Excuse Me, but Can You Please Stop Stalking Me?!?

I've had four stalkers in my lifetime.  Well, that I know of.  Two in high school (one that carried over into the Facebook era), one at a previous place of employment, and now one (possibly more) in my overly "hood" apartment complex.

I have yet to figure out what drew, or draws, these people to me.  Regardless, it creeps me out.  In high school, it was easy to dismiss it as a pubescent crush gone awry and one that would eventually end.  And as far as my very first stalker is concerned, it did.  My second high school stalker did not know me in high school...we had no classes together, and honestly, I never knew who this person was until a friend of mine told me that he was basically obsessed with me.  I kept my distance, graduated, and managed to not run into this person until many years later when I joined Facebook.

Like an idiot, I accepted his "friend" request.  We, of course, were not (and never had been) friends, but let's all admit it now, that's what Facebook is for.  You friend somebody, catch up on them and any gossip you can dig up, have a good laugh at how some people turned out, and then you move on.  I mean, come on, who really has 4,000+ friends?  Really?  So anyway, shortly after accepting his request, the emails started.  Then the instant messaging.  Thankfully, you can delete people and block them...too bad this isn't the case in real life.  To his credit, I have not been bothered by him since.

When I was 19 years old, I worked as a contracted employee for one of the world's largest computer manufacturers.  The building I worked out of was considered huge to me at that time (my first "desk job"), and there were hundreds of employees spanning nine floors that were considered to be my co-workers.  Randomly one day, I received an instant message on the company's internal version of AIM or Yahoo Messenger from a MAN that I did not know and had never met.  Thinking he had messaged the wrong person, I ignored him.  Um, bad decision.  He continually messaged me day after day telling me how beautiful I was, asking me on dates, telling me about his divorce and children, etc.  I was bothered, but not scared.  That is, until the day I walked out to my car and discovered the fish flowers.

At the time, I drove a gunmetal-colored Mustang (hold your jokes about the car please).  Never once had I seen anyone suspicious or unknown to me watch me get into my car.  However, on this particular day when I left work, there was a bouquet of flowers that smelled disgustingly like fish and a Precious Moments card.  I actually shuddered as I read the card and felt vomit creeping up in the back of my throat.  Luckily for me, my mom also worked for this same company and was able to have HR handle the situation.  It never escalated further than the fish bouquet and weird card...I thank God for that.

I thought after the aforementioned situations that I was all done with stalkers.  I'm aging, I've definitely put on some weight, and let's face it...there's really nothing "stalkable" about me.  At least, that's what I thought...

I'm sure that everyone remembers my dog...yes, the vampire.  Well, as I was out walking him along the river that runs through my apartment complex one evening (bad scene from a horror movie flashes through my mind), I was flagged down by a Hispanic man and the couple he was with.  Being neighborly, I waved and said hello.  Baaaaddddd decision.  The Hispanic man chased me and my dog down and decided to interrogate me.  He only found out my dog's name, while I managed to gather the information that he was a native of El Salvador, one of twelve children (many of his siblings apparently also live in this complex), that he works for a moving company near downtown Atlanta, and oh, that he's in love with me.  That's right, he's in love with me.  WTF?

I went a couple of weeks without seeing this man, until one day while I was walking my dog he approached us and told me that he'd been coming outside, "three, four times a day" looking for me.  Um, excuse me?  I told him that this was not normal, and was in fact, rather creepy.  He didn't seem to understand and asked me for my phone number.  I told him no, I had a boyfriend, and that I was most definitely not interested in him.  Not now, not ever.

The next time that I saw him, he was drunk and leaving the pool.  He asked me on a date.  I repeated my lack of interest and asked him to please leave me alone.  He then offered me a Modelo.  I declined.  I thought maybe he had understood because until two days ago, I did not see him for more than a month.

I thought that my luck was finally turning until today, when I was walking my dog.  It was like the twilight zone or something.  Here comes my stalker, a friend of his, and one of his brothers, Jose.  All are extremely drunk.  My stalker starts asking me where I've been and tells me that MY NEIGHBOR has been calling to tell him approximately what time I walk my dog every morning.  Um thanks, I'm glad to see that you've resorted to recruiting my neighbor to assist your stalking me.  Thank God that my stalker told me he's already at work every day when he finds out I'm walking the dog.  And then his friend...rattling off in Spanish about my star tattoo behind my ear.  Tells my stalker he's right, I'm beautiful.  And then more about the star tattoo.  And then there's Jose, my stalker's brother.  Jose is huge, but not very tall.  A drunk that you can tell is friendly one minute, but not the next.  When I tell him he doesn't need to drink anymore beer (talk about some stank breath), he pulls out a bottle of tequila and offers it to me.  He is speaking Spanglish.  Somehow I escape the three after firmly telling them about a thousand times that no, I don't want the tequila, and that my dog really needs to eat dinner.

Seriously, who does that?  A) Pick a language and stick to it when you're speaking to me.  B)  It's creepy enough that you're stalking me, please don't recruit my neighbors to help you...that's just weird.  C)  No, I will NOT get you a green card.  So um, about that...will you please stop stalking me?!

Currently in Hiding,
Freeway Fairington