrue. I don’t feel that his ‘signs of interest’ were socially reasonable, and Mr Mandolin is quite classically good-looking, in my opinion, which on consideration might be why he thought he had a shot. But last night (Monday) I had a date with a young man who is much less conventionally attractive than Mr Mandolin, but who I am much more romantically interested in by about three orders of magnitude. Appearance had nothing to do with it, it was all behaviour.
Now we get the rest of the story.
Boy, you sure know how to leave out some important details.
Its almost like the two stories arent even about the same event.
Ever thought of becoming a defense attorney?
Wow. This paints a very different picture of the guy. I still don’t think he’s a stalker, but it sounds like he’s a sleazy jerk. If he contacts you again, just tell him to fuck off.
Incidentally, although I think some people here have been pretty unfair to you, you really should have included those extra details in the first place.
Sorry. It was difficult for me to distill the specifics of why he made me so uncomfortable, and I just focused on my own reactions in the first post. Sorry for not being clearer immediately with why I was bothered, I’m still sorting through my emotions and instinctive response and trying to figure out what’s useful/justified and what’s not. I was mostly just expressing upset in the first few posts, and I wasn’t thinking in terms of specifics, just the feeling I got from him, until I discussed them with my friends over dinner.
This.
Honestly, I’m not trying to make you feel piled on, but . . .
The man called you stupid, criticized you, was “not very polite or respectful,” and you invited him in to your flat why? And then you let him stay why? Allow me to channel my mother (and, I suspect, yours) for just a minute: You let a disrespectful overbearing male near-stranger into your flat with you alone in the middle of the night?? Don’t you know enough to value your personal safety more highly than that?? What were you thinking??
Turning Mom off, these are my thoughts:
You need to stiffen your backbone. He comes out of the toilet; you lead the way to the door, thanking him again as you go. He sits down instead, you say, politely but firmly, “I really appreciated the ride, but I have to work early, so . . . .” He brushes that off, you say, more firmly, “No, really, I’m afraid you have to go.” And you open the door and hold it open until he exits through it.
It’s sounds to me like you’re mad that the guy made you feel uncomfortable and powerless over the situation, which is completely understandable. But you AREN’T powerless in that situation, and next time you’ll act differently because of this experience. It’s one of the things creepy older men teach sweet young things, whether they intend to or not.
What I’m trying to say is that I realise I gave a misleading picture, because I wasn’t thinking of the details enough to describe them, so all I could write was “he gave off an ooky vibe”, and that understandably isn’t very persuasive! I’m really sorry for the confusing first post.
I’m still quite upset and worried that I’m going to run into him whenever I leave my house, because he knows where I live, but I recognize that feeling is hyperbolic and it’ll probably go away if nothing else happens.
I was trying not to be rude and I felt I owed him a small practical favor (use of the toilet) after he gave me a ride. I realise that those aren’t very good reasons in the morning after and that I should have known better, but that was why.
I know, and that’s one of the things I meant about life lessons. I doubt you’ll do it again. Not to project or anything, but if it were me, one of the reasons I think I would now find the guy completely creepy to the point of not even wanting to interact with him again, would be the awareness that really it was a pretty stupid thing for me to have allowed. Things could have gone much, much worse and I would have been powerless to stop it.
You don’t like the guy, so avoid him. Even when you’re with friends or at the same venue, you don’t have to interact with him. He sounds like a jerk anyway. As for the rest of it: Chalk it up to a lesson learned and move on.
Try not to be too hard on yourself. We women sometimes have a tendency to want to be “nice” against our otherwise better judgment.
I had a somewhat similar incident about 6 or 7 years ago, where a staff member of Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald’s followed me home from an event we’d hosted for her at my boss’s home, even though I had very clearly asked him as politely as I could not to do so. I was outraged when he pulled in my driveway behind me, but I was concerned about doing anything that might jeopardize my boss’s relationship with the Congresswoman.
So, like you, even though I knew better, I let him come into my house under the guise of wanting to go to the bathroom before getting on the freeway for his supposedly long drive home. He lingered in my living room and made moves such that I picked up my cat and held her at my chest so that there was at least a very clear physical barrier between us. And when he wouldn’t leave after polite rebuffs, I finally flat out kicked his slimy ass out of my house. I don’t remember what I said, but it wasn’t polite anymore.
And like you, I was terribly shaken by the whole experience, doubting every move I’d made along the way. I was completely conflicted between being downright stern, which might have nipped his advances in the bud in the first place, and being reluctantly polite so as not to do something that could come back against my boss.
I didn’t sleep at all that night, I was so upset. The next morning my boss could tell something was really wrong and forced the story out of me. He insisted on calling the Congresswoman and letting her know what had happened – he totally had my back! I spoke with her 4 times that day, the last time on the speaker phone from her office with the offending staff member sitting there listening.
I later learned that as I continued through each step of the story of what he’d done and how I’d responded, his head kept falling progressively lower and lower, until his chin was nearly resting on his chest. After we hung up, he admitted the truth of everything I’d just said and the Congresswoman fired him on the spot and had him escorted out of her office!
Nothing like that has ever happened to me again, primarily because I learned an important lesson that evening. . .
FUCK how the guy might view you – if you’re uncomfortable in the situation, say no insistently and refuse to open your door until he’s in his car and has pulled away! If he has to pee that bad, he can use the bathroom at the gas station.
I dont think theres anything wrong with letting the guy who drove you home use the toilet just because this guy turned out to be a creep. If you can’t trust someone enough to let them pee in your home you shouldn’t trust them enough to let them drive you there either.
Thats what I was going to say.
Also, if you dont like, respect, trust, or know someone, don’t USE them for favors either unless its a do or die situation. That just seems smarmy to me.
This.
Thank you, Shayna.
nobody should be made so uncomfortable!
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Tracy–please go to the bookstore or library immediately and obtain a copy of The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. And read it too.
Billfish and DigitalC–In a world of perfect knowledge, you might be correct. But we don’t live in that world. Sometimes, it’s only on the proverbial ride home that the woman really realizes that the guy is a creep.
A woman can say no at any time.
Just because a woman lets a guy drive her home, it doesn’t mean that she has to let him into her house.
Just because a woman lets a man put his hand down her pants, it doesn’t mean that she has to fuck him.