Did You See Me Coming?

Stalking

Many people confuse stalking with stalking-like behavior, thinking they are the same thing, but there is a major difference between the two. Stalking is any consistent and intentional pattern of behavior that makes another person feel anxious, afraid, or concerned about their safety. Stalking-like behavior involves the same patterns of behavior but on a much lower level so it doesn't cause a sense of fear. A shocking 72% of men and women in the United States engage in various stalking-like behaviors following a breakup but stop these behaviors after a short period of time, which suggests that this kind of behavior has become normalized for straight dating relationships in our culture (Langhinrichsen-Rohling, 2011). That's an amazing statistic. Basically, so many people do it that it is becoming normal. In contrast, less than 10% have stalked someone (Spitzberg and Cupach, 2019). In all but a small number of stalking cases, the stalker is a man, and the behavior is motivated by love, or more accurately, a mistaken belief of love. It's usually the case that the stalker believes he is in love with the person he is stalking, but sometimes the stalker believes the person he is stalking is in love with him. Although some cases involve mental illness, most of the time the stalker is a just normal guy who becomes obsessed with someone who has rejected him, and he can't process the rejection in a healthy way. Ultimately, stalking is a form of bullying. The stalker can't get what he wants from the other person willingly, so he attempts to get it by intimidating them.

I had a stalker once, well actually twice, but it was the same guy, so I guess it was only once.

A friend invited me to a house party he was throwing, well not so much invited me as guilted me into going. "I don't know how many people are going to show up," he told me. "So I really need my good friends to be there, if only for moral support. Besides, I'd definitely do the same for you." Although I knew he would definitely not do the same for me, I gave into his guilt trip and told him I'd go. At one point during this party, I walked past the line for the bathroom and made a stupid joke about how long the line was to the guy who was last in line. I barely even looked at the guy. The joke just sort of fell out of my mouth. That's how I tell all my jokes, without a lot of thought. I didn't even stop walking, just dropped the joke and kept going my way. The party was packed, but it was pretty boring, so I didn't stay long, left a few minutes after the bathroom line. By the time I got home, I had already forgotten about the joke, the line for the bathroom, and the guy at the end of it.

It Begins

A few weeks later, my doorbell rang. I lived on the first floor of a Victorian, and I could see the person ringing my doorbell from my living room. I'd never seen him before. He had some flowers in his hand, and I thought he was trying to deliver them to one of my neighbors who hadn't answered their doorbell. When I opened the gate to accept the flowers for my neighbor, the delivery guy was smiling from ear to ear, in a very I'm-so-happy-to-see-you-again kind of way. He handed me the flowers, and I noticed there was no card, so I asked him, 'Who are these for?"
....."You." He still had that strange smile on his face, and by this point, I'd realized he wasn't a delivery guy.
....."Who are you and why are giving me flowers?"
His impression of the party was way different than mine, and it took a few minutes for me to realize he was referring to the boring party my friend had guilted me into going to a few weeks before. It took many more minutes for me to remember meeting him there. He said I made a joke that was really funny. I found that suspicious. Nobody thinks my jokes are funny. Finally, he mentioned the long line for the bathroom. The light bulb went on above my head. I remembered making the joke, but I had no recollection of what that guy looked like. It could have been him. It could have been anybody. I was struck by a combination of kindness and pity for the guy. He obviously lived a very pathetic life if he would bring flowers to a guy he'd met while standing in line for the bathroom at a house party a few weeks earlier and wasn't deterred by the fact the guy he was bringing flowers to had no idea who he was. I felt sorry for him.
....."Oh sweetie, you really need to find some friends."

He seemed like a sweet enough guy, definitely shy, but very sweet, and not altogether unattractive either. I remember thinking to myself that in his own sort of way, he was a rather striking guy. In another time and space, I might have jumped his bones right there and then, but he was already bringing me flowers. I didn't want to make the situation any more awkward than it already was. I asked him how he'd gotten my address, and he told me our mutual friend who had thrown the party told him where I lived. In reality, he hadn't given the guy my address but did tell him I lived in a Victorian on the first block of Haight Street. There was only one Victorian on that block, so it was easy enough for him to find me. The guy was so sweet, I wasn't even upset about it. He was obviously not a weirdo and just needed to learn how to meet people. I figured I could help him.

We chatted for a bit, then I told him I had to go. He asked if he could see me again. I don't remember exactly how I answered him, but whatever I said meant something totally different to him than it did to me. I didn't expect to see him again, so I was surprised when he showed up on my doorstep again a few days later. Again, he seemed like a sweet enough guy, so I was kind to him. There was absolutely nothing about him that was threatening, even when he started showing up on my doorstep on a regular basis. My friend Preston kept telling me, "No, no, no! This guy is crazy! And by being nice to him, you are leading him on." Preston and I often disagreed about the intentions of other people, both male and female, so it was easy for me to shrug off his assertions. It continued on like this for quite a while. I got good at not answering my door when he stopped by, so we didn't actually interact very often. He was a persistent fuck, though, and just kept stopping by hoping to see me again. Sometimes, he'd get lucky by being there as I was leaving my apartment, and sometimes I'd let him in to make sure he knew he had to stop coming by. Before I knew it, nine months had gone by and he still showed no signs of letting up, so one day, I was very direct with him, telling him that I wasn't interested in him, that he had to stop coming by or I'd call the police, that he had to get on with his life and find someone who was as interested in him as he was in them. I said all this as kindly as possible and was quite proud of myself for letting him down so as easy as I had.

That's when everything changed.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

He stopped showing up on my doorstep and started showing up at my work, or the train to work, or on the walk between the BART stop and my apartment. At the time, I worked at the airport inside main security, so he couldn't get to the area where I was, so he'd stop at the ticket counter and cause a huge scene, demanding to speak to me until the airport police escorted him off premises. A few nights later, he'd cause the same scene and the same ordeal would play out again. A few days after that, I'd notice him on my BART train home, not in the cab I was in but in the next one, positioned so he could see what I was doing the entire way home. Some nights, he'd wait for me along the path I walked home from the BART stop. There were two stops that were convenient to where I lived, and the walk home from each of them was very predictable, so he had a 50/50 shot to guess which stop I'd get off the train at. When he'd stalk me on BART or the walk home from BART, he just stalked me. He didn't try to talk to me, didn't attempt to interact with me at all...at first. After a few months, his behavior got more aggressive. I'd see him hiding behind a bush or around the corner of a building and knew he'd jump out at me as soon as I got close enough. This didn't scare me. When he started pulling out a pocket knife after jumping out at me, that scared me. He'd chase me until I pulled out my cell phone and called 9-1-1. This went on and on for a few months. I tried to get a restraining order, the guy was obviously a threat to my physical safety, but there was never a witness, and it was always my word against his. Besides, he'd always get as far away as he could when the police were called.

This continued for another several months. He kept showing up at work causing a scene, trying to get me in trouble, and that he did, with my employer, with the airport police, with my coworkers who had to deal with this guy. I was told by my boss that I had to solve the problem or I'd lose my job. That wasn't even the worst of it. Running down the street, scared out of my mind, feeling like I was about to die, that this guy was about to kill me, that was the worst. I still couldn't get a judge to grant me a restraining order, no matter how many times he chased me down the street with a knife because nobody ever witnessed it. Then one night he made a mistake. I saw him a half second before he popped out from behind the bush, and I was already turned around running by the time he started chasing me. A guy was leaving his building as I was running by, and I ran through the doors, right into the lobby of the building. "Close the door! Close the door!" As the door closed, my stalker turned the corner, not realizing I'd found safety, not realizing I'd found a witness. It was unmistakable. The pocket knife was still in his right hand, blade out, ready.

The guy was willing to testify, and I was able to get a restraining order. Two years. He didn't even show up to court to defend himself.

Around and Around and Back Again

The next two years came and went so fast I didn't realize the restraining order ended until a couple of months later. I had already almost completely forgotten about him, and as time wore on, he moved further and further from my thoughts. Everything in my life changed. I had moved out of San Francisco to a suburb located an hour away and was renting a room from a friend and her family, husband, two kids, and dog. I had left the airline I'd worked at for more than twenty years and gotten a job at UC Berkeley, a job that required that I work at all hours. I also had a boyfriend, who I'd been dating for a year. Life was really good for me, at least it was until he abruptly reentered my life.

Out of nowhere one afternoon, the doorbell rang. My friend was there alone with her two kids. When she opened the door, he asked for me. She instantly knew who he was. None of my friends had ever visited me there except for my boyfriend, and if they did, she knew they'd be smart enough to know whether or not I was home. She also knew all about the guy. I had told her the whole story, every detail. So, yeah, she instantly knew who he was. So she knew she had a psycho at her door with nobody there to protect her and the kids. Much to her surprise, he was well mannered and polite. She said he turned and left when she told him I wasn't there. Yet her heart was pounding in her ears, and it didn't slow down until her husband got home an hour later. How the hell had he tracked me down way the fuck out there? I left that night, taking only what I needed for a few days at first, then came back over the weekend to get the rest of my stuff. There was no way I would ever want to subject her to that weirdo. She was terrified and still shaking when she told me what happened, and that was with him being very polite.

My boyfriend was house-sitting for a friend who had gone to visit his family for at least six months, and I basically moved in with him there until I could figure out what to do. I knew he'd find me there. I didn't know how he'd found me at my friend's place, but I knew he'd find me where I had moved to...and he did. A month later, I saw him in the new neighborhood when I was walking home from the BART station. He was across the street from me, and when I saw him, he held my gaze for what seemed like a year. I stared at him feeling absolutely terrified inside, and he stared back in a cocky, contemptuous way, unafraid and ready to start chasing me down the street with a pocket knife as soon as I started to run from him. He obviously saw me as the same pathetic creature he'd harassed all those year ago. He was wrong, though, because there was one major difference this time. I had a boyfriend who was willing, able, and ready to protect me.

The Culmination

A week after the first sighting just as I got home from work, there was a second and final sighting. My friend's buzzer didn't work, so I called my boyfriend from my cell phone when I got there so he could come down and let me in. Just as we hung up, the stalker stepped out from behind a tree. I froze. He was only about twenty feet away. He walked toward me, obviously intent on some sort of interaction. "Leave me alone!" I screamed at him. He was right next to me in a few seconds, I couldn't hear what he was saying. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears. Just as my boyfriend stepped out of the elevator and saw him, a friend of his who was coming by to visit also saw him from a few feet away. They both realized who he was, and from two different directions, they pounced on him. My boyfriend flung the gate of the building open so quickly, it almost knocked me off my feet. By the time I turned around, they had already dragged him off the sidewalk and into the street, both on top of him pounding fist after fist. "This is all wrong!" is what I thought. I had to get them off of him, but neither would listen to me. Then, a guardian angel sent from Heaven swooped down and saved us all.

My friend did not live in the best neighborhood, and there were so many unusual people living in his building that I couldn't quite feel comfortable until I was safely inside his apartment. There was a couple who lived on the floor above us that I'd seen in the elevator a few times. Neither of them ever said a word to me, and it was obvious to me that she was a battered wife. He always looked at me with contempt, and she never looked at me at all. As I tried to pull by boyfriend away from the stalker, I felt a strong, cold hand on the scruff on my neck. Even in all of the chaos that was happening around me, the touch of that hand was so demanding, I couldn't ignore it. It was the battered wife from the sixth floor. She was no taller than five feet while I am at least a foot taller than her, yet she had such a strong grip on the scruff of my neck that I couldn't stop her from pulling me away from what was happening. She was dragging me toward the building where we both lived. He husband was doing the same to my boyfriend and his friend, having just scooped them both up at the same time with hardly an effort at all. They pushed us into the building, and she looked us all straight in the eyes, "Go to your apartment and stay there until I get there. Do not leave your apartment no matter how long it takes for me to get there." We did what she told us to do and waited and waited and waited... We bitched about her being bossy, complained to each other about her taking so long to tell us what was going on, remarked to one another about how rude she had been, but not one of us dared to disobey her. An hour or so later, we heard a knock at the door. It was so soft, we almost didn't hear it.

Works Cited

Heru, A. M. (2008). "Intimate Partner Violence: Practical Issues for Psychiatrists" Retrieved from https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/intimate-partner-violence-practical-issues-psychiatrists

Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Jennifer (2011). Gender and Stalking: Current Intersections and Future Directions. Sex Roles, 66(5), 418–426, doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0093-3. S2CID 143722863

Spitzberg, Brian H.; Cupach, William R. (2019). The state of the art of stalking. Journal of Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12(1), 64–86, doi:10.1016/j.avb.2006.05.001. ISSN 1359-1789

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