So many things have happened lately. In no particular order:
I returned to my university city to attend a wedding of a good friend lately. I am in a very serious relationship with a man I adore, but he did not accompany to this wedding. I often spoke about my boyfriend during the wedding and reception. Still, I had a creep who KNEW about him constantly hanging around me, wanting to taking photos with just me, wanting to dance with just me etc. I mean, as soon as I was away from him, catching up with other people, he would appear and try to monopolize my time. I didn’t get a moment of peace, but I remained polite. However, my politeness ended when he tried to con me into taking him into my hotel room!
If this guy had actually stopped and tried to get to know me for 10 minutes, he would have learned that I went to university and lived for 7 years in this city in which he was born and lived his entire 26 or so years. And if he had known that, he would have known how stupid and transparent his lie of “To be honest, I’ll be sleeping on the street unless I can stay in your hotel room with you” sounded to me before he had even said it. The city in question is TINY. wherever he lived would not have been more than a 10-15 taxi drive away but it was probably much closer than that. When he used that line, my face dropped. I stared at him hard for a few seconds, as if studying him, and I gave him a very blunt “no” and walked away.
I found out later that no long before he tried this with me, he asked a long time friend of his to be his girlfriend. It’s really had an affect on her, he apparently thinks he’s messing with her head. Creep with a capital “C”.
Yesterday, I was at work and a man about 15 years my senior came in. We spoke mostly in English but I tried French when he asked if I spoke it. I’m no great shakes at French; I speak enough of it to get by, depending on the conversation, and it’s by no means perfect. Non the less, creep number 2 proceeded to tell me how sexy he found me to be. I immediately felt threatened and sick. He went on to pry as to whether I was married or not. Recently, I’ve taken to wearing an engagement style ring for these exact situations (yes stuff like this happens THAT often) so immediately said “No, engaged!”, hoping this would make him stop. It didn’t make him stop. He asked me my boyfriends name, proceeded to tell me that my boyfriends name “makes him sound like a Muslim? Is he?? Is he mixed race?”. I said “No… he’s not”. It got awkward and he soon left but I realised a little time after that the man himself was probably Muslim and mixed-race and he was trying to gauge if I’m “into that”.
Lastly, off the top of my head, there is the creep who thinks we’re BFFs, He was in at my work a few months ago and I was nice to him because a) I’m a nice person anyway and b) it’s my job. NOW, whenever he’s in the city, he literally comes in to chat (as if I’m not busy, y’know, working) and gaze adoringly at me. Seriously, he will kind of hang off my desk and just stare at me while he’s i love with me and call me things like “babe” and tell me things like “if you ever get bored of your boyfriend, I’ll take you to Ibiza, I love to travel! Maybe we can get married there!”. He actually took off one of his tacky rings and made me try it on to see if it would fit and I could keep it as an engagement ring! And I CANNOT tell him to stop etc. because he’s a regular and I’ll be the one to pay for it if I do! He makes my skin crawl. I have to smile and laugh along while he tells me how I should leave the love of my life for him (he’s so BASIC in addition to being a creep) and I have to make conversation because if I don’t, he won’t say anything; he’s content to just stare at me adoringly in silence. I dread the next time he comes in on a slow day because, without other customers who require my attention, he will literally stay and put me through this for hours.