This happened to me during my first year of university, in October. I was living in the dorms and I need to give you a brief run-down of the dorms – you need a keycard to gain access to your specific floor, so even though someone on the 3rd floor and 4th floor live in the same building, they can’t access each other’s floors.
I had injured myself playing sports, so I was under orders to ‘rest’, which meant no Hallowe’en parties for me. Pretty sad for a horror fiend like myself, but to try and make the time a happy one, I busied myself helping to make costumes for people and doing their makeup. Once I was finally finished, I packed up my makeup and decided to watch some movies in my room. A guy popped up and introduced himself, we chatted a bit and exchanged email addresses and I walked back to my room and said goodnight. The first warning sign was that he walked into my room behind me, despite me saying I was going to walk into my room. I felt really awkward and tried to say, in a roundabout way that he needed to leave. But he wasn’t getting the hint. I finally had to say ‘you need to leave my room now.’ I chalked this up to him maybe being drunk or something, but I did wonder how he got onto my floor if he wasn’t with anyone partying. Before I went to bed that night, I checked my email and there were 5 from Creep. The first being ‘hey I’m so glad we’re friends’ and the rest asking why I wasn’t online.
A few days later, I got a knock on my door when I was studying and it was him. I explained that I was studying and needed privacy. He tried to walk into my room again, but I braced my arm on the frame and said firmly that I needed to study. The next day, he was at my door again and the next. I began pretending that I was not home. Another day there was a knock at the door and when I checked the peephole, there was no one there and I assumed the postman had come. I opened the door and lo and behold, it was the creepy guy. He has begun hiding from the peephole so I would be more likely to answer the door. I told my roommate never to open the door if he was there and I told the people living on my floor that this guy was beginning to creep me out, so if he wanted to get on the floor, whatever sob story he gave them, don’t let him on.
A few days after that, I was on the bus coming home and I got a text from someone who lived on my floor telling me not to come home because Creep was on my floor and was sitting in front of my door, just waiting. I went to a friend’s house and spent the night and when I got home, I was told he waited for FOUR HOURS before leaving. At this point, I was getting freaked out. A few days after that, he began waiting outside the building and if I left, he would follow me wherever I went. I was too spineless to tell him to go away and I tried to be more passive about it. I never spoke, and never gave any indication I was paying attention but he followed me to class, the cafeteria and always tried to follow me home and get access to the floor.
I went to the Resident Advisor (an older student that sort of ‘watches over’ the floor) and told her what happened. She spoke to the RA for his floor and was told that Creep had been telling his own RA that we were best friends and dating. My RA tried to explain that I was uncomfortable, but the other RA believed him and that was that. Thankfully, one thing did deter him, he would never approach me if I was with a group of people, so my floor-mates banded together. If I went to dinner, I went with my floor and if I wanted a drink, or seconds, someone had to come with me. Walking to class and even waiting for the bus was done in a group. He got onto my floor once when someone else was coming home and he forced his foot in the door to let himself in. I was ‘hidden’ in another room and when he left my door to go and sit in the television lounge to wait for me – I went downstairs and ran around to the other side of the building and got into my room before he noticed.
Then the phone calls began. I never gave him my number, but he somehow obtained my mobile and room phone and at first it would be 1-2 phone calls a day until I told him I wanted him to leave me alone. Then the calls began coming in every hour with him begging and pleading for me to talk to him. Without caller ID, I needed to answer the phone because of school and my part time job. At this point it was November and I was a wreck. I was tired of having to plan out doing simple things like going for food or walking to a bus stop. Stress wasn’t helping me recover from my injury and I was losing weight and I just looked… sickly. I went back to the RA and begged her to help me.
She went to the head of the dorms and explained everything that happened. I explained how far this had gone and my roommate told them that he had followed her a few times, demanding that she tell him where I was. I felt awful. She never told me this because she was afraid of upsetting me further and I felt like I was an assh*le for putting her through this garbage.
I don’t know what went on behind closed doors, from what I guess, he was told to leave me alone and any further contact would result in him being kicked out of the dorms. There was one email where he went insane on me, telling me how awful I was, how could I do this to him? We were so happy together! Surely I was cheating on him with other men. After that, nothing. At first, when I’d see him around campus, I would run to the women’s toilets to hide. I’d see him around town or on campus and he’d always just stare at me. Never tried to approach me, never tried to get my attention. Just staring. I used to walk by and try to pretend I didn’t notice him staring and I’d try and act like my heart wasn’t pounding.
August 2001 Like most freshman, I live in the dorms at a state party school… A good buddy from military school, Bill, went to same college and lived a few floors below in the same dorm as me… For the most part, the first month or so of college was… normal. I went to most of my classes, partied just about every night, chased girls around, and that was enough for the moment. But things began to change one night sometime in mid-September, and college for me would never be ‘normal’ again.
My dorm phone… rings in the middle of the night – ‘hello?’ On the other end, I can only really describe the voice as the kind you picture when you think about a computer talking. Kinda like the early model car GPS’s. ‘Hi-Gary-how-are-you-today’ Not fully awake, I’m just confused at this point. ‘Who is this?’ He repeats ‘Hi-Gary-how-are-you-today.’ It becomes clear I’m being f’d with, so I hang up and chuckle – f’ing Bill, nice one – I pass back out.
I end up forgetting about the call for a few days and never mention mention to Bill or anyone else. About a week later, I get another call around the same time of night. ‘Hi-Gary-I’m-watching-you.’ Nice, very cliche. ‘Seriously Bill, how are you not knee deep in everclear or a Tri Delt at this hour? Enough already, Kade (roommate) is going to start getting pissed.’ I hang up.
I casually confront my oh-so-clever amigo at breakfast the next morning… He gives a genuinely confused response. Whatever. So a couple days after 2nd call I come home and see I had multiple messages on my answering machine. WTF I barely knew that thing even worked. It’s computer-voice guy (CVG).
Message 1: (my machine cuts off first 1-2 seconds of message, which tells me it’s a bot set to play message upon answer. ‘Hi-Gary-I’m-watching-you’
Message 2: ‘I-thought-I-asked-you-to-answer-my-calls-Gary’
Message 3: ‘Where-might-Gary-be-on-a-Tuesday-night’…
The calls start coming more frequently over the next couple months, starting at once a week, then to once every 2-3 days, up to EVERY DAY by Christmas break…
Uneventful break, and back to school determined to become a new man… First night back, I get my first Spring semester call from CVG. ‘How-is-your-family-in-Cypres’ (hometown suburb). Okay, now this is f***ing BS man…
Calls become threatening, and downright dark.
‘I’m-very-interested-Gary-in-being-close-to-you’…’I-have-tools-I-can-bring’ …’It-is-going-to-all-be-over-soon.’ One day I bring Bill and all my other buddies up to hear the messages (never deleted a single one for some reason)… The guys are in shock…
Around March… The calls were coming in no fewer that 10 or 15 every single day. Seriously… But I finally get the message I’d been waiting for… the day, time, location are set ‘We-will-meet-in-front-of-Coleman-Hall-at-midnight-Wednesday-27-April-and-we-will-take-our-friendship-to-the-next-level’…
My home team crowd steadily built up throughout the afternoon and evening… I’m left with about a 15-20 member platoon. I had decided earlier that I was not going to allow all these knuckleheads to shadow me, but I could definitely use them in case of emergency. I didn’t want to risk him spooking out of the meet. So I let them know they will need to stay inside the doors of the common area while I walk out to the meeting spot…
About 100 paces out from my spot, I observe 2 things at the same time. 1) some kind of small quick movement in front of the patio walkway that goes all the way around the building, and 2) the movement was in a spot along the walkway where the only normally uber-bright bulb is out. I’m not exactly sure exactly how i was able to see him, but I suddenly realize someone is crouched behind one of the contiguous cookie-cutter bushes outside the patio perimeter against one of the building pillars. In dark clothes and hoodie, he is a few feet off from the path where I’m supposed to meet him, and positioned to where I really should not have been able to see him, given the pillar blocking any shadow plus the burnt out (I later found out smashed) light. In fact, I could have easily walked all the way to the door without ever have noticed someone down there. NOPE.
I sorta jump mid-step as this and I see him raise up a little thinking I might have seen him. I see him raise up and take a step toward me, and fight or flight hits… Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m in a dead sprint toward this MF, who I’m guessing sees what I can’t yet, which is my platoon busting through the glass doors in hot pursuit. Creepster nopes the f out of there, running on the patio alongside Coleman Hall toward the parking lot… I realize I’m moving fast enough to catch him, but everyone else is really far behind. I also realize I’m moving so fast I won’t be protected as I turn hard right at the corner of the building. If he stops there, I’m toast. As I turn the corner, I see the van sitting alone in the parking lot in front of me. It’s running and brake lights flicker on then off — Park into Drive — and begins inching forward toward the exit. Homeslice is of course heading for the van, which for some reason sent this whole new level of fear into me. This is it – this is really happening, and I’m going to get fxxxing murdered tonight. But I can’t stop, something keeps me moving forward. I guess I’d come this far, dealt with this crazy bs for almost a full year now, completely unable to do anything other than try to ignore it…
If I could get close enough to dive-tackle, I would still be on my own to deal with the creepster, his driver, and now I realize there’s a 3rd one that was manning the sliding side door. AWESOME. I don’t care how bad*ss you think you are when you’re a 19-year old jock, your chances of taking down 3 grown men that are already violent criminals and prepared to victimize are about 1 in not-gonna-fxxxin-happen-buddy.
My turn is wide and slow due to being full-on sprint, and I lose ground. I’m probably 20 yards from the lot when he does a flying leap into the side of the van. There couldn’t have been any rows of seats for a leap like that. Creepster #3 slams sliding door shut as van peels out of the parking lot, bangs a right, and gone in an instant…
We finally start walking back, and I’m reliving the scene as we retrace our steps. As we get closer to the original meeting spot, I see something that scares me more than anything else in the entire equation has up to this point. On the opposite side of the pillar where Creepy McCreeperson was crouching, there’s a video camera sitting on a stand pointed right at the spot I would have been standing at when I should have not been able to notice him. It’s still recording.
A couple years back when I was in college I was the victim of a long term stalker… I am a male, 20 at the time.
It started out fairly innocuous, on Valentine’s day I started to receive ‘secret admirer’ type text messages from an unknown number. I assumed it was a friend of mine playing a joke as I was in a room with a handful of tech savvy people at the time. I tried to gauge their reactions and asked if anyone was messing with me. They all denied it, and I believed them (they’re pretty bad liars). It was further confirmed that it was none of them when I got a phone call from the number, a voice on the other end said ‘Is this ____?’ (my name). I replied ‘Yes, who is this?’ hoping I could identify the voice. At that point they hung up and resumed texting…
Things started to get weird when the person began asking pretty personal questions including repeatedly asking ‘Are you doing something tonight?’ to which I replied ‘Yes’ (I was working), but they kept insisting we should meet up. On top of all this I was getting various images sent to me from a separate email: ‘(username)@textnow.me.’ This confirmed it wasn’t a real number, and I now had a username to connect to the person.
I don’t know if it was their intention, but I actually enjoy trying to figure out sh*t like this and took it upon myself to expose this person without giving away anything about myself. So I kept it up, I texted them back for awhile and dug more and more information about the person, compiling it into a profile and eliminating possibilities. Unfortunately this just encouraged them, as they insisted I send pictures ‘Take Pics,’ ‘Pics add to the convo,’ etc. Then they sent a weird one.
A white lacy dress hanging in in their closet with the accompanying text:
‘My wedding dress for when I marry you’ (various heart and love emojis)…
They continued to pry about where I was going to be that evening, and I still refused to give details. Then they dropped where they were going to be, a party on campus that night. I couldn’t go regardless, I was working…
Then I got another bombshell. They asked if I lived in apartment 68, which I did…
I recognized the style of apartment they were in based on a picture from earlier, so I decided I’d throw a curveball. ‘You live in (this complex) right?’
‘What??’ ‘How do you know?’
Me: ‘I recognized your door’
All the sh*tty apartments had the same color door frame, which was visible in the edge of a picture they sent. The conversation kind of fizzled out here, I didn’t go to that party, and didn’t get any more texts…
Fast forward to October, the following school year, I was a senior and busy as f*ck. One evening I got a text from an unknown number.
‘Is this ___?’ (my full name)
So I played dumb, pretended like I wasn’t freaking out that after many months this person was contacting me again and I still hadn’t figured out who it was. These questions were instantly more personal and really weirded me out.
Don’t ruin the fun, not knowing who I am is part of the mystery’ ‘I won’t tell you who I am, not now, too much to lose’ ‘I don’t want you to know’ ‘Not because I’m being cruel’ ‘It’s just better if you didn’t know’…
I’m pretty tired of this sh*t, and trying to work but I do want to see if I can pick out any more details so I’m doing the bare minimum to keep this going…
This is December, the end of the semester… they proceeded to call me multiple times, I denied every call but they kept coming. I think there were 14 calls that night… I turned my phone off.
The following week I was in the class I TA’d. Students were presenting their final work on the projector and I had queued multiple tabs on the projection computer. Two different students had work on Google Drive. When the second student logged in to their account they didn’t open a private window so it logged out the first student… I saw this happen, but the first student wasn’t in the room so when she came back I asked her to re-login.
We were both standing in the projection booth, she was at one end on the computer and I was messing with the sound system on the other side, but happened to turn and look at the projector screen when she was logging in to Google. This hit me like a ton of bricks. The username she logged in with was the same username as the TextNow account that had been sending me photos. I quickly turned away and pretended to be busy with something until she finished opening her work. I thanked her and she left the booth without realizing her mistake. I tried to play it cool but inside I was going crazy for the rest of the class.
After almost a year I knew who it was. She finally slipped up, and honestly I was much more scared now than I had ever been. This person had a history of being pretty creepy around my friends, and although she had never personally interacted with me outside of class, all my friends had strange experiences…
I made a meeting with a counselor who seemed to really care and offered to look into it. A couple weeks later emailed me saying ‘This student is going abroad next semester so we’re not going to do anything’ I insisted that at least something temporary be put into place… They didn’t do anything, but what did I expect. This school is pretty notorious for not giving a sh*t.
I didn’t run into her again, she hasn’t texted me… So for the time being, that is where the story ends.
I am 22 and this incident happened a year and a half ago. I had just moved into my first apartment and was in the process of moving in. The door that led into my apartment locks itself automatically when closed. So, I was going to the entrance of the apartment complex to get my mail while talking on the phone with my boyfriend. I returned to my apartment and sat on the bed while opening the mail while using the phone, I dropped the phone on the floor and it landed under the bed so I had to lie on the floor and stretch for it. I saw something that caught my eye, there was someone under my bed… My eyes widened and I choked the urge to scream. The person under my bed was lying still with his back towards me and his head to his chest, so I couldn’t see his face. And he didn’t see me, trying to be rational while so many thoughts rushed through my head, I picked up the phone, said “Sorry I dropped my phone, I’m just gonna take a shower and call you back.”
You know that sensation you get when you can just feel someone watching you? Yeah, he had that in spades. He kept looking around the kitchen, through the doorway into the dining room, at the windows. He didn’t see anything, but he could still feel eyes on him, so he went closer to the door to try to see better. The kitchen lights were reflecting on the windows of the door (it had 3 rows of 3 windows), so he still couldn’t see. He stepped closer, then closer again, until he was right up to the door, then cupped his hands on either side of his head so he could see. There on the other side of the window pane was Dr. Ramsey, smiling back at him. He turned to yell for my older brothers, and when he looked back again, he was gone. They went out again to look for him, but didn’t see him.
About 2 seats behind me I hear these guys speaking Spanish. Now, my stepmother is Puerto Rican so while I understand a fair bit of Spanish, I don’t speak it. So i hear them talking but I don’t pay attention because it’s rude to eavesdrop & all until they say “that black girl up there” then my ears perk up. I keep my earbuds in so that they think I can’t hear them & I continue listening. What they’re saying is horrific. To paraphrase, they knew my stop (second to last one before the bus gets back to the terminal & while my stop is at the front of my neighborhood, it’s got no street lights & at this time of night, empty.) & to put it simply were planning on “snatching that piece of ass up”
