stalking

Kathy

At age 14, I rode public transportation to and from school. My trip required a transfer to the bus to my home. There was a serial masturbator who would stalk me and get on my bus home. I was terrified first that this man knew my bus and would wait until I boarded and second that he knew my stop blocks from my home. This went on for over 2 years. No one stopped this man. No one even acknowledged that he was clearly masturbating in public, he kept his pants on, wore dark glasses and carried a cane. Not other passengers or the bus driver. I did everything I could to avoid this man. I would get off at the last minute to catch the next bus, I would take a different bus altogether once I knew he was on my bus, I would board several stops away. I was too young to understand it was illegal (I think). I didn’t want to tell my parents for fear I would lose my freedom to use public transportation. I thought it was my lot in life to simply deal with it. I thought it must be my fault for the way I looked. I was punished for arriving home late after school. Finally I told my boyfriend who told my parents. I think my parents reported it to the police. Even after being reported to the authorities, he would occasionally find my bus.I felt helpless and eventually left home. As an adult woman, it still freaks me out when my husband or boyfriend masturbates. I never was able to explain to my “intimate” partner why. Even when I was accused of being a prude or inhibited or whatever other BS they came up with to justify masturbating in front of me. Thank you for giving me space to tell why.

Sydney

For the past several weeks, my workplace has been subjected to a coordinated attack by some random guy with too much time on his hands. I work at a junior college tutoring center and we have been taking Zoom appointments for the past year due to the Pandemic. The link for the Zoom session is public on the website for accessibility. Apparently, some guy online found the link and is now harassing all of us. It started out small with him just coming into the waiting room maybe once or twice a day and leaving soon after. Then it escalated to him repeatedly trying everyday, using different names to try and get into our session. He even impersonated someone who’d graduated a few years before to come into the session. This is bad enough on its own, but the sexism comes in when he got so far as in a Breakout room with me (a private meeting so I could help him) and exposed himself on camera to me. It was very clear that he waited specifically for a woman to be there to do it, and I believe he tries his worse tactics when he believes it’s only women in the session with him. We can’t take down the link so we are just stuck with this nearly constant bombardment until the higher ups “Figure something out.” We can’t not admit him into the Zoom session because we need to be able to let students in who actually need help. It makes me so fucking angry to be powerless in this situation, especially being the one he’s perpetrated the most against. I don’t know who he is, but I hate him. It’s so clear to me that he thinks this is funny, figuring out more and more clever ways to get into our sessions and ruin our days. Just the audacity and sheer amount of time he clearly has to do all of this. Hate isn’t really even a good word for how I feel about him. He clearly represents so many things that are horrible about society’s ignorance of men’s hatred of women. He is *attacking* us virtually and nothing is being done. I wish something very terrible will happen to him. I don’t like working with any of the students on Zoom anymore and I can’t wait for the end of the semester when I leave this job for one where I hopefully never have to work with the public again.

Anonymous

One time this boy stalked me at a scout camp,he would try holding my hand and sitting next to me,and straight up told me that he loved me. He continued to call me his ‘girlfriend’ and was always trying to follow me around. Then,one night we saw a flashlight outside the girl’s cabins,we figured it was him saying goodnight to his younger sister,but the the next thing I hear is my friend screaming “OH MY GOD IT’S (name)!” turns out he was looking in the windows trying to find me. It scared me half to death and I couldn’t even sleep.

Abbey

I was in my car and it stalled on a roundabout, and another car caught up. The driver, a man then followed me around town for ages. I tried to lose him and I was terrified, I couldn’t stop and phone the police because I was driving. I couldn’t just drive home because then he would know where I lived. Plus I live in the country, there are no police stations to drive to either. I went into an open car park with him following, saw there were people around, stopped the car, blocked him in and challenged him. He got very aggressive and told me he was calling the police….on me…FFS. I told him he was stalking me, took his number, and drove off. Apparently I had made him do it. You know what makes it worse? His wife was in the car hurling abuse at me as well. I called the police, but they couldn’t be bothered. I missed my train to London, I missed my meeting, I shook all day (I have PTSD) and I was pretty useless at work for the rest of the week. It also had an effect on where I drove. He wouldn’t have done it to a bloke. But because I was a woman, I was easy pickings, even in a car. I am glad I challenged him though, he needed to know, maybe he will think twice when he gets the urge to something like that again. But it was difficult. I wouldn’t have done if it had been night, or a lonely place. Also, I drive a lot, I think that there is much more aggression directed at female drivers on the roads. I don’t remember it being like this when I first started driving in the 80’s and 90’s.

April

I recently got married. It was an amazing day full of love. But here was our checklist: food, flowers, beer, officiant, family, friends, police officer. The police officer was there to ensure my long ex-boyfriend stalker didn’t show up. Given that he was still stalking me after years, upped his game since our engagement, keeps an arsenal under his bed, and is hella creepy, we felt it necessary. I still can’t believe how ridiculous it is we had to have a police officer at our wedding. I had no options in my state for a restraining order because I hadn’t been in an “intimate relationship” with my stalker for years. That long elapsed time was too long for the state to give me a restraining order but sure wasn’t long enough for him to stop stalking me. I did everything I could do to get information, get a restraining order, talk to our domestic violence shelter, get the police involved. But the people around me who knew made things so hard by treating me like a child. I found out that to “protect me” friends didn’t tell me about stalker’s escalating talk and crazier behavior until three days before the wedding. (I live in a small town–people knew.) One of his family members called to warn me, but wouldn’t help me by talking to the police. I found out later to “protect me” no less than four people were packing guns at our wedding. His mother contacted me repeatedly (kinda stalker like) to tell me to stop spreading lies about her son. Some thought I had pre-wedding hysterics. By not believing me and treating me like a child, they kept me from the information I needed. They didn’t let me decide how to handle this, which is crazy–I had the most “experience” be stalked by this particular dude. Is this everyday sexism? Yes. Women get stalked every single day–birthdays, Mondays, wedding days. For me it is every day. It is still happening.

larissa

2 weeks ago, my old friend’s oldest daughter (about 29 yrs old) was stalked by the boyfriend she was trying to break up with. For weeks. Police did nothing. Nothing. Finally, when walking her dog in her own nice neighborhood, he surprised her in the street and shot her dead. They make TV shows about ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ and ‘fatal attraction’ but THIS? This stuff is in the news all the time. Oh, and then he trotted off someplace and shot himself, too. We know it’s most dangerous when we leave men. . . .

Roo

Stalked around Sparkbrook for at least half an hour by a man with yellow teeth, beard, tracksuit bottoms. Starts by making kissy noises at me, then follows me silently from the residential roads to the main road. Can see him in shop windows as I go. As I wait to cross Highgate road he stands beside me on the pavement. I turn to him and say, “You alright there?” because I don’t want him to think I’m scared. He follows me to the garage, then back up Ladypool road. I go into Raj’s grocery store and stay for twenty minutes until he is gone.

Just Doing My Job

Part of my financial aid for university allowed me to work at a library on my college campus. I got the job as soon as I enrolled and within five a weeks a young man came up to my desk and informed me that he had seen me there several times and wanted to talk to me. I think, okay not too bad, but now that I knew he was there, I start seeing him stare at me from across the building. He wouldn’t say anything, just stare until he came up to me and then he’d compliment whatever necklace or shirt I had on, but he wouldn’t be looking at my accessories. Then he started to appear outside my gym whenever I’d finished exercising or follow me into restaurants. I told myself it was a small college town, this was bound to happen, even as he started appearing outside my classes, pacing back and forth in the hallways. My coworkers and boss started to notice he would come up to my desk and stand over it, staring down my shirt and mumbling to himself. They started to find things for me to do to stay away from him, but they asked that I report it and I thought he was just a harmless, unusual creepy, individual, perhaps with some sort of social disability or anxiety. The stress was piling up, I started taking self defense lessons, but seeing him everywhere staring and following me was eating away at my mental health. I started having nightmares, didn’t want to leave my room and was physically ill. The day I finally reported him he followed me back to my building in nearly a full tilt run, thankfully I had a friend with me who called the police, but the police told me there was nothing they could do other than if I called them when he was ogling me at work, they could tell him to stop staring. It was only after I called my father in tears, who when he called the police only then did they agree to make an incident report of him following me home. My boss and I filed the paperwork for a no contact order the next day, but it only keeps him twenty feet away from me, and he can still stare at me from across the room at work so long as he initiates no contact when I’m just trying to do my job. I keep up with my martial arts and I keep working, but I can’t wait to graduate and get away from him.

Kitty

I think I’ve just found out what people on here mean when they say that youngsters will think that stalking is about love because of Twilight (not that I’m familiar with Twilight, as I’ve already said- you could fit what I know about it on a pinhead). I Googled ‘love letters’ just now, & did an image search, & one image that came up was this: “Dearest Bella I love you…in that peeking through your window, watching you sleep, keeping your lemonade bottle cap, sneaking into your bedroom, creepy stalker sort of way. Love Edward.” http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BptDyjtbTSk/UDz-9Or_GzI/AAAAAAAAlDM/woxD6RLKPXA/s1600/Edward__s_Creepy_Love_Letter_by_JackandJoeFan.jpg I deduced that that was to do with Twilight, as I know that the main male character is called Edward Cullen. Being a ‘creepy stalker’ is not a sign of love, & it’s certainly not a compliment, as some people seem to think! I didn’t like that ‘love’ letter that much! On the subject of stalking, my mother is of the opinion that The Police’s Every Breath You Take is a stalker’s anthem, & a couple of other people she voiced this opinion to- one male & one female- agree with her. One person- a woman, I’m sorry to say- disagrees, however, & thinks the song is romantic, or words to that effect. Um, no. My mother particularly loathes the line “you belong to me” that features in said song on the grounds that no one ‘belongs’ to anyone else. If anyone’s not familiar with the lyrics, here they are: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sting/everybreathyoutake.html

hilary

There’s a particular sort of harrassment that’s usually so low level that I literally forget about it – until the next time, or until it gets just a little more intense. I’m going call them ‘Hoverers’ – men who hang around just a little too close when I’m on my own in public. They say nothing, don’t touch but you know they’re keeping an eye on you. This morning for example I went to the beach early while it was quiet, put my bag down then went for a swim. as soon as I’m in the water a guy appeared, European-looking in his 60s, wearing Speedos – he put his towel down about 20 metres from mine. He started patrolling from his towel to just beyond mine (the beach is a mile long) back and forth the entire time I was in the water. His route got progeressively shorter until he was walking about 2 metres around my stuff, then he just stopped by my stuff. I got out of the water, picked up my stuff and walked to the other end of the beach – where a different man started a similar (less aggressive surveillance). To a lesser degree I can expect some sort ‘Hovering’ behaviour whenever I go to a quiet beach or park on my own. I know from past experience that these men are seeking contact so a direct challenge just gives them permission to engage in conversation. If I acknowledge this behaviour openly I get angry, the man gets some gratification and I end up thinking about it a lot, so I refuse to even let the guy catch my eye. I am so used to this (I’m in my fifties and started noticing this behaviour when I was 13) that I can ignore it so well that usually I literally don’t notice it. How can you complain about someone standing too close to your stuff while you’re swimming on a public beach?