My Stalking Story | Do Try This at Home: My Stalking Story

Monday, July 27, 2009

My Stalking Story


I keep trying to type in my real stalking story and my problem is this: being stalked takes a very long time and most of it is excruciatingly boring to everyone except the recipient of the stalking.

Basically this acquaintance, a racquetball buddy of my ex husband, called me from out of the blue to say he was separated and getting a divorce. He had moved into my apartment complex.

He really, really had to talk to me.

A LOT.

And the calls started getting more and more frequent and occurred at less and less socially acceptable times of day.


My Stalking Story: http://DoTryThisAtHome.net


You know how when preschool teachers finally get a chance to talk to someone that's not four years old, they occasionally sit around and talk about male body parts? Well, apparently men do that too.

Or at least my ex husband must have. Because the racquetball-ball-buddy-turned-stalker accidentally left a long, detailed message on my answering machine in which he THOUGHT he had hung up and was just discussing my body parts (as reported to him by my ex husband) with whoever was in the room with him. But my answering machine was recording the whole conversation.

So it turns out that according to stalker guy that my boobs make up for a multitude of other sins. I think that was the gist of the conversation. I mean, the whole thing was sort of muffled since he was leaving the message unintentionally. But that's what I got out of it.

I felt extremely exposed during all of this, because my old apartment complex had a public walkway that went right past my bedroom window. So when he called the next time at 3:00 AM, I called my brother and burst into tears.

No matter how much of a hard time my parents and I may give my brother for being impossible to reach by telephone, he has always been there each and every time I've called at three in the morning. So a word to the wise: if you're having trouble reaching your brother, try three am. But do so judiciously because otherwise your sister in law will (rightfully) hate your guts for life.


My brother listens and advises me to call the police. "But what do I tell them?" "Tell them you're a woman at home alone with her child and you're terrified because this guy won't stop calling."

"Oh!!! I'm terrified!" I replied to him incredulously.

Well certainly that explained things.


No wonder I had burst into tears.

My brother assured me that the police certainly would have had weirder calls that night and that if they didn't feel it was worthy of their time, they would tell me so.

The police come and stalker guy calls during their visit. They tell me that if I feel comfortable, I should answer and tell him to stop calling. I decide to wait until "morning" (which I considered 5:00 AM to be, although it was still dark) because talking to stalker-guy-who-lived-in-my-apartment-building-and-had-easy-access-to-my-bedroom-window seemed way too scary to do at night.

So he calls and I tell him never to call me again, ever. And my tone of voice was, as my dad would say, "the way you talk to a dog". And then my boyfriend called him and left him a message in the tone of voice that I imagine was, "the way you talk to a guy who's terrifying your girlfriend."

And I thankfully never heard from him again, except my boy was in the same homeroom as his kid last year. And the moral of my story is that you can be all kinds of careful on blogs and Facebook and all OVER the internet and STILL pick up a random stalker from real life. But at least he won't have your email address.

I hate to say that was the SHORT version, but it really was. And it's still too long for me to even post pictures of my newly green living room or funny bumper stickers I saw last week. But that's about as short as I can seem to manage, folks. It was a LOT longer in real life.


My Stalking Story - http://DoTryThisAtHome.net
(Photos from Dollar Photo Club. Which no longer exists actually.)

17 comments:

Arizaphale said...

Woah! Nothing funny to say about THIS!!! This is awful! Thank goodness he gave up when given some strong hints! So glad the Police were constructive and took you seriously too.

Lara Neves said...

OH man. So scary. And definitely terrifying. I hope that it is really over. I've never actually had a stalker, but I had a guy follow me home from work once and it was probably the scariest fifteen minutes of my life.

Jeff said...

Jesus, people are so damn weird. Gah. Years ago, I had this guy, who thought that I was in charge of banning people from an internet bulletin board about basketball, started posting stuff all over the internet about how he was going to come to my house (complete with my address!!!) and kill me and my ex-wife. She wasn't ex at the time, but whatever.

Anyway, turns out he was this nerdy little dude out in Katy and he stopped when he found out I knew where HE lived.

Why guys sometimes turn into stalkers is beyond me. It's such a stupid thing to do.

Jill said...

Arizaphale - Yes, the police were really, really nice about it. A man and a woman came together, which I've been told since is how they do things. And they wrote it up and told me that they would come back out if I called. And it happened that he called while they were there, but I didn't get the sense that they would have taken me any less seriously if he hadn't.

Lara - That is scary! I have a pretty high "creepy-meter" in that most people really don't bother me. But once someone has followed you home...that IS scary!

Jeff - Yeah, people are strange, strange, strange. I'm glad the nerdy little dude didn't get you! I bet even a nerdy little dude from Katy could be really scary given the right set of circumstances.

Disa said...

wow. makes my facebook stalking pale in comparison.

Unknown said...

Moral: Never marry someone who plays racquetball with his buddies.

Seriously that must have been scary. Good that it seems to have been resolved for now.

Christine said...

We shall chalk it up to "He was not himself, and once you and the Guy and the police whapped him one he snapped out of it and will never do that again."

Jill said...

Disa - Yes, I imagine you can only be so thorough when stalking over facebook! :-)

SJ (on the 1st part/moral) - Good God, I am NEVER doing that again, stalker or not!

Christine & SJ (on the 2nd part) & Lara - It's definitely over and done. The thing is, in all likelihood he got my phone number off my boy's classroom list and I imagine there are a kajillion other ways he could have found me if he had wanted to. What can you really do? (I mean, besides call the police & have your man give him a talking to, that is)

A Free Man said...

Some folks seem to become completely unhinged after a breakup and sounds like your crazy ass stalker was one of them. Sorry you had to go thorugh that, sounds like something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Loraine said...

I've only had the kind of stalkers that followed me in cars- that was creepy. I've picked up a sort of stalker- in- law who goes through my online stuff from the last three years with a fine toothed comb and then posts about it under assumed names. Well, she's finally been exposed (that was all the craziness on my blog comments a few days ago) and people have attempted to talk to her- no idea how that's been going. But there are no guarantees she won't start the craziness again. I think she needs help, but I don't think they'll listen to ME.

Unknown said...

MY that is awkward and worrisome Jill. Guess the police were not much help but I guess there is not much they can do until it escalates more? Never mind I don't want to know. I'm just glad it is over and you got out of it in a very simple manner. I do feel for the kid however. You would think his dad (your stalker) would have taken that into account.

Jill said...

A Free Man - Yes, I'm usually willing to give people the benefit of the doubt so I was all, "Well, he's getting divorced so he's probably just kind of been driven over the edge..." The men around me all seemed more prone to just calling him scum though.

Loraine - "Stalker in law"!!!! That would be seriously funny IF I hadn't already seen that this person seems to be giving you an undue amount of grief on your blog. I hope that things smooth out with that. :-(

Ricardo - Luckily even with the kid in my boy's class, there weren't really any issues. I did have to go in ONE time and talk to their teacher, because they were assigned to be partners in a project together. So I went in to make certain that they wouldn't have to spend any time together outside of the classroom. Hopefully it was like A Free Man said - the break up caused him to become unhinged and with any luck with some time & distance he's right as rain.

Maureen said...

Holy crap. I would have been terrified. Good for you, hope this loser leaves you alone from now on.

Jill said...

Maureen - I'm fairly certain I'm in the clear, which is the only reason I was really able to even post about it.

Ms. Q said...

I'm really sorry you had to go through that! The unlikeliest people become stalkers, too. Stalking is really freaky. I'm glad that it ended.

Jill said...

Ms. Q - It was pretty unexpected! All done now though. :-)

Janet said...

Yikes, that is creepy. Glad it got taken care of!

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