Seriously, I don't think he's a stalker.

[tdn]

@msmith537

It is entirely possible that this guy just gave off “the vibe”.

That’s about the only explanation that makes sense.

I find it a little strange that we got such a detailed transcript of the conversation in the OP. Since we’re hearing this 3rd-hand, I wonder what the original conversation actually was.

[lobotomyboy63]

@overlyverbose

Larry: “Hey, I noticed you and your husband recently joined the gym. There’s a trivia night coming up soon at my church. My girlfriend Cathy and I are going and we wondered if you were interested in coming, too? We’re new to the area, so we’re trying to find some other couples to hang out with.”

@overlyverbose

I agree that it’s weird that my friend won’t talk to her husband about it. I asked her why and she said that her husband once found out that she’d reconnected with an ex on IM just as friends and became really insecure, asking her if she was cheating. The ex had apparently found her and she’d responded civilly (and plationically) and her husband happened to log on to her computer and found the window open and read through the IM record.

<snip>

He travels most of the time for his job while she works a standard 9-to-5. Perhaps all the travel, combined with her feelings for him, is making him paranoid or maybe he has a reason to be paranoid that I’m not aware of. Either way, his reaction to her IM’ing an ex really discouraged her from ever talking to him about interactions with other guys.

I can’t reconcile this. If he’s a jealous guy who’s away on business so much, why would he suggest that Larry go talk to his wife—wouldn’t that just be asking for “trouble” in his mind?

Did she ever confirm that Larry did in fact talk to her husband? If she so much as whispered to her husband that another guy was bothering her, wouldn’t a jealous guy say or do something about it, pronto?

I could believe that there may be hell to pay at home, even if she didn’t do a single thing wrong. I could also believe that being cold was an attempt to drive Larry away and remove all suspicion. She would think, ‘Poor slob, Larry’s probably a nice guy and he probably didn’t mean anything but I know my husband’s tirades, so for peace under my own roof I have to be nasty.’ But the fact that she still thinks he’s stalking her doesn’t fit that scenario at all.

msmith537 wrote:

*What I suspect is that while the OP is sumarizing the conversation, ‘Larry’ may have been talking her ear off for 10 minutes and not taking the subtle and non-subtle clues that she was not interested. That usually triggers red flags in people.
*

and yeah, that’s true. But when overlyverbose said it didn’t seem like stalking, the woman didn’t backtrack and give more of the buildup, like his eyes wandered and she thought, ‘Hey my eyes are up here’ or whatever. So that doesn’t make much sense to me either.

[tdn]

@lobotomyboy63

Did she ever confirm that Larry did in fact talk to her husband?

As far as we know, no. She won’t talk to her husband about it.

[bup]

I find myself agreeing with the people who suspect her husband is the real threat. OverlyVerbose barely knows him, and him being cra-zay possessive explains everything. Including the fact that he sent the guy over to his wife - as a test.

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

@overlyverbose

@muldoonthief

Did Larry actually talk to her husband first, and did husband actually tell Larry to ask her about trivia night, as Larry claims?

If it’s true that he keeps saying “Hi” after she asked him not to, he’s probably kind of thick, but I don’t see him as a stalker.

Yeah. Apparently Larry gave the husband his card during their conversation, then came over and talked to my friend. The husband was initially interested in going out with Larry & his girlfriend, but had to go out of town on business that weekend. My friend refuses to talk to her husband about why she feels uncomfortable around him. She says her husband (who I’ve talked to maybe once or twice) is very possessive. So maybe that’s the issue.

FTR, it seems that she did talk to her husband about Larry, just not the fact that she’s uncomfortable with him or why.

[Lust4Life]

I’ll give my best shot.

Either he’s actually done something that she’s not prepared to talkabout and just wants him to stay away,which is a fair one.

Or she’s a fantasist who would LIKE to be a femme fatale,the subject of an obsessed lover.
Try to find out from her in confidence the truth,however embarrassing.

If she keeps coming up with “Oh He looked at me like…Blah ,Blah ,Blah…”
Then tell her to grow up and warn her that she might be the subject of litigation in the near future.
But if its not a case of that then encourage her to contact the police and report the scumbag,and if she won’t do it yourself.

Never mind that she might feel a bit embarrassed about what happened to her,however innoccuous.
You must think that if you don’t tell the world about predatory perverts,then they will carry on doing what they’re doing to other innocent women.

[drpepper]

Here’s my take, FWIW:

1. “Larry” is basically friendly, but falls into the annoying-religious-proselytizer category. The fact that he gave husband his card (at the gym), and then invited the couple to a church function strikes me as tries-too-hard, moves-too-fast, proselytizer. I don’t know how else to put it. Just seems too forward; to invite another couple, not just to some generic function, but to an actual specific church, which is very shaky ground for virtual strangers to tread on, is somewhat outside the bell curve of what I consider normal, strike-up-a-friendship behavior, at least in the circles I run in.

2. Because Larry is of religious-proselytizer variety as described above, he is in a completely different social circle and “common sense” circle and personality than verbose’s friend. There’s no way the friendship would ever work, they are in completely different leagues and incompatible in every possible overt way. Verbose’s friend immediately senses this from the few immediate cues she has, and rebuffs him just to put an end to things once and for all.

3. Both the stalker accusations and all the conflicting reports about the husband are petty control mechanisms she uses to paint herself as a victim and carefully control others’ views of her. I’m not getting that the husband is the culprit here at all (although of course, all of this is wild speculation based on the very limited information we have here). The messages she sends about the marriage are both conflicting [husband sent Larry to talk to her vs. husband is possessive] and paint her as a victim [she was pressured into getting married]. I’ll stop with my description here, she just doesn’t come off as a very level-headed or pleasant person to me.

[shrug] - But I could be wrong.