Lunatics and psychos in your life

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Ever had someone in your life that just can’t seem to move on? A stalker? A fatal attraction type?

I dated a girl in college in the 60s. It was my first serious relationship and we got engaged at some point. Then I had to go into the military. Within months she was dating someone else, and got pregnant. It was a messy breakup, but when it was over I realized what a mental hold she had on me and how manipulative she was. Breathed a sigh of relief that she was gone and moved on with my life, never looking back. That was in 1967.

Fast forward about 35 years and I’ve been divorced and remarried and am happily living in Alaska when I get an email from her wanting to apologize and “hoping you’re okay” and other bullshit. I told my wife about it and ignored it.

Fast forward again to today, when I get a fat envelope in the mail from a name I don’t recognize. Yup, it’s her again. She’s found me on the internet and sent a long, rambling typed letter (which I didn’t read) and a bunch of old photos of me, and some of people I don’t know nor wish to know.

What the ever-loving fuck? I don’t give a shit whether she lives or dies and haven’t since that day 50+ GODDAMN YEARS AGO. Still trying to fuck with my head, I guess.

So tell me your own story of stalkers, hangers-on, ghosts who won’t quit haunting you, etc.

2

Jebus. I got a letter like that, after 35 years of no communication. I disposed of it, and hope that’s the end of the story. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.

There’s another psycho that reaches out every ten years or so, hopefully never again. It makes me literally sick to my stomach.

3

for me it was a woman I met during a call on a doctors office when I was a salesman.
In the space of a few months we had an affair, and then I got transferred. I said good bye.
20 years go by and we meet again at a professional C.E.C. seminar. She looks me up in a directory. WE chat on the phone for maybe an hour.
Over the next 10 years she calls a couple times each year “just to check in”. I am polite, but do not encourage her in any way. I keep hoping she finds someone else to fixate on. hock.

4

I had a reunion with my first girlfriend from high school about 20 years later. She had dumped me after I graduated, but she hated that term. Apparently, I was supposed to not just accept being dumped at the time. I guess she didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to going to a university two states away that was reputed to have student population that was 2:1 female to male. At our reunion, she admitted to stalking me and driving by my house after the breakup. We’re FB friends now and she’s married to boot.

5

I’m pretty safe from that because my name in real life is so common that Google searches invariably yield cluttered results with 10 or more different CairoCarols. One of my namesakes is a BBC reporter, another is a travel photographer, another did a lot of Indonesian cultural studies, and another went to the same college I did, so even adding a bunch of key words related to my own circumstances doesn’t narrow it down too much.

I did have a creepy stalker when I was in 7th grade. An 8th grader I had never met started dropping off little notes at my locker saying how much he liked me. Sometimes he included little gifts, like plastic beads, or asked me for my favorite song so he could make a request dedicated to me on the radio. I was perplexed as we were not acquainted - 7th and 8th graders were separate social groups unless they intersected in something like band, and we did not.

I think I wrote back polite noncommittal notes at first, but then he wrote something, I forget what, that made me realize I needed to put a stop to his behavior. So I wrote a hopefully kind, but firm, note saying I wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship with him (or whatever 7th grade girls said in the 1970s - probably “I don’t want to go out with you”) and he should stop writing me notes.

Well, the notes stopped, but one day I was leaning in a classroom doorway, chatting with someone inside, my back to the hallway, and he ran by, pushed me HARD, and ran off.

That was all that ever happened to me, but I’ve always thought he probably grew up to be a controlling asshole, probably in an abusive relationship with whoever was unlucky enough to end up with him. His name is unusual enough that I can Google him, but his only internet footprint is a couple of poorly written, misspelled posts remembering people on one of those obituary websites. (I know it is him because of the location and the fact I recognize a couple of other names from our shared community.)

Do they let you write condolence messages from prison?

6

I’m fairly sure I’d be the stalker type if I ever had the opportunity or was more social in my earlier years.
(I do tend to fixate.)

That and I’m pretty lazy.
In a real life who has time for that crap?

7

My brother dated a man (call him Steve) for about a year, approximately 15 years ago. They broke up and Steve apparently took it very poorly. For approximately 10 years Steve would send packages to my mother containing nude and sexual pictures of my brother. They would come on the breakup anniversary every year. It’s been about 5 years since she has received anything, so we assume he’s found someone else to harass.

8

A question: do I count as a “creepy stalker”? Here’s my story (sorry, kinda long, but light reading):

In college I dated “Bobby” for about three years, with a messy breakup that I initiated when he didn’t want me to accept the position of managing editor of my college newspaper my senior year, because it would take away from our time together (mind you, we were informally engaged at that point, so in theory had our whole lives to look forward to together).

Nine years later I was visiting my old college roommate/bestie Josie and she said, “Hey, whatever happened to Bobby?” She had of course known him pretty well. It would never have occurred to me to initiate contact, but hey - we had been a big part of each other’s lives for a several years, and I certainly hoped he was doing well, so why not? I called his mom, whose number I had for some reason, and said, “hey, this is CairoCarol, Josie and I would like to say hello to Bobby, can you give me his number?” Mom said, “oh my yes, CairoCarol, I am sure he’d love to hear from you!”

Well, mom was dead wrong. Bobby was ice cold on the phone, barely giving up a few life updates, one of which was, “I married a Smith graduate - I always told you, I deserve the best.” (I went to a different Seven Sisters college.) The call ended pretty quickly, with him saying, “don’t call me again.”

There’s more, but before relaying the next chapter I’ll be honest and open myself up to criticism by saying here that I interpreted his behavior as he was still angry at me for the breakup and perhaps had never really gotten over me, even after nine years. (Go ahead and tell me I’m an egotistical jerk; I can take it!)

Now, fast forward 30 more years. I’m going through old stuff from storage, and find an old Chamber of Commerce brochure from his home town, circa 1950s, that featured an idyllic photo of his family grilling in their yard on the cover, including him as a little boy. (If you are one of those sharp-eyed readers who thinks the dates don’t add up, they do - he was 9 years older than me.)

Those brochures were limited in number and irreplaceable; he had given one to me when we were planning to marry. I thought he might like it back, so I mailed it back to the best address I could find for him (a small IT consulting firm he had founded and was president of) with a brief cover note saying I thought he might want another copy of the brochure, and I hoped he had had a good life. I also included an old letter he had written me that had been stuck in the brochure (not especially romantic - just correspondence but of possible historical interest) one summer when we were apart.

I did not put my return address on the mailing. I figured that would make it clear that I wasn’t trying to initiate any communication, I just wanted him to have the brochure back.

So, Dopers … am I a creepy stalker? I did call a guy after 9 years, was told never to call again, then 30 years later I sent him something I thought he’d want, that included a letter from our time together. That sounds a little like some of the stalkers being mentioned here.

9

I don’t especially mind having people reconnect (or initiating reconnecting with them) if we had a meaningful relationship. I do watch the boundaries if they seem/ed like trouble, or not to intrude on them.

I had one former coworker write to apologize for treating me badly. I thanked her and said her actions had been painful. No further contact. I assume it was a 12-Step thing. A kid from my childhood neighborhood who I occasionally played with over the year or so we lived there wrote me many years later to say he loved me. I ignored it because creepy. A high school friend wrote many years later to say he was in love with me (after decades of no contact). I thanked him and pointed out that even at the time I was gay. Some messy relationships have been worked out over time. All seem amiable; most are not intense.

10

I’m not sure if he was a psycho, but a guy I’d dated in '73 and who dumped me in '75 managed to track me down in 2000/01 (don’t recall exactly when.) In the intervening years, he’d been married 3 times and had 5 kids among three wives. I took that as a sign that I’d dodged a bullet.

Since he lived on the opposite side of the country, I maintained an email connection for a while. I heard about issues with his exes, which of his kids wouldn’t talk to him, his latest wife’s losing battle with cancer followed by marriage #4 about 2 weeks after #3 died. To this day, I don’t know what was up with him and why he kept telling me all this, tho I admit to a morbid curiosity.

Next, he divorced #4 and started dating again. Then all of a sudden, nothing. He never replied to a couple of “how ya doin’?” emails. I admit I did check for an obituary because it was so abrupt. It’s been at least 10 years. Will I hear from him again? We shall see…

11

These stories for me are hard to understand. Yet my best friend Jimmy has been a psychologist and therapist for thirty years; he’s told me these kind of clingy people are really common. I suppose anyone is capable of being this way though.

12

Coincidental to this thread, I see there is a new series on Netflix called “Worst EX ever”.

13

Well, there was a creepy kid in 3rd grade who thought I was all that. He followed me around the playground. Bugged me at lunch, send stoopid notes by his friend in my class.

He got on my nerves one time too many and I hauled off and punched Stanley dead center in the face. I hit hard cause blood squirted everywhere. His glasses flew off in 2 pieces.
Look, I was duly punished at school and home.

He left me alone after that. Never noticed him again.

I don’t know, maybe 15 yrs later, I need a dentist.
I call a practice. Get an appointment.
I go, get in the chair.
Dentist comes in behind me and is asking a few questions.
Comes around. OMG! Stanley!
I calmly say, “Sorry I gotta go”.

I ran out never to return.

What goes around, comes around.

14

Now that’s lunatic psycho behavior!

Some of the other characters in this thread just sound lonely to me, though. People get old and sad, they remember happier times in their life, they reach out not necessarily hoping to reconnect, exactly, but hoping to perhaps share a happy memory?

My mom had a somewhat awful boyfriend, but they lived together for years before she abruptly dumped him. About 15 years later, he reached out to her – she and I both assumed because he was looking for a handout. I’m not sure if she totally ignored him, or if perhaps she was at least cordial in her reply. She found out he died just a few weeks after that. My hunch is he had not, in fact, been looking for a handout.

15

I had that same thought about some of the reaching out described. Yeah, a “long rambling typed letter” might be a bit much (but if Chefguy didn’t read it, how does he know it was rambling, and whether it sounded sane or not?).

A “hey, you doin’ okay?” every decade or two doesn’t seem out of line to me, even though I don’t do it myself, largely due to my experience phoning Bobby. But an old high school flame reached out to me once; we shared a few pleasant emails and no one was freaked out.

You don’t even have to be “old and sad,” just maybe old. I find that my peers from long ago are reaching out to revive old friendships more and more as I age.

16

My wife read it. When I say that this woman was manipulative, I’m not kidding. I’d even say bordering on sociopathic. This is not someone you want to have “reaching out” to you. After 57 years, she doesn’t have anyone else to lean on? Really? It’s an attempt at mind-fucking, pure and simple, and I’m not playing that game again.

17

I dated a girl in college in the 80s…

She wasn’t a stalker, though. Lunatic and psycho? Definitely.

We worked together on campus. I asked her out, and over the course of less than 1 week, well, things moved very quickly in this relationship, and we both were to blame for that (I certainly encouraged some of the quickness; and so did she). But we became much too close, much too fast, if you get my drift.

I soon became uncomfortable with how much too close, too soon we’d become, and I tried discussing it with her. Can we slow down a little? Can we go back to holding hands? Well I don’t think that is possible. I wanted to continue dating her, but without all the sex. Really, I barely knew her. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m really not into long relationships based solely (or mostly) on sex.

Putting on the brakes really wasn’t happening. It turns out she desperately needed the intimacy and physical closeness. Not that she was a nympho or anything like that. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t, but hey I’m no expert. But there was something else driving her need for the intimacy and physical closeness. I couldn’t quite understand what was driving that, although I started to learn that she’d had an abusive upbringing, and the professions of her parents weren’t exactly white collar, or even true blue collar. Let me just say that they were in what I’ll call the ‘intimacy accessories’ industry, whereas I had a pretty clean cut upbringing. My dad was a university professor and my mom a housewife who had gone back to school and earned an MBA. We went to church every Sunday where my dad was a lector.

These differences all really affected our relationship and I didn’t see a good way out of it. So I started the process of breaking up while trying to let her down easy. But she just would not accept it. Not at all.

One of her former boyfriends also worked where we both worked. I wasn’t really friends with him, we mostly just said Hi in passing. But I was having difficulty managing her expectations and in trying to distance myself from her. So one day I walk up to him, this guy whom I’d never shared more than 2-3 words at a time. I asked him about his relationship with her and about how things ended. He said things were fine at first but when it had run its course and they were starting to part ways, he described her as a ‘sicko psycho’.

Oh great. Things did not look good for me.

I know this story is running long so I’ll cut to the chase where one day while she and I were both working together on the same shift, she got so angry at me and she started breaking things at work the workplace. She started doing some serious damage to the place. She had to be restrained and the supervisor told her to go home, right now, long before her shift was due to end.

Our differences could no longer be kept just between us. The damage was very visible and soon everyone knew about it and that it had to do with a disagreement between us.

But her physical destructive actions really blew me away. I’d never known anyone who reacted that way to a life disagreement.

She was truly a lunatic and a psycho. That’s the worst that any relationship of mine turned so ugly.

I’m glad that it’s far behind me now.

Sorry for the lengthy post, @Chefguy.

18

The only reason I don’t report you for stealing my Credit Card number is you spend less than my kid.

19

Please tell me he looks like Laurence Olivier.

20

This may well be so, but the reaching out itself (and sending old photos) doesn’t sound (to us who don’t know her) like evidence of lunacy.