Hi everyone,

First of all, I'm sorry if I broke any rule(s) of this page. This is my first time posting a post this long on Reddit.

I'm a 27-year-old guy from Turkey, and I want to share something that happened to me in New York City back in 2021. It's an experience that has stayed with me for years, and even today, thinking about it can bring back memories that I'd rather forget.

Let me give you some background first.

After finishing high school in Turkey, I moved to Switzerland to attend university. As part of my education, I was required to complete two internships abroad.

In 2020, I had the opportunity to work as a cook at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for six months. It was an incredible experience, and I really enjoyed my time in the United States.

The following year, in 2021, I got another internship opportunity, this time at a restaurant in New York City.

New York had always been my dream city.

I had wanted to experience living there for as long as I could remember. So when I got the opportunity, I was extremely excited.

I moved there completely alone. I didn't know anyone, and I barely knew anything about the city, but I didn't care. I was young, excited, and ready for a new adventure.

Unfortunately, that excitement didn't last very long.

About a month after arriving in New York, something happened that completely changed my life.

One night, after finishing my shift at the restaurant, I was walking outside when a car suddenly pulled up next to me.

Two masked men got out of the car and tried to force me inside.

They were trying to kidnap me.

Now, there's something important you should know about me.

Before that night, I had never been in a physical fight in my entire life. I had never thrown a punch, never been punched, and had absolutely no idea how to fight or defend myself.

I wasn't someone who had any experience dealing with physical violence.

But in that moment, something happened to my body that I had never experienced before.

I felt an enormous rush of adrenaline.

I honestly can't explain exactly how I managed to do it, but somehow, I broke free from those two men and started running.

And they started chasing me.

They chased me for approximately 50 meters.

I just kept running, trying to get as far away from them as possible.

Eventually, they realized they weren't going to catch me and gave up.

When I finally realized they had stopped chasing me, something strange happened.

I started wondering whether I had been stabbed without realizing it.

I was so full of adrenaline that I genuinely thought, "What if one of them stabbed me, but I just can't feel the pain right now?"

So I started touching different parts of my body, checking my hands to see if there was any blood.

I was desperately trying to figure out whether I had been injured without noticing.

Thankfully, I had managed to escape.

But the nightmare wasn't over.

After the incident, I went to the police to report what had happened.

I thought that after almost being kidnapped, the police would take the situation seriously and help me.

Unfortunately, that wasn't my experience.

I felt that I was treated in a discriminatory and racist way because I was Turkish.

Instead of helping me, the officers told me that they couldn't assist me there.

They said that I needed to go back to the exact location where the attempted kidnapping had happened, call 911, wait for the responding police officers to arrive, and ask them for help.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

I had just escaped from two masked men who had tried to force me into a car, and now I was being told to return to the place where it had happened.

I was completely shocked.

I was alone in a foreign country, thousands of kilometers away from my family, and I didn't know what to do.

So I called my father in Turkey and explained everything.

My father knew people in influential positions in Turkey, and he immediately started trying to find a way to help me.

Through his connections, he managed to contact the Turkish Consulate in New York.

After that, I was invited to the consulate.

When I went there and explained what had happened, they offered to arrange a private security guard and a private driver for me for the remainder of my internship.

I genuinely appreciated the offer.

But at that point, something inside me had changed.

I had gone to New York because it was my dream city. I wanted to work, learn, explore, and enjoy the experience of living somewhere I had always admired.

Instead, I had almost been kidnapped by two masked strangers.

I no longer felt safe.

And the idea that I might need a private security guard and a driver just to continue my internship made me realize how much the experience had affected me.

So I declined their offer.

About a week after the incident, I made the decision to leave New York and return to Turkey.

I abandoned my internship and went home.

It's difficult to explain how disappointing that was.

I had arrived in New York full of excitement, with so many expectations and dreams.

And just over a month later, I was leaving the country because I was too afraid to stay.

That happened in 2021.

I'm 27 now, and even though several years have passed, I still remember that night.

Sometimes, when I think about what happened, the memories come back so vividly that I feel like I'm experiencing those moments all over again.

The part that still scares me the most is not knowing what those men intended to do to me.

What would have happened if they had managed to get me inside that car?

I don't know.

And I hope I never find out.

I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I managed to escape, especially considering I had absolutely no experience defending myself.

Sometimes I still wonder how I managed to react so quickly.

Maybe it was pure adrenaline. Maybe it was survival instinct.

Whatever it was, I'm grateful that I got away.

I've carried this experience with me for years, and I finally wanted to share it somewhere.

To the two masked men who tried to kidnap me that night in New York City:

Let's not meet again.

I've considered sharing this story before, but I've always been hesitant because of how naive I was at the time. It's been a couple of years, though, so let's go. Hopefully, this fits the rules of Let's Not Meet.

I do want to mention that I am autistic, and at the time, I was a bit gullible. I think this is important to mention because I've read that autistic women experience sexual assault at alarmingly high rates, somewhere around 88–90%. Ugh. I digress. I was not violated this way from this experience, but it's relevant to my behavior.

I was 26 and had just left my husband due to domestic abuse. It's okay, yes, I'm okay, and honestly, I needed a big wake-up call that I couldn't write off or justify. I'm very happy to have survived that day and to be here! It did make me very unfamiliar with the apps and dating scene. I had been with my husband from 20–26.

But this is relevant. I'm wordy, and it's my story.

I hadn't felt safe dating anyone on any app for a long time. At this point, though, I was coming up on nine months single and decided to try Bumble.

I immediately matched with a pretty handsome man, and we seemed to really get along. He kept pushing me to go on a date that same day. I should've known a blond man would only bring me grief! 😂 (No offense) I heavily prefer darker hair.

Now, I mandated three days notice to avoid low effort men hitting me up solely to get in my pants. You've got to plan a date with me in advance. I do NOT do same day anything.

He was really pushy, but I said no.

It was a Saturday morning, and we kept flirting and chatting. Eventually, after the third time he asked, I said yes.

My friends had been encouraging me pretty heavily to be more spontaneous, and I decided a spur of the moment (🤮) midday date might actually be nice.

He asked, "You wanted to meet at a public place, right?"

I had never said this, so I assumed he was confusing me with another woman. But I DID want to meet in a public place, so whatever.

He told me he worked between my state and Colorado and had recently been in an accident in Colorado that left his car in the shop there. He would need a ride from a friend, and he'd also broken his ankle.

Okay...

So he asks me to go on a walk at the lake. The lake paths were highly public and very open and popular. We don't have a ton of trees around, and it's mostly restaurants and a few parks.

I immediately ask about his ankle, and he tells me it's fine and that he doesn't want it to lock up.

This made absolutely no sense to me, but I certainly wasn't being paid to parent an adult, so go off, dude.

We set a time, and I get ready. He tells me he needs to secure a ride.

Okay, sure.

I arrive at the lake, stay in my car, and text him.

No reply.

After 20 minutes, I tell him that if I don't see or hear from him in the next 10 minutes, I'm going home.

He finally texts me and begs me to come to him instead. Apparently, his ankle is hurting more than he thought, and he doesn't think he can walk. He'd taken pain killers.

Now, his profile said he lived in a neighborhood I knew well.

He insisted I could share the address with everyone and that he genuinely just wanted to watch a movie. That's usually code for a hookup but that was flat out not happening with me.

I was NOT going to be assaulted, and I stay strapped.

This next part is hard for me to recount because I sound SUPER dumb. I assure you, I am intelligent, and I never did this shit again. Friends, never go to a strangers house as a first meeting. Do not do it. The risks are just too high.

I sent his address to SEVEN of my friends. Maybe he didn't expect me to actually do that and hoped the option alone would be reassuring enough. I can't know.

And I decided to go.

The address he gave me was much farther out of the way than I anticipated. Eventually, I found myself on dirt roads, and my GPS was taking me toward a crossroads.

A lot of rural addresses are nonspecific like this, though. Sometimes you just have to pull up to a house or trailer.

On the way, I told him he'd have to call me as I got closer because there wasn't a direct address.

He texts me:

"You'll have to share her with me."

I know.

I KNOW.

I ask him what the fuck he's talking about, and he says he means his puppy. Apparently, she's a sweetie who wants all his attention and will be thrilled to meet me. A dog was not in his photos btw.

Obviously, at this point, I'm feeling a bit freaked out.

When I'm about 15 minutes away, I call him.

He doesn't answer.

I do eventually find the house, and I can see a dog in the fenced yard.

I park, but by this point, I've decided I'm remaining fully inside my locked car.

I text him that I'm there and tell him to come outside.

Five minutes pass.

I text him again and tell him that if he doesn't come out, I'm leaving.

Finally, he shuffles outside.

Walking perfectly fine, mind you.

I roll my window down less than an inch. My car is running, and I have my switchblade in hand.

He looks entirely disheveled. Dirty hair, dirty clothes, and not at all ready for a date.

Worst of all, he looks visibly guilty.

He can barely meet my eyes, and I don't even like eye contact.

He tells me we need to run an errand.

There's a black truck in the driveway, and apparently, we just need to pick up something he forgot down the road and come back.

I say absolutely not.

I ask about his car, and he tells me the truck belongs to a buddy.

I tell him I can wait until he comes back, but I'm not going anywhere with him.

Then I ask about his neighborhood.

He tells me this isn't actually his house.

It's his friend's house.

The entire time, he looks so guilty and ashamed that I was very uncomfortable and anxious.

Eventually, he tells me he needs to go inside for a minute because of his foot.

At this point, I start texting all my friends, asking if I should leave Murderville.

Of course, all my friends are like, GET THE HELL OUT.

While I'm texting them, I notice two huge older guys, probably in their 50s, come out from the back of the house.

They get into a golf cart and drive off somewhere for about three minutes before returning.

I'm still texting my friends.

When they come back, both men walk toward my car.

One approaches my window.

And this is the part I will never forget.

The way they looked at me was disgusting.

It was a look that made me feel, deep in my soul, that I was going to be r*ped. That I would probably die if I wasn't extremely careful.

There was so much vile lust in his eyes that I felt a chill in my soul, head to toe.

He approaches my window and, in a commanding, aggressive tone, asks me why I'm not inside.

I decide my best option is to play dumb and pleasant.

I tell him, "He said you guys had an errand to run and you'd be right back!"

He looks at me, and through clenched teeth, in the most demanding, authoritative voice, he says:

"You're supposed to be inside."

He says it slowly.

Forcefully.

I cannot emphasize that enough. Like he assumed this would make me comply.

I essentially repeat the same thing, pretending everything is perfectly normal.

Looking back, I realize that if I'd simply walked up to that door, three men would have been waiting for me in the middle of nowhere.

One for each arm.

And honestly, I think that would've been the best case scenario under the circumstances.

The older man is visibly angry now. He tells me he's going to go inside and talk to him.

And I decide I do not need a second opinion on not dying.

I'm leaving.

I start driving, but I go the wrong way.

That's when I realize someone has blocked off the dirt road to the left of the house, farther down the way.

You couldn't see the blockage from where I'd parked because we were on a hill.

But seeing that road blocked off really solidified my belief that these men intended to hurt me. By blocked off, I do mean that there were stacked cinderblocks blocking that road off. So it felt intentional.

I make the fastest U-turn you've ever seen.

And I HAUL ASS.

As I'm leaving, I look behind me and see all three men come outside, get into the black truck, and start following me.

When I tell you I caught AIR because I decided to say fuck it and go 80 down those dirt roads, I am not kidding.

I genuinely felt, in my soul, that these men would have r*ped and murdered me.

I eventually lost them.

But I didn't go home.

I drove around the city for THREE HOURS.

I don't know. I just couldn't stop driving.

I couldn't handle the idea of them following me home or finding my neighborhood.

At the time, I didn't go to the police because I honestly didn't know if they would care.

No crime had happened that I could prove, and from a previous stalking case, I knew that sometimes they didn't seem to care much unless you'd already been hurt.

I did report him to Bumble, and his profile disappeared. Either they took it down, or he blocked me.

But here's the kicker.

HE TEXTED ME AND TRIED TO RESCHEDULE.

So I guess I appeared more stupid than intended.

Hey, can we reschedule your r*pe?

No thanks, bestie.

Anyway, these days I'm in a loving relationship with a man who is, thankfully, brunette. I'm kidddding. I mean he is. But I am thrilled he isn't a killer more than anything really. And I stay properly strapped.

Stay safe, ladies and gents.

To the three men waiting for me to come inside that night, let's not meet.

It was a Friday evening in 2018 and nothing was abnormal. My best friend at the time, Abby, was at my house spending the night and we were hanging out in my room scrolling through our phones like we usually do. I look at my friends snapchat stories and one of the girls I go to BOCES* (boh-seas) with posted. The girl, Bethany, posted that she was going to perform at my local theatre with her dance class and how none of her friends or family were going to be there. I asked Abby if she wanted to go, she didn’t want to, but I convinced her to go with me. My mom didn’t want to get up out of her bed to drive us and my dad wasn’t home, so we walked. It’s about four blocks away and only a ten minute walk, and it was cold because it was December so we put our jackets on and went out.

We got there and the theatre seemed normal on the first floor, but there were just too many people there, so we went up the stairs to the balcony seats. The smell was not good. It smelt like mold and just, old. The walls were moldy and the wallpaper was falling off. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get cleaned up there. Anyways, Bethany and her dance class do dances to christmas songs and whatever a dance class does, Bethany was pretty good.

When the dances ended we left and started walking home, of course because what else would we do? We walked the way we came and we got to this street we had to cross. It’s a pretty busy street. When we were walking up to the intersection I noticed a car driving slowly to the right of us, but not how a car normally slows at an intersection.. It gave me creepy vibes. The car drives through the intersection, then we cross the street. As we crossed, I noticed the car pull into a driveway, pull out then park on the side of the street that we were walking on, facing us with its lights on. At this point I’ve told Abby my suspicions of the car and she doesn’t believe me then I notice a man get out of the passenger side of the car and walk up the driveway they pulled in to. Fair enough, they could just be picking someone up and we’re looking for the right address.

We walked past the car and I looked up the driveway to see the man that got out of the passenger street talking on the phone in the middle of the driveway. We kept walking and I told Abby what’s going on behind her so she doesn’t look behind her. The man, still on the phone, started walking behind us. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, it sounded like he was on the phone, but he was following us and I could tell. I told Abby my plan to get into my house, which was a half block away, while simultaneously losing him. My house being a half block away was the easiest and safest route run. We are two small girls who couldn’t outrun a grown man, I had to think quick.

My yard is sort of a triangle shape with train tracks behind my house going into the intersection we were at to get to my house. There’s a tree line bordering the yard at the tracks and a large, thick pine tree at the point of my yard. It was a perfect cover to sprint straight to the house and into the side door.

We reach the intersection with the train tracks and the pine tree and I tell Abby, “On the count of three, run behind the pine tree and run along the tree line to run into my side door.” I count to three and start running. Abby doesn’t, I urge her to run with me. She starts running when we reach the intersection, we run around the pine tree and run towards my house. While running I tell Abby to not look back, neither do I. I get to the door first to open it for Abby, she gets in the house and I run in after her. I turn around to close the door and I look out the window and I see the man running across the street we were just running on. I close the door behind me and told my brothers and Abby to turn off all the lights and lock all the doors and windows. My brothers were confused and didn’t do anything. I try to explain what I thought was happening. I run upstairs to grab a piece of wood from an old tv stand I had taken apart before and got ready to attack if the man approached my house. After about thirty seconds of me looking through my front door and side door to see if the man was approaching the house, I decided to tell my mom what happened. She didn’t believe me. I go to Abby, who was in my room and she was fine. I don’t think she believed me either, but she just went along with what I said to make me feel better.

The Monday after this happened, I get into my BOCES class and when my class starts, my teacher asks us what we did over the weekend and I raised my hand and said, “I’m pretty sure I almost got kidnapped.” Of course when someone says this, everyone gets concerned even if you don’t like the person. Knowing my class, they loved drama, so I explained what happened and my teacher, who was a police officer for about eight years said, “He was probably going to ask for directions.” This doesn’t make sense because he had a phone, we weren’t in a dead spot, and if he was asking for directions, he would have had the driver of the car stop beside us and ask us instead of doing what happened or just use his phone.

Years later, no one believes me except for new people I met who seem to have more common sense about the situation than my police officer teacher. Also, that teacher turned out to be a pedophile. This is probably one of the most interesting stories I have and I’m not great at explaining everything, but I hope I did it well and hope you can learn from my mistakes.

*BOCES is Board of Cooperative Educational Services, it’s a school some high schools let their students go to to learn trades like building houses, culinary, cosmetology and security and law enforcement, which is what I took. Taking Security and Law Enforcement taught me the basics of being a police officer, how to properly arrest someone, a few laws we should know, and defensive tactics, ya know, in case we get into a situation like Abby and I experienced.

In very early 2022 I was 19f and getting off work around 2am. I worked at a movie theater and had been waiting for the last movie to get out. I was starving and decided to drive to a local store open 24/7 to grab something easy to make.

I pull into a practically empty parking lot with nobody actually in sight when this white jeep like vehicle pulled into the spot diagonal from me. It immediately caught my attention as this parking lot was very large when quickly it pulled back out and whipped around to the spot right next to my drivers side.

I could see in the passengers seat what I assume was a woman wearing what looked like a thin pink flannel but her hair stood out the most. She was leaned in a way where I couldn’t see her face or skin at all and her hair was platinum blond and pin straight. What I struggle to describe is that it somehow looked natty at the same time. Like a wig that the bottom layers weren’t fully brushed out. Too perfect in some ways but just not right.

Looking back I should have just left then but a panic set in and I hopped out of my car and quickly walked into the store. (This store has many handicap spots so it’s still a distance from the building)

I spent quite awhile walking around the store partially not knowing what I wanted but partially panicking about what just happened. Eventually I picked up some taquitos and a few other things and went to check out. There was only one line available with the clerk, one person ahead of me and one person behind me.

I spent the whole time checking out debating asking them if someone could walk me to my car but not wanting to seem like a paranoid kid I decided that they might not even be there anymore and to just go by myself.

I walked outside when I saw the car was still there. I kinda froze and just stood there for a minute. The car was off and i could no longer see the woman. I started weighing my options. Convincing myself they were probably in the store. I saw a teenage boy pushing carts towards the building (opposite side of the parking lot) and knowing that the person behind me in line would probably be coming out soon, I figured if needed I would be able to scream for help.

Just incase though I walked quickly to my passengers side, unlocked the door, got in the passengers seat and immediately locked the doors again. For a moment I felt better but as I set my stuff down and shimmied into the drivers seat (all of this is happening very quickly) the car next to me turned back on. I looked and could see the woman again in the same leaning position and I hear a door shut. As I’m turning my car on I see a man with a half smoked cigarette come around the back of this car, put his hand on the handle to the “trunk” (it had more of a door like a van then a typical trunk of a car) and he made direct eye contact with me. Seeing I was in my car already he very quickly got back in the car and sped out of the lot.

I still don’t know what their plan was but afterwards I was certain they wanted to do something to me. I pulled out my phone and tried to take a picture but with how dark and fast they were going it’s nothing legible.

From the second I saw that car I had a horrible gut feeling and I have never gone back to that store.

I have a story to tell you that happened to me on Sunday, October 29, 2022.

My father, for the story, will be Daniel Trucmuche, and I, Joan Trucmuche.

I currently live near the Swiss border but reside in France, originally from Grenoble, where my entire family, parents, and sister live. My parents live in their apartment on the outskirts, and my sister lives in Grenoble.

After a pleasant weekend with my girlfriend, visiting our families, we return home. After a 1.5-hour drive, we grab some McDonald's and settle in front of a series.

At that moment, I receive a call from an unknown number (starting with 07) at 9:00 PM. Generally, I don't answer unknown numbers, especially at this hour, due to harassment issues in school that left lasting effects (I'm 26). However, I felt a strange sensation and decided to answer, thinking it might be important.

I answer, and after saying "Hello," someone immediately asks, "Are you the son of Daniel Trucmuche?" I, of course, answer yes. It didn't surprise me at the moment because my father has been a salesman for 35 years in the same company, and my phone number was his 15 years ago. So, I sometimes get calls from very old clients of his. We don't have the same voice, so it didn't surprise me to be asked, "Are you the son of?"

After confirming, the person says directly, "Your father had a car accident." Panic rises in me; I start trembling. My girlfriend is next to me and immediately senses that something is wrong. I was petrified because the tone used by this stranger clearly meant "he is dead." In panic, I ask: where, how, and the crucial question: WHO ARE YOU?

They tell me they are a witness to the accident, and my father was taken to the hospital. I panic and shout, asking where, where did the accident happen, how? The person says the car flipped. Trembling, I explain to my girlfriend, and he says he wants to call his wife. I hang up immediately.

At that moment, I conclude that my mother wasn't with him. For your information, my parents sometimes have significant arguments, and my dad occasionally goes for a drive. My mother has been ill for years and goes to bed at 6:00 PM every day, so I knew I wouldn't reach her, but I try. I call my mother, no answer, and I call my sister, who is more sensitive and has a panic attack, screaming on the phone. I tell her to wake up mom immediately because she's not answering the phone. At the same time, my girlfriend calls her mother to ask her to call hospitals around Grenoble to find out where he is.

Meanwhile, I call the number again for more information, repeating: where did it happen, where? The person avoids the question, and after a few seconds, gives me the road number. I shout at him: WHO KNOWS ROAD NUMBERS? Toward where, which city, which village? He says towards Angers.

And then it clicks; I think: wait, I was with my father at 5:00 PM, I'm home now, it's impossible for him to have traveled from Grenoble to Angers in 4 hours! At the same moment, my girlfriend, with an incredible reflex, hears me say "Angers???" and immediately calls my father on his mobile. My father answers disdainfully: "Yes?" She says, "Daniel, you didn't have an accident," and he laughs and says: absolutely not, I'm on my couch, watching football.

I tell the person on the phone that my father is online. He says: "But you're not Matheo Trucmuche." I reply that I have no Matheo in my family and that I am Joan.

The man apologizes, but in a way that gave me a chilling feeling, as if he had achieved what he wanted, to see me panic.

And I asked him five times how he got my number, and he never answered. He says, "Sorry for scaring you," I hang up, inform my sister, calm her down.

Later, I exchanged messages with him because I didn't understand how he got my number, which is literally nowhere on the Internet. He told me that my number was displayed on the first page of Google in a directory.

I searched the internet thoroughly with my girlfriend that evening, and it's impossible.

And the messages were strange. He mentioned a Laurent even though he clearly said my dad's name, he apologized for his clumsiness, that he managed to contact his wife, that this person is deceased.

After a few days, my sister-in-law, who is a surgeon, told me that it's the firefighters who contact the family, not random people like that, even those involved. Moreover, when there are deaths on the road, there is always a press article, or even an obituary that I never found.

I tried calling the number a week later for answers, and the number was no longer assigned.

Was it a bad joke? Was it someone who wanted to see me panic? How did he get my number? Just writing and remembering this moment gives me chills.

This happened four years ago, when i was 15 and just started high school in a different city. I was living alone in a small apartment. Yes, i know how that sounds, letting a 15 year old live alone in a different city, but it was the apartment of a relative who wasn't using it and they lived less than a 10 minute drive away so i don't think it was a problem.

I enjoyed the comfort of living alone and nothing really happened there, except on some nights. Once or twice every month, usually between 11pm and 12 am, i could hear a women's laughter in the hallway, pretty close to my door. It would last for about 30 seconds. It wasn't a normal laugh, it sounded like the craziest laugh I'd ever heard, one that you would hear in a horror movie. It always sounded the same way.

Every night around that time i would think about that laugh. Will i hear it tonight? Will it sound any different? Even now i think about it sometimes, even if i don't live there anymore.

Of course, the thought of it being something paranormal came to my mind a lot. It was probably just someone pulling a joke tho, i lived on the ground floor so it wouldn't be hard for someone to get inside and for it to sound like it's close to my door, even tho doing it multiple times is weird.

There was also a woman in the apartment complex that other people would call crazy. I don't know why, i talked to her a few times and while she was a bit odd, she wasn't that bad. I did think it might be her but it just sounded too different from her voice and her laugh.

I never tried going outside to see what it was, i never recorded it either and i regret that. The relative that owns the apartment lives there now and they've never mentioned hearing any laughter so i don't think I'll ever find out what it was.

So, to whoever was laughing like that, let's not meet.

Hi there. Anyone know how to deal with this situation?

For context, I moved in 2 months ago, have a bigger dog with distinctive patterns, and live alone. We’re near a university, but it is not my university.

I’m in my early 20s going to university here and I noticed the feeling of being watched while I was unpacking my boxes. A few days later I was working at my desk when I noticed binoculars. He was in a scanning motion of my building - up and down the windows. At first, I wanted to brush this off as maybe he’s sight seeing. We’re in a city. There’s light pollution…. And it’s just buildings around us and from where he is, it’s just my building. The mountain is in my view.

From August 31 - October 15 I have noticed him with his binoculars scanning and I’m sure there have been times I haven’t noticed. Luckily, I don’t change in front of windows or do anything lewd. The most I do is work with my view. In this time, I called the non emergency line and they said to call 911 right when the next time happens.

Come October 16, yesterday. I was laying in bed at 4pm and I felt someone staring the second I laid down. I jolted up and went to my window because I knew who it was. He seemed shocked to be confronted like this and I wrote a message on my phone that read “I’m calling the police creep”.

And then he makes a motion that can only be taken as a homicidal threat. So I start flipping him off and talking shit, I know he can’t hear me. I called the cops and he watched me do it. They came to my apartment about 4 hours later and were very kind. Essentially saying nothing can be done if we do not know who he is.

Im in contact with his building, I don’t care to know who he is but just so the police do.

Do I have grounds to press charges? I would be the second girl in my building to do so in the last month.

EDIT: I can’t sleep. I genuinely feel threatened but I don’t have proof of this threat. I have proof of him peeping.

This is my first ever reddit post but since this is one of my craziest early childhood stories I thought I’d give it a go.

In 2007 When I was 5-6 I started gymnastics as an after school program in my small town in New Zealand. I have an extremely good memory so I remember everything from this time in fine detail, a party trick of mine. In this class there was around 10 girls my age and 2 young boys. There was two female teachers, mid 30s.

It was a normal program up until one day, about 4 months into doing weekly classes that the two young boys stopped joining the class suddenly.

The first class where the two boys were gone the teachers sat us on the floor and had to “have a talk” where they said…” now girls, I know they’ve left and that’s actually really cool! Cause without boys around that means we can do the class naked!” I remember everyone being so young thought this was funny and cool. I on the other hand was shy and taught very well and I refused. The others took everything off and began the class, I on the other hand did not, instead cried thinking I was in trouble. The teacher then came over to me and scolded me for not doing the class naked. I then wasn’t allowed to do half the class if I refused to take off my clothes.

I remember crying the entire time for the innocent fact I thought I was breaking the rules.

When my mum picked me up and asked why I was crying I told her why and within 2 weeks the classes where not longer available. ( I didn’t go back despite the two weeks)

But yea that’s my story!

I worked at Starbucks at this time. We go in at 4am and open for customers at 4:30. I went into work feeling fine but I quickly realised I was developing food poisoning from something I must have ate the night before. My manager could see I was in bad shape and sent me home at around 5:30am. Luckily I actually lived RIGHT behind the Starbucks.

The Starbucks was in a shopping center with a best buy which you could see from my apartment window. Truly all I had to do was pull out of Starbucks, go straight a few feet, then turn left and boom that’s the parking lot for our building. Even though my building was so close the actual apartment complex is huge. It was like over 10 different buildings all on different surrounding streets. And the club house to the apartments was about a mile away. Our building had the fewest units since not to flex but they were more expensive for the area and because the complex was ment for college kids which we had just graduated. Not a lot of people parked there or went through our street that’s relevant.

So as I’m leaving the Starbucks it’s still super dark. I go to pass a white van that’s just chilling in the best buy parking lot. They didn’t have any lights on so it looked like the car was off. But because of the best buy street lights behind the van I saw the silhouette of 3 maybe 4 guys. Right as I approached the van they jolted forward like as if to leave the parking spot. So I had to kinda slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them but that’s fine. I wait for them to keep pulling out but they don’t. They’re just stopped again now.

After waiting for a spell I say ok and go around them. They immediately pull out behind me. Not weird yet. They wait at the exit to the best buy with me and I make a left. They also immediately make a left. Slightly weird. Like I said this is a mostly residential street. Most people would turn right where you get taken to a major road in the area. Then I pull into the very secluded parking lot of my specific building and they do too. VERY WEIRD. I start calling my boyfriend who thankfully wakes up and All I say is “people followed me. I’m outside. Help.” as I swing into my usual parking spot which is right in front of the door to my apartment. The van pulled up behind me blocking my car into the spot. Then the person in the passenger and back seat just barely open their door before my boyfriend walks out of building. They slam their door and drive off fast.

I knew all the advice like to drive to a police station but because I was so few turns from my house I didn’t even get a chance to know for sure they were following me until it was way too late. Me and my boyfriend remembered the logo that was on the van but didn’t catch a plate number or anything we could look up. But I never saw it again. And thankfully I moved as well.

I was watching Two Hot Takes ft. Damien on YouTube tonight and I wanted to share my experience on here, that I have been too scared to really talk about until recently.

This was about 3-4 years ago now when I worked my first job in my small hometown. I was around 18/19 years old at this time and worked at a local grocery store as a cashier roughly 5 miles outside of the town. There were about 3 houses in the near vicinity of the shop, you’d still have to drive for a minute or two before you saw them. So it was pretty dark at nighttime and the only lights in the area were from the parking lot and the shop. I worked night shifts (12-10pm) and closed with only one other person after 7pm who usually was in the back stocking.

This night I was closing and it had to be around 9-10pm, an hour or less before closing. I had just brought in the wood we kept outside during business hours and started the rest of the closing tasks. By the time this customer had walked in I was back behind the registers cleaning. This customer walks in (he was at least 6ft tall if not even a little taller and in his 50s? I’m assuming since he had perfectly white hair with a beard that was very cleanly cut and trimmed short. He had the build of a lumber jack I would say) and I don’t think anything of it, I live in a small town close to lumber mills, logging roads etc, so I used to see this type of person a lot, usually not one with perfectly white hair and beard though and that looked this put together? It’s hard to explain but for his work outfit it was surprisingly really intact/put together and super clean not like the regular customers I was friendly with that came in a lot right after work. He was also wearing a bright red shirt, that in combination with his stark white hair looked very similar to Santa Claus just with shorter hair. He smiled at me as I welcomed him into the store and walked to the back of the store near the drinks. Everything was perfectly fine and the only people in the store besides him were my coworker in the back and me.

He starts walking up to me in the isle right in front of my cash register and I start to get a little freaked out here. He has a weird smile on his face? I know this sounds weird, even I didn’t notice anything wrong with it until he got closer to me, it almost felt fake? Yet he was smiling so intensely that I (at first) thought was a genuine smile. When he got up to the register he only got a drink, I don’t even remember what it was, I only know it wasn’t alcohol. He just kept staring at me, like deep in my eyes smiling. Almost as if he was staring into my soul, it started freaking me out really bad there. It’s like I could sense he had killed someone, he had this really weird negative almost killing energy. I know that sounds crazy but I haven’t ever felt like this with anyone else I’ve met or interacted with in my life, let alone at work and I’ve worked in customer service for the last three years.

He didn’t even say anything until I asked him how his day was and he said a normal reply that didn’t really freak me out saying something about his day wasn’t going according to plan but how he finished, but I will never EVER forget, how he fished by saying “Now my day is going……………splendid.” (The dots are because he stoped talking for like 10-20 seconds I swear to god) I swear when he spoke those last words all the hairs on my body stood up, his voice just wasn’t natural it was so weird I don’t know? Too perfect, but yet too odd in his pausing and also quiet yet confident and firm. I just laughed it off and said I’m glad his day is going well, then I hurried his transaction and I vaguely remember him asking how my day was? To be honest I don’t even remember how I replied, I was so scared of him in that moment.

He was only 2 feet away from me across the counter and with him being at least 6ft or taller and me being 5’3 in combination with him staring at me, smiling creepily and saying things like that, was making my heart race. Even now when I’m typing this I’m getting scared. His transaction was done and I remember saying something along the lines of have a nice day/night since that was my go to and he paused for a moment just staring at me before turning to his side and leaving. When he left I melted into the floor behind the counter and then hauled ass to the back stock of the coolers to get my coworker. He left the parking lot fast and didn’t stay around long but I truly think this was the scariest man I have ever met in my life.

Santa Claus look-a-like Let’s never meet again

I (36f, 18-19 at the time) was working graveyard shift at a fast food restaurant back in 2008-2009. I'm a night owl, so I preferred the overnight, and had a couple of super cool managers and loved my bar crowd rush at 2 am. I had already had to deal with police escorts home for several weeks because of a stalker who ended up getting arrested on robbery charges the fall before the Axe Guy incident, but even then, I never felt super unsafe. I had my police escorts home, and my now husband and our dog waiting for me. I also grew up in rural Idaho and had guns and knew my way around them, so once I was home, my youth made me feel invulnerable and I wasn't scared during the stalking stuff.

My manager that night was a super chill dude in his late 20s that was super fun to work shifts with, I'll call him P. He was a stoner and really laid back, and always made sure my very petite self was safe from rowdy assholes that came to the drive thru when the bars closed. He had worked graves for years and never flinched at anything, and never liked to involve the police in anything as MJ was and still is super criminal in ID, so he avoided calling authorities unless things were dire, which to this point had only been when I had a legit stalker, or the one time one of our coworkers got hit by a truck as we were coming on shift one night.

Late one night in spring of 2009, we had the back door cracked so my manager P could smoke a blunt as he mopped the back. It was after the bar rush. Bars in that area close at 2, and after about 2:45 it was always dead, so we did all the maintenance and cleaning for the restaurant. Taking apart and cleaning the shake machines, steam cleaning the grill hoods, sometimes draining and cleaning the fryers, scrubbing the grill surfaces, whatever. It was almost 4 am, I'm scrubbing the grills when my headset dings that someone has triggered the drive thru sensor. I hit the little button and say, "Welcome to ____, my name is NotKarl, what can I get for you?" No response.

The back door slams shut, and I hear P throw the bolt. Then he hustles over to lock my drive thru window. We only had one window. Then he went and checked all the doors, which were locked since the lobby was closed, and he looked white as a sheet. I'm following him with my eyes, and see some dude on a bike, one of the ones with the fat tires, a white bandana pulled up over the bottom half of his face, wearing a black hoodie and black cargo pants, with a big ass fire axe strapped to his back. He's periodically stopping the bike, pulling a spray paint can out of a lower pocket of his pants, and spray painting crude smiley faces with Xs for eyes in the parking lot and on the sidewalk, and a game of tic tac toe he played with himself. He's riding around and around the restaurant over and over, and at one point, he stops in front of the window and tries to open it. We hear it rattle, and P goes, "Fuck this. I'm calling the cops. Go shut yourself in the freezer, I'll padlock it. Key will be in the bin we use to soak fountain nozzles. Let your man know so if something happens the cops can get you out."

I had never seen this dude scared. Fire Axe Guy was now tapping all the windows and glass doors with the axe. I grab my sweater and go into the freezer. I can't hear anything happening. I'm in there for about 25 minutes scared out of my mind. After waiting the 25 minutes or so, P opens the freezer up and is like, "He's gone. Cops came and searched nearby for him, and someone is staying in the lot tonight.

No one was caught, but several other local businesses had reported the same dude that week, and then it just stopped. No one was hurt. Minor paint vandalism, but no attacks, smashed windows, or places broken into. It was probably just some asshole kid trying to scare people, but it worked. We were scared shitless. I wonder sometimes what he would have done if he had been able to open the drive thru window. I moved to a different city shortly after and was so relieved to leave that job.

Fire Axe Guy, please let's not meet.

Okay so to preface, this story was told to my mother years ago, and she told it to me recently, so details aren't perfect, apologies.

My Grandmother was born in 1935 in Belarus. She lived in a smallish village south of Minsk with her parents and her brother. She first saw soldiers in her village in July of 1944. She claimed that most soldiers were actually not terrible, but some definitely were. Apparently her village did not really have any jewish people (or they hid them?), so though the nazis did not seem to destroy much. They just took supplies and killed some livestock. Now i realize this is a story from what at the time was a 9 year old girl, so I assume the reality of the situation was far darker. Now, she remembers that one of the nazi officers was friendly, and even gave chocolate to some children. Though lots of soldiers seemed to come and go, this officer stayed for a while, and was always smiling and chatting with the children. At this point, my mother acknowledged that the little bit of history she heard from her grandmother before she passed, she knew there had been multiple villagers killed, but my grandmother was lucky enough to somehow not remember/ witness this. My grandmother had several close friends at the time, Misha, Sergei, and Nina. She had known them her whole life, and they had all been very close with each others families. One day, Nina's mother said she could not find Nina, and asked my grandmothers family for help looking. They never found anything. Some time passed, and the same thing happened to Misha. One day he just vanished. People in the village looked, but never found anything. My grandmother was sad, but it was wartime, so she moved on. Eventually the nazis were pushed back out of the their village, and they were free again. The villages began to rebuild/move back into the places the nazis took over. One of the homes had a large cellar, and when they got there, they found multiple graves dug in the ground. Supposedly 5 children were buried in that graveyard.

EDIT: 1941 NOT 1944.

Hi I've never wrote my own post on here before and I'm not sure if this is even the right r/ to post this to but here we go. ( sorry for any spelling or grammer mistakes I'm dyslexic)

I'm a young woman in my earily 20's (not giving too much of personal info away I don't know if he'll see this) I live and work in the capital city in my county, I've worked at my job for about 3 and a half years now and since the second year of working there this guy has been coming in a lot but at first I didn't think much of it as I work as a night manager for a gallery/studio rental,

He looks around mid to late 20's very pale with darker features which ironically is my type but there was just something odd about him, he would stare a little too long or get a bit too close when asking something and I was nice at first but after a while of this lets just say I made it known I wasn't intrested but he wouldn't take it as a no. After his course in one of the rented studios was finished he was gone for about a month and I thought it was over but he then joined a new and different course and this is when it started getting scary,

He tried to get into my office a few times and was even caught trying to pry the code lock thingy off my office door by one of my colleagues earlier in the day before my shift but he didn't tell anyone about it till a few months later and the worst part is during my shift I'm the only person on that floor ( there is only me and one security guard during my shifts) there is a long thin window on my office door and one night during my shift I had the light off as i prefer is off, I walk towards a cabinet near the door to get something and he was stood with his face pressed to the glass staring in at me, I freaked out and started shouting at him to leave from inside my office but he just started smiling and pulled out his phone and started recording me so I rang the secuity guard (who I will call SG) and she came up and kicked him out. I was really shaken up after that and ended up getting a taxi home instead of the bus and SG waited with me,

Everything was fine for about a week until he started again, he would sneek in during the day to " look at the art gallery" without security seeing him and would hide in a toilet till my shift started and all of this was caught on CCTV, he stared sticking post it notes to my door or slideing creepy "love letters" under my office door and on the fifth night of this I didn't have enough money for a taxi so I had to get the bus home and he followed me to my bus stop, I basisically ran there as it is a very popual bus stop in the city center for people to take home so I knew it would be packed with people and thankfully I bumped into my brother's friend who is 6"2 and a metal head and looks like he could snap you in two by looking at you but is acually a huge teddy bear, he managed to scare off the guy and brought me home.

After that I didn't see the guy for like 8 months and I started getting on with my life again until one day I came into work and during my shift I went into the womans bathroom on my floor and he was crouched in one of the stalls with a red rose in his left hand and a small kitchen knife in his right one I ran and screamed down the stairs and he ran after me and I don't know if it was my gaurdian angel or a stoke of luck but there was two police officers going over secutiy footedge with SG because that moring a mans car was robbed across the road from the building (it's a rough area so this is common), I ran up screaming that he had a knife and they manage to detain him after a big struggle and him busting one of our fire exit doors but he was finally aressted, I had to go to the station and anwser a ton of questions and tell them everything that happend.

Apparently I wasn't the first person he had done something like this to and was acually arrested before and had a restraing order agenst him for the other girl he did this to.

So creepy stalker guy let's not meet!

First time poster sorry if formatting off. For context, I am 24, and go between NC and DC for work weekly. I am a fed scientist so naturally very skeptical. I don’t want to label anyone anything but at a minimum this guy was not minding his own business

This was Sunday oct 4, ~10pm, I was driving north on 85, and stopped at what I noticed was a pretty desolate rest stop both in the fact that there was nobody there except a few trucks I’m assuming parked overnight, and the north/northeastern part of NC can get real backwoodsy in a strange way once you’re even 30 minutes outside of Raleigh, this was about 50 min outside of Raleigh and 30 mins from NC VA border I’d say.

I walk in to the bathroom, the building it’s in is unattached from a few separate buildings at the rest stop, a maintenance shed, little building for vending machines, etc and they all have automatic glass sliding doors like you’d see at target or most grocery stores. And the bathroom building has a front and a back entrance, I walked in the front.

The first thing I saw entering the bathroom was two shiny black shoes from someone standing upright in a stall, facing the door not the toilet. Nobody else in there btw. This guy was not taking a shit either he was standing there. I start shaking the dew off the lily at the urinal, this guy walks out the stall right on cue, and gets to washing his hands no big deal. At this point this guy is nothing but someone in my peripheral however for some odd reason I start thinking I really hope this guy leaves before I finish my business and wash my hands etc, but I didn’t really understand why as I just don’t typically think that abt other people in public spaces.

This guy starts washing his hands, going crazy with the soap I mean thjs guy is really scrubbing and using a ton of soap I’d say over ten pumps. That’s when I kind of noticed and just thought hm this guy is probably a sanitation worker. Why I was even thinking about that I don’t know. For the entirety of the time I’m at this urinal this guy is scrubbing away. There are three sinks, the left one has an air hand dryer to its left, which basically occupies the same space as the exit which has no door, you just walk in turn a quick corner and you’re in/out of the bathroom. This guy is at the middle sink, I just start washing my hands on the sink to his right, which is closest to the wall. I didn’t think much of it but looking back am glad I did that because it gave him less chance to stay behind me compared to if I was at the sink to his left, which is closer to the exit area.

Im washing my hands and of course this guy walks over to the air hand dryer, somewhat blocking the exit. There were paper towels immediately in between the sinks we were using, I remember even thinking why is this guy doing that it’s loud as fuck and theres paper towels way closer to you. This is when i start to somewhat be alert, i started moving really slowly and kinda darted past him and out the bathroom. I’d say he spent ~2.5 mins at the sink/drying hands after emerging for lack of better term from the stall.

I start to get really fucking consciously suspicious when I notice, in the fucking reflection of the sliding glass door in front of me upon exiting into the main lobby (just a room with sliding glass door on either side) our friend decided to walk out exactly at the moment I walked in front of him, and even better, he is taking the same exit as me out of this building. Guess which exit I took? The fucking back exit that is completely illogical to take because it adds id say an entire minute to walk around the building to the parking lot area. On top of that, this back side is surrounded by woods and an entire tree line/hill that causes you to be completely unseen by passing vehicles on the highway. Think of walking south out of a building but the parking lot is north, you need to walk out, turn right, and go around the building to get back to the parking lot. On the “south” entrance there was nothing but a desolate parking lot for 18 wheeler trucks, maintenance shed, and those trees that block the view from the highway. I would consider that area a very isolated pocket even as far as rest stops go.

This was scary. I walked out and kept my head turned at a 90° angle such that he knew I was watching him or at least aware i recognize something is off. This guy was I’d say 4-5ft behind me but eased back when I really had my head turned 90° dude I have no idea it just felt like I was making all the moves he did not expect me to do or make. That’s the only way I can describe it.

I walked I’d say 6-8 steps with my head at 90° watching him before I need to turn right, when i tell you some sort of fucking primal prey instinct kicked in the second I turned my body and did not have him at least in my peripheral, it felt like every nerve and hair shot out from my nape and down my spine and out into my traps unlike anything ive felt before. And i have been robbed at gunpoint. So at the least this guy was watching me in that moment like the feeling I got was so much more intense than the “fear” I felt in the moment which was very minimal, I was more so uncomfortable.

I only let myself have my eye off of him for that one second I turned my body right, and then whipped my head back when I felt that surge of fear, at this point because I turned he was to the right of me and no longer behind me, I would say 20ft away, he was tucked in the corner of the entrance only a few steps out of the entrance and he did stop walking when he really noticed me looking back when I first walked out. Also consider I am only getting glances at him at this point, but he is standing in the corner of that entrance facing me now even though I turned

Dude I booked it. Like full speed walking I cut through the grass not taking a sidewalk and once I got about 60 yards away I look back. And he had only just started to walk down the little set of stairs a few feet further out from the entrance. Also that back side exit doesn’t lead to anything apart from the trucks only parking lot, so either he was a trucker, gay and stalking (“cruising”), or someone with bad intentions. I’m not gonna say serial killer cause that’s dramatic but if anybody were it would be this guy haha. Fucking all black fit Jeffrey dahmer glasses 5’7 somewhat stocky white dude 2” crew cut strong nose weak chin looked like he’d be from up north. Had on some strange overalls or like nice kind of top, with shiny black shoes first off I’ve never seen that fit at a rest stop let alone a trucker. Kind of eclectic style for a trucker. Especially the shoes. I’m also 6’ 165 so it would’ve been pretty wild for him to try anything, part of me does feel like if I wasn’t aware of my surroundings and was a smaller guy that would’ve ended differently, but that’s making assumptions about this guys intentions

Btw I have travelled back and forth across NC from Wilmington to Charlotte, Asheville to Raleigh , Wilmington to Raleigh, and Asheville to Charlotte many many times at night and never had anything remotely odd happen at a rest stop until now. I’d estimate 30 rest stop-stops at night since 2021, most being in very rural areas.

I would say the likely logical conclusion would be he was gay and prowling, I learned about the term “cruising” but idk. I also generally have pretty strong intuition and understand people very well so take that as you will. Something interesting is from true first hand accounts of people who’ve interacted with serial killers, what I’ve noticed consistently from recollections is they mention the “killer” in question kept trying to get behind them, along with the mention of generally taking forever to do like a menial task in an odd calculated way(https://youtu.be/wiEqT3dyUY4?is=xnfwqgD-bqhy0Qd3). At a minimum this guy was not minding his business and perceived I was noticing him. But it really felt like he was doing anything to stay behind me and especially in a way that I couldn’t see him. Happy to provide details on location and I would upload pics but unsure if that’s allowed on this sub. Look up northbound i85 rest area Oxford NC.

A little background information is important for this to be a better story. This happened to me last year when I was 23 and working at Target. I’m an openly gay man in the Midwest, but I live in central Illinois so it’s still a fairly progressive area. I’d been on tinder and had talked to this guy a little bit that lived in a college town about an hour from where I lived. We didn’t talk long on there before I asked if he wanted to add me on Snapchat. I always use the app to verify guys I think are attractive because stealing pics or just using AI to auto-generate a whole new fake person is way too easy. He had no problems with it and I’d told him that I worked at Target, but I didn’t tell him what city or Target (the city I worked in had two).

I really thought I was being smart and cautious with my information. I was not. We talked for maybe 30 minutes total on Snapchat before I went to sleep and stopped replying. I woke up the next day and didn’t reply to anyone or even check my messages, I’m not much of a morning person and normally have to sprint through my morning routine to get to work on time. It was a fairly busy day so I didn’t really check anything until my first break of the day. If it was from someone I knew well I probably would have checked the message immediately upon seeing it, but because we hadn’t talked a lot I didn’t think much of it.

I finally went through his messages and it was a couple meaningless things after I’d fallen asleep and him saying that morning how he had to get some things for his room and was going to spend his day doing that. I sent back a short reply and didn’t really think anything of it. It was probably forty minutes later that I was moving boxes and saw him walking down an aisle. I was bewildered to say the least because we had talked about him living so far from the town I lived.

Where I worked was probably thirty minutes farther for him so he drove a long ways to “coincidentally” end up at my store. I freaked out a bit. I went and hid in the back room because it was still fairly early in the day so we had plenty of employees as witnesses just in case he was crazy, as if him showing up at my store wasn’t already crazy. I told one of my coworkers and they agreed it was insane and said to text them. I did and I was like, oh was that you down the aisle? They were sharing their location so I could obviously see it was them. They said it was and told me that they really wanted something that only Target sold.

There wasn’t one in the town he went to school and the town where I worked would have been one of the closest targets to him. I rationalized that maybe I was just over reacting and didn’t get a manager involved. He kept making hints that got less and less subtle that we should say hi to each other and I told him that I was so busy that day and that I would try, but I wasn’t sure if I could manage it. I made up some story about my manager being super strict about us not doing work and talking while clocked in.

Something was just off, besides the obvious. He was super cute and he had a great personality up to that point but interacting with him once he got to the store just made the hair on the back of my neck standup. I gave him like 10 minutes and he had stopped responding at that point so I assumed he had finished shopping and I went back out to do my job. I wanna say it was a Saturday, but it could have been a Sunday. Regardless the story was extremely busy so I felt more comfortable having numbers on my side and I kept rationalizing that he was just a bored college student that decided to take a drive to Target.

I worked for a little bit and saw him again. He hadn’t messaged me again so I wasn’t as worried about him being weird, but I kept seeing him down aisles for my area. I stocked items so I was somewhat trapped in a single area of the store. It was like he was circling waiting for something, like me being alone down a deserted aisle. He never came up to say hi or interacted at all. Just looked a bit and walked away.

After the third time (maybe less or more) I had gotten over being rational and went to hide in the back again, but this time I told my direct manager. They agreed it was not good and they told me not to go onto the floor for another like 30 minutes. We’d agreed that 30 minutes was more than enough time for him to get bored and leave. I knew that I had there location and told my manager I could see when they left through “snap maps”. While I was looking I realized that my location had also been on which made me realize that the guy also likely had my home address. I wanted to shut it off, but I thought maybe he’d get angry and do something if he noticed I’d had done it while he was there.

I checked religiously and talked to more coworkers about it who told me they’d check (I showed them the pictures of his tinder). They checked and he stayed in the store around my area for another 40 minutes. Finally he texted that he was checking out and he did. I breathed a bit easier and resolved to block him as soon as he had left the area and I had left work so that he couldn’t come back to find me in person. I checked the app every 10 minutes but he stayed in the parking lot for almost two hours.

During this time I was freaking out. I was telling everyone in the store and they were combing through security footage so they knew who I was talking about and could keep an eye out to trespass him if he stepped foot through the doors. They told me that he had been in the area I worked for almost the entire time he was in the store. From what they said it didn’t seem like he was watching me during most of the time so he could have just been trying to build confidence to talk to me or something. Regardless, I was scared shitless. The guy wasn’t leaving the parking lot and I was almost off work.

He left like 30 minutes before I did. Most of the time he wasn’t snapchatting me so I couldn’t stalk his location, but every time it updated, he was still there. He finally left with 30 minutes of my shift to spare but he only went across the river (maybe he realized I had his location and thought I wasn’t leaving because I knew he was still there?) My managers arranged for my store security to walk me out to my car when I was off and I blocked him immediately. He never came back (that I know of) and he never showed up at my house but I still get scared sometimes when the dogs go ballistic really late at night.

So to the cute man from tinder, let’s not meet again.

(Insanely, not the only time I’ve had a man show up at my workplace uninvited and “coincidentally” run into me, but definitely the creepiest)

Since my first one did pretty good i thought i might as well post another one.

This happened a few months after my house got broken into while i was home alone so i was still cautious about everything.

Anyways, one day i got on the bus after leaving my friends house. It was a normal bus ride until four stops before the stop I get off at a man got on. He seemed normal except he was staring at me, i noticed it after he was looking for a good minute or so but i pretended not to notice.

Once we reached my stop I got off, and would you guess the man also got off. During this time I was pretty short but I was muscular and strong, this guy was tall but extremely skinny so i thought if he tried anything I would probably be fine.

As I was walking I could hear his footsteps getting louder and closer, I looked behind and saw him getting very close. The area we were in was a footpath that went behind all the houses into a quiet part that had thick bushes and a lake behind them. I think he decided to choose to assault me then because of how quiet it was because he got right up to me and started attacking me. He could not punch for shit and kept missing me.

After he missed a bit I got the upper hand, punch him back then pushed him into the bushes. I watched as he fell through those bushes, slide down the little slope then arrive face first in the water. I laughed, called him a bitch and other words then ran off.

So at the end of the day, if you’re gonna attempt something like this atleast be able to punch, and then also don’t pick a spot next to a lake.

This happened my first year of highschool, I didn't really have a safe way to get home. So I took the public bus then had to walk maybe half a mile from the closest bus stop. So I'm walking home, and I get this weird feeling in my gut. I'm a pretty anxious person, my PTSD doesn't help with that. Then I noticed this guy behind me. I tried to shrug it off but something in my gut would not let It go. So I pretend to tie my shoe letting him past me. I wait like a couple of minutes after he does. I figure it's safe to pass so I continue to walk home and somehow he's behind me again and now definitely closer. I knew there was school nearby just down the street, so I start running, because it was just about pick up and I knew other adults and teachers would be there and when I get to the school he walks passed. I figure it's safe and I can just walk through the field and just go home. I don't know why I didn't stop to tell an adult at the time. Like that was the whole point to go there.

Getting through the field and getting almost to my street. I once again see him and he sees me and starts walking towards me. At this point again I'm running. There's a good distance between us however he was definitely trying to close the distance. So I turn the corner at my street making sure he was far enough, that he wasn't at the corner yet. I run inside home.

So the middle aged man who followed me home in highschool let's not meet again.

(Sorry if this was worded poorly I have dyslexia.)

So this happened about fifteen years ago. I was a broke and had just graduated college. My bf at the time helped me land a job bartending. I got this job as the owner was a sleazeball and was into very cute, very young things bartending. My bf at the time and his friends closed the bar on a regular basis and had pull w this owner. Awesome. I was trained by the daytime bartender who was a beautiful lady in her forties from Ireland. She had the best accent and was amazing. The first day I was training, my bf *now ex, got pissed at me bc he wanted me to come outside to say hello to him. He proceeded to chew me out bc I didn't, and the audacity of me ignoring him since he got me the job. I, was at work, not on break, and not allowed to be on my phone. He was a raging asshole, and proceeded to tell me how worthless I was, etc. *this was a regular occurrence. To give some backstory, my ex, who was a "guys guy" Very wild, very loud, very look at me, always being crazy etc. If you pushed back, you would get chewed out, screamed at, etc. He was the absolute worst bf I ever had. However...

So one day, I am bartending on my own, and its earlier in the day. This decent looking guy comes in and proceeded to chat me up while having his beer. He was hitting on me, but not being gross or out of line. Then, another local comes over kindof frantic and whispers to him about how "I'm Blanks girl." He goes white as a sheet, immediately apologizes for even talking to me, and tells me how he thinks I am beautiful and would love to get to know you but your bf is a seriously scary fuck. and yea...he was.

WELL

Fast forward 9 months later. This guest of mine, who also happened to be the Irish ladies son, gets ARRESTED FOR MURDERING HIS SECRET GF who worked for the NYPD. His gf, who he lied to and claimed to have had stage 4 cancer, was having her pay for his treatments as he has no medical insurance. When she finally began to pull back her financial support, he stabbed her to death and burned her with a curling iron. They caught him attempting to board a plane back to Ireland.

So that is my story of how the one murderer I knew, apologized for trying to ask me out bc he was afraid of the Psycho I was currently dating and why you should never ever date a customer.

My husband, our toddler, and I were on a roadtrip a few months ago. After a few hours of driving, we stopped at a random gas station in rural Kentucky so my husband could use the bathroom and stretch his legs out. When we walked inside, I noticed an angry looking young man with bright red hair and face tattoos staring us down from inside his truck. He walked inside the gas station a few minutes later with what I am assuming was his girlfriend? She was wearing sweats and looked sad and scared. They walked past us a few times and everytime, he would be mean mugging me. While my husband was in the restroom, I could hear him yelling and cussing at her from the next aisle over while I browsed some random toys with my kid as we waited. They walked past us once more and this time I heard his girlfriend pleading with him and motioning towards me saying “But she’s got her child with her!” As soon as I heard and saw that, I went on high alert because I automatically assumed the worst and thought they were talking about me and my child. The couple left the gas station and waited in their car outside for a bit and as soon as my husband got out of the bathroom, I clung to his side. He wanted to look at snacks so we stuck around for 5-10 minutes and thankfully by the time we left, the couple had already left in the truck. I could tell that poor girl was more than likely being abused by that scary guy and I hope she wasn’t trafficked or anything like that? I have no idea what would have happened to me if I wasn’t there with my child and husband, or if the girlfriend wasn’t there with that guy. I tried to see what town we were in because I will never step foot in it again.

I was on a college campus walking to the dining hall where i was stoped by this group of people. a girl and two guys. and then they said they have this church off campus and were looking for people to join. i didn’t think much of it, and i actually did want to get involved in the church for some personal reasons, i thought it would be good for my mental health to have a community because of some recent events that happened that made me feel very isolated.

i guess in hindsight, isolated people was exactly what they were looking for.

so we chatted and stuff and she was asking very leading questions like “what do you like to do for fun?” and then more serious stuff like “do you believe in god” i thought this was great to even talk to someone because i was in this terrible headspace for the past few months where i wasn’t seeing any people outside of my classes and had undergone a massive personal devastation regarding a career path i really wanted to have.

anyway, let’s call this girl “Kate” for now. Kate said that she’s looking for people just like me to join, and there are other people around my age at this church. and they have lots of fun events and stuff. so i took her contact info and left. later, Kate started texting me details about the churches location. i looked it up on google maps and it seemed pretty legitimate and nice.

so here’s the part where you might get mad at me. so, i didn’t have a car at the time, but i still wanted to go to one of their events which was a volunteer “car wash” where they provide the volunteers with free food and drink. and i wanted to go. i just wanted some friends. and Kate mentioned she has a church “van” that they can use to move people around and get them there. and i thought that was great.

so flash foward, im in the van with her and another girl also my age, and Kate’s driving. and the van was actually very sketchy looking. it was large, brown, and had curtains, and 3 rows of seats.

we get to the church and im immediately greeted by these people who look very happy. they’re also around my age, and mainly asian. which was very weird considering where i went to college at the time, the town was mainly white people. so they offer me food and free drinks to have, and i think its awesome, but they keep staring at me in this weird way.

so flash forward to the volunteering, i had been socializing with people and chatting, and washing cars. there were probably 10-15 people there all early 20s, and only one person above 20 who was the “pastor”.

Kate asked the typical questions like “where would you travel to if you had unlimited money” and i said japan. she said she’d travel to south korea, and she has already been to north korea doing missionary work.

I was like, hold the phone who are these people and why can they go to north korea.

anyway, later on im getting ready to leave and Kate says she wants to show me one more thing, and it’s the prayer room, she says i need to take off my shoes and go inside, and i see these two portraits of an asian woman dressed in this traditional outfit. this doesn’t look like the church of jesus christ.

After this, Kate tells me the types of stuff they do in church. which are these “union” ceremonies. basically everyone gathers in a stadium sized space, and gets assigned to marry someone, and they all get married at once while wearing white clothing.

anyway, i ended up leaving at that point in the same van, not thinking much of any of this.

later on, i got really curious exactly what denomination this church is and who its sffiliated with, because i saw no crosses or no signs of jesus. and i look at their website and it mentions they are the “Family Federation for Peace and Unification church” aka the moonies. which is a famous korean cult that also apparently has bases in the middle of nowehere. apparently the cult also led to the death of some public official.

i would not like to meet these people again.

tl;dr: i was tricked into walking into a cult under the pretenses of it being a church at a college campus.

I’m eighteen years old, and I'm sitting in a college dorm almost two states away from home. I felt like it's only here that I can finally look back on this experience without immediately pushing it out of my head, and it’s here that I can tell it to a group of people without the vulnerability that comes with it. I’ll give you some context before I tell you what he did. For most of my life, I remember my older brother being this arrogant and weirdly formal guy that always hid out in his room. Formal as in he spoke like he thought he was smarter than anyone else in the room. 

 He didn’t work, he didn’t finish high school, he didn’t go to college, he didn’t help around the house, and didn’t even clean up after himself at all. If he turned on the lights, he wouldn’t turn them off. If he opened a drawer, he wouldn’t close it. If he used dishes, he wouldn’t wash them. He wouldn’t shower, wouldn’t cut his greasy hair, he would wear dirty clothes on purpose, and on occasion, would use the bushes in the back of the house as the bathroom with zero reason at all for doing so. Looking back now, I would absolutely say that there should’ve been signs of how unwell he was mentally. 

As infuriating as it sounds, my mom was complacent about all of it, and even though she complained, she never kicked him out or even made him get a job. The one good thing she did was offer to get him medication, or to take him to some kind of therapy without worrying about what it would cost her. He always just said no. He lived with our mom all the way up until this incident. He was 27 years old, and I was only about thirteen. For the sake of anonymity and a little bit of fear that he’ll find me, I’ll just call him Brother. 

 About five years ago, my family moved into a small trailer while we were building our new house. The trailer was pretty old looking and weak, and it was on a small patch of clearing in the woods with a long dirt driveway that led to the road. Unfortunately, Brother didn’t take no for an answer when my mother told him he was way too old to be with us anymore, and that he'd have to find a new place soon. He used a bunch of guilt tactics like asking her where he was supposed to go, and if she was really just going to abandon him, and I remember him crying to her at the kitchen table while I watched from behind my door. Next thing I know, my mom tells me with tears in her eyes that Brother would be staying with us. His room would end up being right across from mine in the same hallway. 

  I remember this one day where I had just gotten back from school. I came out of my room after dropping off my stuff, and I saw Brother in the small kitchen we had. He didn’t have a shirt on, and he was just in his boxers and socks. He was drinking straight out of the milk gallon with the fridge door open, which our mom had just scolded him for doing the day before. 

 Now, for the most part, I was pretty quiet and just let my feelings of anger and frustration with him fester inside me. I don’t know what it was about today, but I just couldn’t not say anything to him. I build up some courage, and I say to him, “Mom said to not do that.” Yeah, how brave, I know.

 He didn’t even look at me. He took like two more gulps before he screwed the cap back on and put the milk back. I remember making a note to dump the milk out later, but for now, I was too angry with him to just let him walk away again. I said to him, “Hello?”
That one word made him finally look at me after he shut the fridge door. Right there was when I started to feel a bit uneasy. He was a pretty tall dude, and heavy set on top of it. Additionally, we were alone in the house, and I didn’t have anywhere to run on a rural road in Texas. All of this added to the scenarios I made up in my mind of him having enough strength to beat me up if he wanted to, and that mom wouldn’t do much about it either. His stare made me feel so small, and his eyes looked so unsettling with those thin and wiry glasses that always sat crooked on his face. He looked like he didn’t belong here. 

 Unfortunately, I don’t remember what, or if he even did anything right after he looked at me. I think I recall hiding in my room the rest of the day and getting into an argument with my mom about why I didn’t want him here anymore. What I do remember after that interaction was that from then on, he started getting more aggressive. My mom and I were pretty sure that he started doing drugs of some kind, because we could hear him make these weird noises in his room at night, as well as the smell of weed coming off of him sometimes. Maybe two or three times a week, I could hear him make these loud yelping sounds, but they sounded off somehow. Like if you pressed play on a recording of a man’s scream, and then pressed pause really quickly, those were the sounds I could make out across the dark hallway at two AM. There wasn’t a single night that went by where I didn’t triple check the flimsy ass lock on my door.

 He started yelling more, too. If mom got onto him for something, even if it was to just turn the light off, he’d very loudly yell at her to “Fuck off”, and he wouldn’t be shy about getting in her face either. My stepfather stepped in as much as he could, but my mom was always there to de-escalate and tell us to just ignore him. The days leading up to the incident were the worst in terms of his behavior. He’d taken to pulling our younger brother aside to talk to him about how selfish our mom was, and that he should grow up to be the exact opposite of her. He told him to get a hold of his life, and that he could end up being a “coke dealer like our uncle Pedro” if he didn’t get his shit in order. Our brother was only nine at the time, and our Uncle Pedro was a sixty five year old man with a ranch back in Mexico who we saw maybe three times in our lives. 

 Each time I couldn’t find either of them, I'd look in the kitchen, or the glass table outside, and there they were. I always called our little brother over under the guise of our mom on the phone asking for him, or telling him to come join me on a game I had in my room. It had started getting to the point where I would get home and hide out in my room, and when the time came for my little brother to get off of his bus, I’d wait for him at the stop and walk with him all the way to my room to wait until our mom came home. 

 Then came the night before he first ran away. He actually woke everyone up with how loud he screamed. I jolted up in my bed, similar to how you do so when you have a dream and wake up right before you fall. I heard him opening his door a few seconds later, and I sat up to listen. He walked out while banging his fist on the wall, like a steady thump all the way until he reached the front door, and he was mumbling something super fast. I heard my mom jogging down the hallway while my stepdad was right behind her a few seconds later.

 I can’t tell you much about what happened, but all I know is that Brother had some sort of episode. I stayed inside and watched from the window as the motion sensor lights out front illuminated what was going on. I told my little brother, in a regrettable fit of panic that definitely just scared him more, to go hide in my room in the laundry basket in my closet, while I stayed inside my parent’s room and recorded what was going on. I still have that recording in my phone, and the camera footage is really shaky, but it catches enough. My mom and stepdad are a few feet away from my older brother, and he’s literally rolling around in the sandy dirt on the ground near our chicken coop. 

 His arms were stretched out above his head, and he laughed super hard while sand and grass bits were getting into his open mouth. His eyes were wide open too, and his glasses had fallen off of his face at some point next to him. I remember that I finally understood what people meant when they said that chills ran down their entire body, because he literally looked insane, and I had never seen him like that before.

My stepdad was repeatedly telling my mom that we had to call an ambulance for him, but I couldn’t hear much else from Brother laughing so hard. I swear, you can hear him saying that he’d “kill us all one by one.” After some time of the same thing happening over and over, my mom crouches down to his face to ask him to please stop. The last thing I recorded was Brother grabbing the sides of my mom’s face to pull her down and yell something at her. His eyes got really big, and what he yelled sounds vaguely like “I dont-” before he got cut off by my stepdad yelling and punching him on the cheek and pulling my mom away. Immediately after that, I pulled away from the window and cut off the recording.

 I hid under the covers for a long while, terrified that the commotion outside would turn even louder, or worse, completely silent. To make the long version short, my mother came back inside and told me that Brother had run off down the road, and that my stepdad got into his truck to look for him and call the cops. She looked really shaky and scared, and I still feel a deep sense of pity for her. My stepdad came back empty handed, and the cops came to ask my parents some questions too. That was the last time I ever saw Brother, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t come back. 

 I think it was like two weeks later when it happened. My mom and stepdad had work to attend to with my uncles in downtown, and I was at home with my younger brother. I remember that I was in my parent’s room watching TV, and my younger brother came in to tell me that he thinks he just saw Brother knocking on the living room window and pointing at the front door for him to open it. I honestly felt like my heart jumped up into my throat. I can't describe the feeling clearly, or even make sense of it, but my mouth and nose started buzzing, and I felt like my fingertips were tingling. We were completely alone at night in the middle of a deserted clearing in the woods with my definitely mentally ill older brother knocking at our window. I sincerely did not put it past him to break in and do god knows what. 

 I quickly got out of the bed and whispered to my brother to go hide in my room where he did the last time, and he listened. I remember turning off as many lights as I could, and crouching down so that Brother couldn’t see me. I know that seems really dumb in retrospect, because he already knew we were there, as if he’d walk away after all the lights were off or something. You have to understand though, my head was just sloshing around with panic and my little brother, as well as myself, and what I was “supposed” to do here. When I was done, I grabbed my phone and ran to my room. My closet was closed, and I knew my little brother was in there, so I kinda sat/crouched in front of it while I dialed 911. 

 It started ringing, and as soon as it did, I heard Brother start to knock on my window really hard, but he also just didn’t stop knocking. He only screamed our little brother’s name once, but it was ear piercing, and I could see the shadow of his arm through my curtains. When I heard the guy on the other end go “911, where is the address of your emergency?”, I think I kinda just started spilling over because of how serious it was, and I started crying. I could see how bad I was shaking, because everytime I looked down at my phone, it was just like a glowing rectangle in the dark, and it was wobbling pretty bad. 

 My voice was really shaky too, and I could barely even get the words out to him. I don’t remember exactly what I said, I was just rambling and kept repeating both the address, and “please hurry please please.” Of fucking course he was gone before they came, though. Long gone, because all the noises from the outside had to have stopped for what felt like forever before I heard the sirens and car pull up.

 My memories definitely blacked out somewhere, but I remember bits and pieces. My eyes were really hot and swollen, and I stayed in front of the closet for a long time. I remember Brother started pounding, and the trailer window could only take so much, and my stepdad had to replace the window because of the cracks in it. The cops actually surprisingly didn’t talk to me about the details at all. They kinda just asked if I was okay and asked about my parents. Mom was really scared, and she thankfully promised me that if Brother came back, he wasn’t staying with us anymore, and that she’d just call the cops if she saw him coming again. 

This whole thing was pushed to the back of my head, and I’ve always had that coping mechanism of distracting myself from everything as if it never happened. Life went on, Brother didn’t come back, we moved into the new house after selling the old trailer, and I’ve repeatedly and wholeheartedly told myself throughout the years that I only had one brother, and that I was the oldest of mom’s kids. I'd do the same thing when introducing or describing my family to people, just tell them that I was the older sister and first child, and that helped me detach myself a lot from him. Brother didn’t exist to me anymore. 

 Unfortunately, if that was all that happened, it would’ve just been some memory that I wouldn’t bother touching or even trying to remember for any reason. A couple days ago, my mom called me to say that she heard from a cousin I have that had seen Brother near town again. He said that he saw him while driving past a Home Depot, and that he seemed to have a backpack on, looked pretty skinny, had a shaved head, no glasses, and a beard. He said that Brother seemed to be “stretching”, just kinda twisting his torso back and forth. For reference, when he was living in the trailer, he used to be cleanshaven, had those glasses I mentioned, thin and shaggy long black hair with a receding hairline, and a little chubby. 

 I am almost positive that he didn’t get the help he needed, and that scares me deeply. Yeah, I get that if he was insane, he would’ve hurt someone else by now wherever he’s been, but still. It’s really hard to believe that he just magically got better and just needs a hand to get back on his feet. Especially with how he treated our mother and how he had every opportunity to do better before it all went to shit. You had to have been there to see how he used force, yelling, and guilt to get everything he wanted. All the while, the guy had the audacity to treat everyone around him like they were mindless dogs or something. There was no reason for him to act the way he did that night, no sane person does. 

 I’m pretty sure he knows where we live, though. My little brother is the one who’s thirteen now, and both of my parents still work, leaving him vulnerable in my eyes for a good chunk of the day. He and I talk almost everyday, and I’ve been on his case about keeping the curtains shut, the TV low or mute, and every single light off until our parents get there. He knows why, but I just don’t think he’s as panicked as I am. I haven’t been focusing on my work, class, studying, or anything else for that matter as a result of my worries. I think it's the fact that Brother was yelling his name that night that makes me so much more scared for him. I just want to keep him safe. I’m not there to do that this time, and I find myself having some pretty rash thoughts about just making a last minute ditch to drop out or transfer out of the blue. I had to tell someone, but my roommates don’t seem like a good option, and I don’t have a reliable shoulder to lean on. Might as well just throw it out there.

This happened a couple days ago. I was downstairs smoking because there are wasps on my balcony during the day. I was sitting on a curb when I noticed my a guy walking towards me.

I realized too late that it was the neighbor who is weird and scary. He stopped in front of me and started talking to me but he wasn’t making sense.
So am I was sitting and trying to figure out what he was saying and he got angry. I definitely think he was high. He also got so close to me I couldn’t get up.

I looked around for people but I was alone with this guy. I decided to act annoyed because I thought if he didn’t know I was scared he wouldn’t do anything to me. I really felt like I was danger.

I tried getting up and couldn’t and suddenly he grabbed my arm and pulled me up. I was watching something on my phone but I pretended my husband called and he tried to grab my phone. I was terrified.

I dropped my cigarette and ran towards the door and was terrified he was behind me. I opened the door and as soon as I did I saw him in the vestibule. I started crying and went back to my apartment.

I told my husband that I think he was high and acting weird. He said to report it to our condo board so I did. I’m afraid to go outside now. I also made a police report.

He lives in a different building in condominium. So I don’t think his key worked in my building’s door.

Hi, I told my friend this story of an encounter I had recently and he recommended I post it here.

My partner and I are both 28 and we got engaged last week on the Oregon coast. The night after our engagement, we decided to stay two nights at a campsite on the coast. This campsite has yurts, RV spots, and loops for people to park and pitch tents. Lots of families and people enjoying the beautiful weather. We stayed in a park-and-tent site with campsites next to and across from us.

We rolled in before sunset and set up our tent. I noticed two men around a fire in the site across from us getting an early start on their drinks. One of the men, whom I'll dub "The Antagonist," was loudly complaining about a lady. He was venting about how she's a b*tch and a pathological liar -- "all she does is lie, lie, lie. She even lies to her mom!" In my mind, I put it to the side. Whatever, I think, everyone needs to blow off some steam sometimes, and I assume he's talking about a lady who isn't at the campsite.

My new fiance and I head to the beach to watch the sunset, then come back after dark and wind down in our tent. We picked up Pet Sematary a few days before, and took turns narrating the horror novel to each other. My fiance is enthralled with the story, eyes closed and not-quite-yet sleeping. Meanwhile as I'm reading, I have one ear open to what's going on in the campsite across from us. The Antagonist is significantly more drunk, slurring his words and still loudly complaining about this lady. I have the chilling realization that the subject of his rage is sharing a campsite with him and this other guy. At this point, it's about 11:30pm, and the rest of the campsites are silent.

"What are you, stupid? S-T-U-P-I-D! You stupid b*tch." He continuously berates her, while she speaks in a soft voice that I can't pick up.

A few minutes later, he asks her to hold his hand. I pause my narration and prod my partner, quietly turning his attention to the fury brewing nearby. Unsurprisingly, I assume she rejected his request to hold hands (wow, I wonder why?). That's when the switch flips.

The Antagonist begins sobbing loudly: "You f*cking b*tch, why won't you hold my hand? WHY WON'T YOU HOLD MY HAND?!" He wails for about thirty seconds, hiccupping and crying. Then it sounds like he starts throwing the folding chairs. His friend implores him to chill out, calm down, but to no avail. The friend is over The Antagonist's antics and heads to bed. He repeats horrible insults at the lady, saying he f*cking hates her. Then, he tells her over and over that he's "going to f*cking kill her." After a minute-long tirade, he states he's going to grab water. We hear him lumber away in a huff.

My partner and I are tense, silently laying in wait. I turn our headlamp off, since our tent is in direct view of their campsite and I don't want to attract any attention.

A few minutes later, The Antagonist stumbles back. His voice is deep, menacing, and has taken on a venomous quality. Like a mantra, he growls to himself that he's "going to f*cking kill her," over and over again. This is the first time I've heard someone sound more like a monster than a human. Fear grips my chest and my body goes cold. My mind is racing, thinking he could have a gun--he's so drunk, what if he tries to shoot her and it rips through our tent instead? Is he going to murder this woman thirty feet away from us? Surely other campers are hearing this, why isn't anyone doing anything? Is a stray bullet going to turn our blissful engagement into a terrible tragedy from a random act of gun violence?

He demands she pour him another shot of whiskey. I grab my fiance, my phone, and a headlamp and take this opportunity to slip out of our tent to get help. My initiative is to put distance and a building in-between us and this escalating incident and to find a way to get help. This campsite has zero cell service.

My partner goes to turn on the headlamp and I quickly stop him. I don't want to bring any attention to us. We slink past their campsite and see the lady pouring him a shot of whiskey to satiate him. We make our way to the front of the camp grounds to the Park Ranger station -- it's dark. We check a map to see if there's a number we can call, or a Ranger we can wake up, but there's no indication of what the hell to do during an escalating DV incident.

In an absurd stroke of luck, I discover a spot where I have full bars and call the police. I inform them of our location and what's going on. A minute after talking to dispatch, a police officer calls and I repeat the story. They say they'll arrive in 20 minutes. Are you kidding? In 20 minutes she could be dead! Alas, we wait.

Twenty-five minutes later, three cops show up. I inform them again of what's happening and plead for them to go help that lady. They take down my partner and I's information as witnesses--which I begrudgingly gave. I severely dislike cops, and would prefer they don't ever have my information, but I decided if this went to court and this lady needed witness testimony, I would do what I can for her. Alas, I didn't like how pushy they were about it and how all three cops were wasting time getting our info when an active DV incident was occurring nearby. Anyway.

The cops interrogate the man and end up taking him to jail for the night. We go to sleep, and the next morning I make a report to the Park Rangers. Turns out, that couple was planning to spend two more nights at the campsite, so I request to change sites. No way we're sleeping near them again, especially if he had an inkling we reported it.

The police dropped him back off at his site while I was at the Ranger station. My partner overheard the Rangers speaking to him: "Wild night you had last night, huh? What's going on?"

And The Antagonist responds that he didn't take his seizure medication yesterday, and he starts acting up when he doesn't take it, then begs to stay at the campsite still. The Rangers let them stay, and urge him to not forget his seizure medication again. Well, I'd think if not taking my seizure medication would make me a murderous monster, I would never, ever forget to take it. Ridiculous behavior. Ridiculous excuse.

We change campsites, and ended up having a lovely second night with no drunken-fury related ruckus. I hope that woman is okay and finds the strength and support to leave this wretched man.

If there's one thing I hope you take away from this, please don't let the Bystander Effect stop you from taking action to protect someone. Be the brave one and take initiative to help. No one else from the nearby campsites made a report, and I can guarantee he was being so loud that we couldn't be the only ones who heard. Thank you for reading.