Lunatics and psychos in your life

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Senior year in high school a girl I was friends with told me about her friend at another school who just went through a horrible breakup. My friend paid me to take her friend to her school’s prom. Serious money, like $200 plus expenses. I needed the money, plus in her picture she was cute, so I agreed.

My friend set up a dinner date the week before the prom. She gave me cash for dinner. The girl was nice, the date went fine, but when I drove her home she got aggressive in the car right in front of her house. Fondling and kissing out of the blue. I went along with it, but it was strange.

The night of the prom went well. Afterwards in the car she again ravaged me. We were parked somewhere with no traffic and she went absolutely nuts on me. Again, I didn’t object, but it was weird.

A few days later my friend contacted me. She was all smiles. Turns out her friend told her I had proposed to her and we were getting married after graduation. I freaked out. Told her what had really happened. The girl didn’t know any contact information for me (phone number or address) so I just kept silent. My friend dealt with her friend who apparently needed professional help.

22

Yeah sorta, maybe not creepy but kinda cringy.

ntl I see nothing wrong with sending an innocent blast from the past with no return address though it may be puzzling and odd to the recipient.

23

There are two clingy lunatics I’ve known since I was a kid who just won’t stop calling me. Mom? Dad? Give it a rest!

24

My blast from the past had my current address and her return address. Apparently in the letter she referred to my wife by name, with the correct spelling (most people never get it right). Like I said, it’s a mindfuck tactic.

25

This perfectly describes Gini. One of my very first threads here was dedicated to her… antics.

I’m not going to revisit it, although in itself, it fits this discussion. Her alternating between an intense need for intimacy and a complete failure to commit fully were almost certainly caused by a traumatic childhood. But this doesn’t excuse the way she treats everyone around her, including me.

In the two years since we broke up, she has been… weird, and not in good way.

At first, we didn’t interact much after the break-up, but by November 2022, she was again coming to my office daily, texting me, speaking on the phone literally for hours, inviting me for coffee or dinner, asking me to go cycling with her as we had done when we were together. On New Year’s Eve that year, she kissed me on the cheek. I had the feeling that she was aiming for my mouth but only missed because I happened to suddenly look to the right at that exact moment. It felt as if it was the beginning of our relationship all over again, three years… and unfortunately many betrayals later.

It went on like this for a year and a half, until last January when she suddenly cut me off almost completely.

  1. Perhaps she regretted her decision to precipitate the break-up. I highly doubt it, but she was never great at honest communication ;
  2. Perhaps she wanted us to stay close friends but realized that we were still far too close ;
  3. Perhaps it was a power move to make me beg her to take me back, like her ex had done. She either gave up when she saw that it wasn’t happening, or has found another guy to toy with.

Knowing what a devious, self-centred, pathological liar she is, I’m leaning towards 3.

26

Hands down that’s very stalkerish, blacklist that weirdo from your funeral!

Hang on what if she names you as a life insurance beneficiary? :grimacing: :exploding_head:

I hd a summer lover who returned to university in Toronto. Their birthday was coming up and I missed them terribly. As a surprise I sent an oz of Gainesville Green to his house. It lit up his party but his mom was suspicious of the package when he opened it couldn’t hide the aroma. 1984. :ghost: :policeman:

Thinking back I’m more surprised at the speed it arrived hd no worry about drug sniffing dogs.

27

I did something similar once - not to an ex, but to a friend who I knew was going through some tough times - I mailed her a joint, tucked into a box of tea. The instant I dropped it in the mailbox and couldn’t retrieve it I was terrified! Mailing illegal drugs is quite the federal offense (and this was 1979).

For a couple of weeks I was sweating bullets, but the drug sniffing dogs must have been on vacation because thank goodness, the box was not interdicted.

28

Yikes. I’m glad you’re steering clear of her. You must! And it sounds like you know that.

You certainly do not want to find a boiling pot on your stove, one you did not put there, and open it only to find your pet bunny rabbit dead and boiled inside. I hope you get the movie reference.

29

In the first sentence of the letter I got, she said “Please don’t think this is some sort of Fatal Attraction thing.” Cue shrieking violins.

30

Not exactly psycho, but needy, and I didn’t set good boundaries.

I met Mimi (her “stage name” - she fancied herself an actress) at her high school Valentine’s Day dance. She was a freshman in an all-girls Catholic high school, and I was a senior in a nearby secular high school. We dated for a few months that included a very clichéd attempt at sex in the back of my station wagon on a dark park road. I broke up with her about a month after I graduated from high school and faced going away to college. I later learned that she was checked into a mental health hospital about a month after the breakup. I took a year off between my sophomore and junior years at college, and she asked me take her to her senior prom at the end of that year. I should have said no, but didn’t. She gave me a “going away present” in the front seat of my compact car a couple of months later, which, again, I should have said no to. She had no self-esteem, a poor self-image, and was emotionally needy, and I knew it, but I didn’t want to hurt her by breaking things off entirely. Did I mention that I had boundary issues?

Fast forward about 15 years, and I discover that she had listed herself as a member of my high school graduating class on classmates.com, and I knew exactly what she was doing. I thought about it for a month, and decided (Why?!?!?) to contact her. For about 6 weeks we IM’d for a bit in the evenings catching up on life, but I realized that she still loved me, and so became less available on-line. One particular night she pressured me to say that breaking up with her (~20 years previously, mind you) was a mistake on my part, that I didn’t mean to do it (temporary insanity, or some such). I wouldn’t say it, which lead to her accusing me of having never loved her and used her. I should have walked away at that point.

Both of Mimi’s parents died a few years later, and I went to both visitations, and accepted a Facebook invitation from her, but never interacted with her (again with the boundaries!). The one time I did was over some conservative propaganda crap she posted that I called her on, and she unfriended me. I have not interacted with her since (took me long enough!). In some sense I feel like I was stringing her along, but it was also obvious that she had been carrying a torch for me for a long time that included trips past the house I grew up in.

She is now a stewardess (“a dream I’ve always had since childhood,” per LinkedIn - bullshit!), flying out of the local airport, and I dread that we will be on a flight together. She was an important part of my life for the months that we dated because I was anxious about graduation and college, and I guess that’s why I have wanted to know how she and her life was.

31

Mine was a bona fide stalker, so I don’t know if this story qualifies for this thread. It was someone I never met but who stalked me for a couple of years. Apologies if it belongs in a different thread.

My career was very public facing working in a courtroom in a courthouse facility. Sometimes our responsibilities included entering other courtrooms to shift files around or perform other clerical tasks. We passed regularly through public areas. Best I can figure, this guy noticed me when I was just walking through the courthouse.

I began to notice a particular vehicle cruising slowly past wherever I was walking outside to and from where I parked at work, or if I left the building to go downtown at lunch to run errands. This vehicle with the same person was always there. Morning, noon and evening. I didn’t even go out at lunchtime that often, preferring to bring lunch from home and hang with co-workers. But if I did go out, this person was on my tail. He never tried to talk to me or interact in any way. Just in his car, always driving by for multiple passes. Creepy.

After several months of this, I finally surreptitiously took down the license plate number. With help from law enforcement folks I worked with, I was able to get this person’s name. Ran him through our public records and learned a lot: Married but in process of a divorce, several convictions for spousal abuse and minor theft. Not a nice person.

Still, I didn’t consider it much of an issue. Just some weirdo with a little obsession.

I was assigned to clerk with my judge for a lengthy trial out of town for 4 months (4 days away, 3 days home) and figured the situation would resolve in my absence. During this period, I was assigned to one case and one case only, so none of my time was spent in my regular courtroom.

Trial concluded and I was back in my regular routine. And the guy was back cruising to observe my movements. I started to get a little concerned at how dedicated he was to keeping track of me, but what could I do? He was just watching.

One night at home after dark, I was on the phone talking to my Dad and I heard the unmistakable sound of stacked wood clatter to the ground. I had firewood stacked underneath a high window in my bedroom, and the sound had come from there. I immediately called the local Sheriff’s substation and they sent a prowl car. I knew the deputies. They walked around the house, found footprints and a ton of spent cigarette butts below a particular bathroom window. Someone had been spending a lot of time there.

I was officially hinked out. Next day, I told my judge about the new developments. He responded, “Is that still going on?” Yep. He got the particulars from me about who the person was, picked up the phone and called a trusted investigator in his former office. His instructions were curt: “Make this go away.”

And it did.

I never found out exactly how the situation was resolved, but I was sure happy it was over. I found it very disturbing, but I was lucky. I had resources that many don’t.

32

Wow. Too bad he didn’t injure himself when the firewood tumbled.

33

You can say that again.

Added: that is SUPER creepy.

34

No. Not at all.

Think ugly, pot bellied Clark Kent with a weird floppy bottom lip.

35

I do :wink:.

Some people cannot help outing themselves, I guess.

36

Yeah, a broken leg would have been nice, though they couldn’t have charged him with much more than trespassing and peeping.

Anyway, it was all resolved, even if I will never know what got it started in the first place or what caused it to end.

37

That is so scary!

How many times he must’ve been crouching by that window smoking, with evil on his mind. Makes me furious to think about. Revenge fantasies running amok. Because I’ve experienced shit like that, getting followed home with the perp entering my property, getting chased off and then spotting his rig, white truck with dual rear tires and a rack of lights on top prowling the neighborhood. Stopping on the alley shining his light in my backyard then coasting silently and stopping in front of the house tje pulling away. Weeks of this shit. God I would’ve killed him with my bare hands.

Deep breaths.

38

I am so sorry this happened to you. The sense of personal invasion is hard to describe, and it’s hard to get meaningful help in such a situation. So long as they don’t do anything overt, there’s little law enforcement can do.

I feel stupid for not having noticed signs of a stranger around my home sooner. I never imagined he would follow me home and carry on with his voyeuristic activities there. My only defense is it was an extremely busy time in my life and I was struggling just to keep up. The window where this person smoked all their cigarettes was in a hidden part of my property and I had no cause to spend time there to notice all the butts.

At least you were aware enough to observe this person was stalking you at home! I’m glad it stopped.

39

I had a stalker, of sorts, for several years, while playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs).

About eight years ago now, I was a frequently player of one particular MMO, and was involved in a group in the game which was more role-playing oriented (i.e., we would hold events where we would interact with each other in-character, which is something that many MMO players don’t do, or aren’t interested in).

Anyway, I met this particular player, and their character, through that group. That player very quickly became obsessed with my character: they would keep trying to interact with my character, and it became clear to me that the player was not only obsessive, but had difficulty separating in-game things from real-life things.

Seeing all sorts of red flags there, I cut off ties with that player, and used the in-game tools to block their communications with me. I wasn’t the only one who did so; that player got themselves ejected from several other in-game groups due to their obsessive and creepy behavior.

This led to the obsessive player repeatedly creating new characters (under new accounts), and seeking out me, and other players/characters with whom they were obsessed (including a friend of mine), posing as a new/different player – but they had enough “tells” in their behavior that it was pretty easy to tell that it was the same person, using what we here would call “sock” accounts.

Eventually, I stopped playing that game, and along with several of my friends (including a friend whom the stalker had been interested in), we moved to a different MMO. The stalker followed us to the different game, but rather than trying to “innocently” interact with us, they were far more clearly engaging in stalking and harassing. Again, we could block the stalker’s interactions with us from a particular character, but that didn’t keep the stalker from creating one new character after another to continue the harassment.

At about that time, my friend became very ill; the stalker found out about my friend’s illness through an online gaming-oriented message board that a group of used to communicate with one another (again, by stalking our accounts there). They would regularly harass, in game, both my friend, and my friend’s real-life romantic partner (who also played the game). The harassment of the partner was especially cruel (e.g., “I hope she dies a painful death.”).

My friend did, in fact, pass away, which just redoubled the stalker’s harassment of the partner, to the point where the partner had to quit the game to get away from the abuse.

That was about five years ago. In the time since, the stalker has repeatedly vanished for months, even a year or two, before re-appearing and sending me in-game “tells.” The last time I saw them was probably two years ago; from what I could piece together, the stalker had somehow hacked my late friend’s game account, deleted all of her characters, and then made a new character for themselves using my late friend’s character name, which they used to start messaging me again. I blocked them, and reported them to the game admins; I haven’t seen or heard from the stalker again since then, but it’s always in the back of my mind.

40

Bet you’d love to have been a fly on the wall when he got in trouble.

I had a stalker when I was in high school - a classmate who did this to bully me. I’ve always wondered how he explained some of his behaviors to his parents. I mean, c’mon, if you don’t like someone, you usually don’t go out of your way to spend as much time as possible around them, but that was what he was doing. He got banned from a few places for doing this, BTW which makes me think I wasn’t his only target.