11x01: Don't Answer The Phone

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show. I used to work as an

[00:00:38] election campaign manager in a third world country back in the early 1990s. My job was pretty self-explanatory. I was in charge of a candidate's branding and running ads during election season. This job probably sounds easy, but if you understand the campaigns and elections in my

[00:00:57] country, you'll know that they tend to get very violent. My country was poor back then. It still is now. This is because the politicians have been pocketing the country's funds. For years, people in high places dominated the world of politics, so if a person of influence was

[00:01:15] running for office, the foregone conclusion was that that person was going to win. That's how rigged the system is. Due to my involvement in politics, I've come to grips with that, meaning I essentially have one foot in the grave. I've received death threats from other

[00:01:31] politicians and their parties, and I've received my fair share of criticisms. Even though all of this was part of the job, I still loved it. I still do. However, there was one event that scared me

[00:01:46] and even made me consider a career change. It all began when I was hired to work for a gubernatorial candidate who I'll be calling Casey to protect the identities of everybody involved. Casey was an honest laborer, an engineer with political aspirations. He decided to run for

[00:02:06] office because of his love for his hometown. I flew over to his province to meet with him and his wife. They had two little kids, both of whom I assumed were around 10 years old. We had a casual discussion. Casey and his wife told me all about their family,

[00:02:21] and I told them all about mine. We built this good rapport very quickly. From what I knew of the man's politics, his biggest project was land reform. He was pushing to confiscate lands from huge corporations and allocate the land to landless people and farmers.

[00:02:39] It was noble of him, so I didn't want to tell him he was playing a very dangerous game. The family of his main political rival runs a large vineyard. We'll be calling this man Brayden. Brayden's family had a stronghold on the province where Casey was running for office,

[00:02:56] having been established as a political dynasty for several decades. When campaigning season finally started, Brayden was initially ahead in voter preference polls, so I marketed Casey as a person of the masses candidate, someone who was a relatable alternative

[00:03:14] that offered a fresh perspective from the old political family. With cooperation from my staff and an aggressive marketing strategy, we were able to transform Casey from a modest one-dimensional personality into a charisma machine. The fact that he was humble and

[00:03:32] transparent led people to voice their support for him. About four months into the campaign, Casey was finally leading in the voter preference polls and seemed to be running away with the election. That was when the death threats started. My staff and I received incoming calls from random

[00:03:50] numbers telling us to stop mentioning Brayden's family in our campaign or else they would involve our families. One of my staff members even mentioned that she was being followed by a

[00:04:02] suspicious looking man on her way to work. Then, hours later, when she was about to get into her car and go home, she looked through the passenger window and noticed a gym bag in her passenger seat.

[00:04:16] The bag wasn't zipped all the way, so she was able to peek inside and saw a bulky rounded object. She also caught a glimpse of a blinking light. She immediately asked building security for

[00:04:29] assistance and a local bomb squad was called in. Fortunately, it wasn't a real bomb. It was a rice cooker with a note attached that read, next time there won't be a next time. Coinciding with that

[00:04:44] incident, I noticed a black SUV idling outside of my house every night for two weeks. It would just sit and then speed off after several minutes of inactivity. And just when I thought that it

[00:04:58] couldn't get any worse, it did. One day, I was rummaging through my mailbox and I noticed a small parcel lying beneath a pile of envelopes. It wasn't addressed to anyone, but it was marked

[00:05:10] with a black cross. When I opened it, my stomach dropped. I saw a press and seal bag and inside of it was a bullet with Casey's name carved on it. Due to the growing risks, we were advised to hold

[00:05:26] our meetings in secluded areas such as basements and classrooms. Our meetings had to be held in secret and only during the daytime. We refrained from sporting any campaign related merchandise. It was around this time that Casey hired a security team to keep him and his family safe.

[00:05:46] With election day drawing near, my team celebrated with Casey and his family at a local restaurant. A select few of my staff came since they were thankful for the opportunity to be part of the campaign. While we were chatting amongst ourselves, three masked men suddenly entered

[00:06:05] the restaurant. Without warning, they fired shots and then ran out and took off on their motorcycles. I remember I had this pinging sound in my ears as I asked if everybody was okay.

[00:06:17] To my horror, I saw Casey slumped at the table. His wife was shot as well, but she was still fighting for her life. She was rushed to the hospital but didn't make it. One of my staff

[00:06:29] members was also hit by a stray bullet in the thigh. Thankfully, it narrowly missed a major artery and he survived. In one fell swoop, our optimism turned into gloom and despair. Police and reporters swarmed the restaurant, but none of us wanted to talk. We were, understandably,

[00:06:49] not in the mood to do so. Long story short, Braden unsurprisingly won the election. It made me sick and all the hope that we had built up was completely crushed. After that horrific incident,

[00:07:03] most of my staff has relocated. They've been laying low. I moved out of the country three months later. I've been living in Europe since then, raising a family and finding success as

[00:07:14] a pharmacist. My old career just wasn't worth the risk. If I have to die, I certainly don't want it to be at the hands of somebody that I don't have any respect for. I'd rather be a smart coward than

[00:07:28] stupid and brave. To those gunmen and any other political assassins, let's not ever meet again. I've never been into dating or even being the center of attention. So when this good looking

[00:07:55] guy in my guitar class asked me for my phone number, I guess I was happy to get the attention. He seemed like a normal guy in his 20s. He liked playing saxophone and we had similar

[00:08:06] taste in music. He asked me if we could hang out one day and I agreed, so we did. We didn't do much really, we just sat down on a bench and talked. I was glad that there

[00:08:17] weren't any red flags or creepy vibes. Everything seemed normal. A few weeks later, there was a big music festival in a nearby city so I asked him if he wanted to tag along. The plan was to meet

[00:08:30] my friends there, however, they were late as usual. He offered me a bottle of water and we chatted while we waited for my friends. Once we got into the festival, he was bored. The festival

[00:08:43] was not his genre of music and he said that he had to go to a birthday party so he just decided to leave. I walked him to the train station and he asked me to give him money for the water bottle

[00:08:54] that he gave me to buy a train ticket, so I did. I just figured he wasn't interested in me anymore and walked back to the festival. I wound up hanging out with my friends and drinking for a bit,

[00:09:06] so I didn't look at my phone for a while. When I finally glanced at the phone, I noticed about 10 missed calls and several texts from this guy. He wasn't texting anything bad, he was just texting

[00:09:18] incessantly about how he liked me and he wanted to spend more time together. He wouldn't stop calling me, so I called him back to ask him to kindly stop as I was trying to spend some time

[00:09:30] with my friends. After that call, my phone was almost out of battery so I turned it off as I needed the remaining charge to call my father to collect me at the end of the night. I didn't even

[00:09:40] bother looking at my messages until the next day. When I finally looked, I found a ton of missed calls and voice messages from him. He kept telling me that he was in contact with the spirits who

[00:09:53] told him that we had to be together. I was at a celebration with my family and I couldn't follow up, but that didn't stop him from continuing to reach out. I finally had to block him. It was just

[00:10:06] too much. A few days later, some of our mutual acquaintances started to congratulate me for getting together with the guy. Yes, according to him, we were together and he was telling everyone. They were shocked when I said that he and I weren't even speaking at that point.

[00:10:23] I then started to see him on my train rides home even though we didn't live in the same area. I saw him at the bus stop, at the train stop, at the park close to my house. He wasn't even talking

[00:10:35] to me, but he kept showing up everywhere just to stare at me and follow me around. Luckily, I wasn't alone most of the time, but I was still creeped out and I was terrified that he would

[00:10:45] show up at my house. One day, one of his friends asked me why we weren't talking. I explained the situation and said that I was going to get a restraining order if his behavior didn't change.

[00:10:57] The guy left me alone after that, but he was arrested a few years later for an unrelated crime. I have since moved out of this country. I haven't heard from him since all of this happened, but

[00:11:08] at times I still feel a bit uneasy if I'm walking out in public. I can't help but feel as if he's somewhere watching me. To my classmate from guitar class who played sax and talked about

[00:11:20] the spirits, let's not meet again. I'm a 25 year old female and this story took place a couple of years ago when I was 23. I'm currently an elementary school teacher, but the summer before I got my

[00:11:44] first teaching job, I was a nanny for a family of three young children. They had two girls aged four and five and a boy who was two at the time. Now I'm from the suburbs of Boston

[00:11:58] and this family lived a couple of towns over from me. I looked after their children for four days a week each week that summer. They lived in a great neighborhood that was within walking distance of

[00:12:10] multiple playgrounds, parks, and even a zoo. Since it was summer, we spent a lot of time outside. Usually we would start our days by having breakfast, getting ready for the day, and taking

[00:12:22] a mid-morning walk. We would either walk around their neighborhood or to one of the parks nearby. One afternoon, both the kids and I were getting a little stir crazy at the house. We had spent the

[00:12:35] morning going on our walk, playing outside, and coloring on the deck while enjoying the beautiful New England summer day. Then the four-year-old girl asked me if we could go on another walk to

[00:12:48] the playground again. I was hesitant since it was later in the afternoon and closer to when their mom would be returning home, but I ultimately agreed. I pushed the two-year-old in his stroller

[00:13:00] while the girls walked alongside me. The playground that they wanted to go to was part of a nearby elementary school only a few blocks away from their house. There was a small clearing next to

[00:13:12] a neighbor's yard that we used to cut through in order to avoid trekking across the school parking lot. Since school wasn't in session, the playground was always very quiet and nearly empty every time

[00:13:25] that we went. We arrived at the clearing and the girls ran up to this small hill as I followed behind with their brother in the stroller. We arrived at the playground and the girls immediately

[00:13:37] took off running towards the slide. I took the two-year-old out of the stroller and walked around with him, following his sisters. Everything was pretty normal so far. I helped the girls get on

[00:13:49] the monkey bars, went down the slide with the baby, I did all of the usual nanny things. The playground was empty besides us, so it was a pretty peaceful afternoon. We had only been at the playground for

[00:14:03] about 10 minutes or so before a man appeared from the woods in the distance. I should mention the playground and school were surrounded by woods on one side. I'm not sure if there was some sort of

[00:14:16] trail back there or not as I never went out that far with the kids to check. Anyway, I saw the man walking out of the woods, hugging the tree line as he approached the playground where we were.

[00:14:30] As he got closer, I noticed that he was talking on the phone. Now, I didn't think too much of this at first. As I said before, we were in a good neighborhood and we had come to this playground

[00:14:41] all the time. I felt that I had no reason to think that this man was anybody other than a local passerby on a walk cutting through the woods. The man kept walking closer and closer, but I still

[00:14:56] didn't think anything of it. That is, until he stopped at a bench directly in front of the playground and sat down. I found this to be a bit odd considering that there were other benches

[00:15:09] further away from the playground, but for some reason he selected the bench closest to the children. Not only is that a bit creepy, but also who wants to have a phone conversation while

[00:15:20] sitting next to three noisy kids? I started to feel a little more uneasy because he sat there watching us and then he began to smile. I avoided eye contact with him as the kids continued to play.

[00:15:36] What happened next really set off alarm bells in my head. As he watched us, he continued to talk on his phone, but I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying at first. But then he took

[00:15:48] the phone off of his ear and held it up like he was switching from a call to a FaceTime. Not only that, but he pointed the phone directly at us. At the children, watching their movements. This is when I really started to listen to what he was saying.

[00:16:08] Yeah, I'm at the park by the elementary school. Do you see them? Yeah, I think it's a girl probably in her early 20s or so. She's with two little girls. Also a baby.

[00:16:21] My blood ran cold as he said this. He continued to hold his phone up with it pointed directly at us. He must have caught me looking because he called out to me and said, hey, how are you? Are these your kids?

[00:16:34] I didn't look at him, but I replied. No, I'm just a nanny. In hindsight, I have no idea why I even entertained the idea of replying to him. How old are they? He asked. I don't feel comfortable answering that. I replied. We're heading out anyway.

[00:16:55] This whole time his phone was still pointed directly at me and the children. I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I called to the girls to get ready to head back home.

[00:17:06] I picked up the two year old and strapped him in the stroller as the girls protested, but we just got here. Can't we play a little bit more?

[00:17:13] Trying not to show how nervous I was, I said, your mom will be home soon and we should be there when she arrives. So let's go quick so we can meet her. All the while, this man was still staring at us with his phone aimed directly at us.

[00:17:28] The stroller was a double stroller, so I put the two year old in the front seat and I asked the four year old if she wanted to ride in it.

[00:17:35] She eagerly obliged because I usually told her she was too big for the stroller, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And this creepy asshole was unrelentingly watching us.

[00:17:47] I told the five year old to hold on to the side of the stroller, then said that I was going to start my stopwatch and I would time us to see how fast we could get home.

[00:17:57] They were excited since this suddenly turned into a race or a game, so we took off.

[00:18:03] I carefully looked over my shoulder to see if the man got up to follow us, and thankfully he did not, but he was still sitting on the bench displaying us to whoever was on FaceTime.

[00:18:14] I picked up the speed and made sure that we took an alternate route back to their home just in case he started to follow us. We made it back to the house, and I quickly locked up the door behind us.

[00:18:25] The girls wanted to go out to the yard, but I was too scared, so I convinced them to stay inside and do some crafts in the kitchen. The afternoon continued as normal, and I eventually forgot about the incident.

[00:18:39] I ended up telling one of my friends about it a few days later, laughing it off, though I was thoroughly creeped out as it was happening. You know, my friend said, it sounds like he was some sort of human trafficking scout.

[00:18:53] The way he was telling the person on the phone how old he thought you were, how he asked you for the kids' ages. It makes it even more unsettling.

[00:19:01] I'm not sure of whatever happened to that guy since I never saw him again after that, but needless to say, I stopped taking the kids to that specific playground. So, to the creepy trafficking scout at the playground, let's not meet.

[00:19:13] I first met Tom when my fraternal twin sister and I were 18. She introduced him to me as her cool, older boyfriend as he was 24. They dated for 6 months about 8 years ago.

[00:19:36] The summer when they were dating was full of trips to the river, bonfires, and lots and lots of booze. The river was the main place that we would frequent together.

[00:19:48] Tom always loved to show off in general. He always had to be the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room. And he loved more than anything to show off his knife. It was an intricately engraved knife adorned with jewels that he loved to claim were genuine.

[00:20:04] He brandished this knife for any reason, whether we were walking through the woods and he wanted to cut through branches, or even if he just wanted to cut a sandwich. He loved this knife. However, Tom started to become less and less cool as the months went on.

[00:20:20] One night, I went to pick up my sister after she texted me requesting to be picked up. When I found her, she was in what I believe to be a drugged out state of mind. I begged her to come home with me, but she refused.

[00:20:36] I didn't know what to do since she had apparently had a change of heart despite her aforementioned request for a ride. We didn't know about it at the time, but Tom had substance abuse problems, which was likely the explanation for what happened that night.

[00:20:50] And believe it or not, Tom actually gets worse. One night, I had just made the 40 minute drive to my parents' house where I was living at the time. When I pulled into the driveway, I received a frantic call from my sister detailing how Tom had just attacked her.

[00:21:09] Luckily, a good Samaritan witnessed all of it, rescued my sister, and brought her to our friend Emma's house. Emma wasn't home, but her brother let my sister inside to calm down. My sister continued sobbing as she explained that Tom had just pulled up to Emma's house.

[00:21:27] Emma's brother told Tom that my sister wasn't there, but Tom remained posted on the street in front of their house. I knew that I had to get my sister out, so I pulled back out of the driveway.

[00:21:39] And I tell you, I had never driven so quickly in my life. I cut that 40 minute drive down to 20 minutes. When I pulled up to Emma's house, I could see Tom's car with the engine on right in front of the house.

[00:21:53] I turned my headlights off and crept up the side street, but stayed out of sight of Tom's car. I texted my sister, I'm here! But he's here too. You need to come outside and run. Run as fast as you can to my car.

[00:22:07] My sister exited Emma's house and booked it. She came tearing across the lawn from the back of the house. Tom immediately jumped out of his car and chased after her. I opened the passenger door open and when she tried to close it, Tom shoved his arm inside.

[00:22:23] He grabbed her and was trying to pull her out. I decided to hit the gas, and I hit it hard to get us out of there. I felt myself hit a bump in the road, but I didn't bother to stop. We had to go.

[00:22:35] We made it to a mutual friend's house that night. We stayed there on the couch, too afraid to involve our parents. We figured that they would be disappointed to know that we had been hanging out with a person like Tom.

[00:22:47] A few months after this happened, my sister cut Tom out completely. He texted her constantly, starting first with love bombing, but that morphed into threatening her. He texted me, too, telling me that he was going to sue me.

[00:23:03] Apparently that bump that I hit in the road that night was his foot, and honestly, I was delighted to hear that. I went to a party after all of this happened and ran into a girl that shared her name, which is Katie.

[00:23:15] My sister and Katie got to talking, and somehow it came up that they had both dated Tom. Katie then proceeded to pull down her shirt to expose a giant scar above her heart. She explained that Tom had stabbed her years ago in a fit of rage.

[00:23:31] She described the knife that he used, and due to how intricate and unique it was, I knew the knife right away. Katie's description of Tom's knife was an exact match for the knife that I had grown to know so well from seeing it so many times.

[00:23:51] My sister and Katie ended up messaging Tom's newest girlfriend on Facebook, explaining their experiences to inform her of the potential danger that she was in. This new girlfriend wasn't interested in hearing it. She even accused them of lying out of jealousy.

[00:24:07] Years later, I told the love of my life about this story and he responded, Are you talking about Tom F? I went to school with him. That guy was weird. He claimed that he liked to drink blood. I can't believe what a small world it is.

[00:24:27] Tom was obviously crazy, but now I know how far back it goes. To Tom, who likes to hurt women with his unique knife, let's not meet because now I like knives too. This story starts off with Sweet Baby Jenny. That's me.

[00:24:58] I was in third grade class, learning about stranger danger. We watched a video about strangers who try to bribe children with candy, toys, etc. My teacher, Mrs. Foster, made sure to tell us that we had to say no to strangers and not to go with them.

[00:25:18] I was a very picky kid. Both of my parents immigrated from Mexico and worked full-time jobs. This meant little 8 year old Jenny had to walk over 9 blocks home, alone. My older sister was in middle school at the time.

[00:25:30] She went to an entirely different school, so I always had to walk alone. But I was very familiar with my route and felt confident. Since my sister wasn't walking with me, I was at liberty to do whatever I wanted.

[00:25:46] If I wanted to stay 30 minutes after school to run around the playground, I could. I never thought about the fact that staying late meant that my route, which was typically heavily populated by other kids, would be completely deserted. One day when I was making my way home,

[00:26:02] I was totally oblivious to the fact that I was being followed by a white van. We were near a corner store. The van pulled over and a man got out. I was walking to go to the store, but I was wrong.

[00:26:18] This guy came up to me and told me that he had a puppy and he asked if I wanted to see it. Now most kids would ordinarily react, Yay! A puppy! I, on the other hand, thought this had to be Mrs. Foster testing me on stranger danger.

[00:26:34] I was proud of myself for seeing this situation for what it was and knew that it was my time to shine. The other van was a friend of hers who was in on her plan. I responded, No, I don't like dogs. Which was a lie. I love dogs.

[00:26:54] The man offered, Okay, well, I have lots of candy in my van. Come in and get some. I always had a bag of hot Cheetos on me because snacks are necessary. I whipped out my Cheeto bag and declared, I have my own snacks!

[00:27:10] I'm killing the stranger danger test! The man again told me that he had a dog and insisted that I needed to see it, to which I responded, I don't see a dog. He then pointed to his pants and said, It's in here. Being innocent and sweet,

[00:27:30] not picking up on his disgusting, creeper reference, I responded, You can't pull dogs out of your pocket. I was thrilled. I couldn't wait for Mrs. Foster to tell the entire class that I passed her stranger danger test.

[00:27:46] As I was starting to walk away, the man switched gears and claimed, Your mom is in the hospital. She just asked me to pick you up and we need to go now. She's sick. She needs you to come with me.

[00:27:58] I was thinking this was a test and I knew this was how I was finally going to get him. I responded, She's at work. Yeah, she got into an accident. She asked me to pick you up. I asked, So she told you to pick me up from school?

[00:28:14] He replied, Yes. We need to go. Get in the van. I certainly had him this time. Assuming it was, at last, my time to shine, I said, Oh yeah? Well, my mom is Mexican and she doesn't speak English and she doesn't have any English

[00:28:30] speaking friends so you're lying. He missed so I ran down the block where I saw some other kids playing. I recognized one of my classmates and I told her what happened. Her mom overheard me and walked us the rest of the way home. Even after I got home,

[00:28:50] I was still oblivious to the danger that I was in. I walked in, heated up my hot pocket, and turned on Nickelodeon. I didn't say a word about this encounter to anyone at my house,

[00:29:02] but you better believe the next day when I went to school, I gave Mrs. Foster the good news. I let her know that I passed her test. She looked confused as I told her my story. She let me know that she was not testing me.

[00:29:14] She then called the school's resource officers and my parents. I got to talk to a nice police officer who asked me some questions about this stranger. The officer gave me a sticker and told me that I did awesome. I never heard anything else about

[00:29:30] the strange man, but after that, I was no longer allowed to walk home by myself. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I believed the man's story about my mom and got into that van. I'm thankful that I didn't. So to the creepy man who tried

[00:29:46] to lure 8-year-old me into his van with a dog, candy, and even my mom, let's not meet again. I'm from a quiet suburban area in northern Illinois. My dad and I lived in a one-story ranch style home. Not a lot of chaos occurred in our neighborhood

[00:30:18] as most of our neighbors were elderly. So, sleeping with the windows and blinds open during the summer months was always something that we felt safe doing. This story occurred when I was around 16. I regularly stayed up past midnight enjoying my alone time and binging everything on YouTube.

[00:30:38] I was taking full advantage of the whole no responsibilities situation that comes with the summer months. On this particular night, it was just a little past 3am. I sat on my bed with both of my windows open, enjoying the cool summer breeze. My attention was locked on my

[00:30:58] laptop until my phone started to buzz. I looked over to see an incoming call coming through. The number didn't look familiar, but had the area code and town that I lived in. Being 16, my curiosity shined through as I was

[00:31:14] receiving a call at this hour. I grabbed my phone and answered, hello? A couple of seconds passed without a response, so I spoke out again, hello? At last, a voice came through and asked, can I speak with your mother

[00:31:30] or father? I felt the color drain from my face as my heart rate increased. I lived with just my dad, so the question was just a bit off-putting. After quickly composing myself, I defaulted to politeness and replied,

[00:31:46] no one else is awake right now, may I take a message? Yeah, tell your parents that they don't get me my money by tonight I'm coming to your house and blowing your family's heads off. I immediately hung up without bothering to acknowledge what was just

[00:32:04] said. I ran out of my room. Anxiety filled my body as I ran directly to my dad's room. I shook him awake with tears in my eyes. I managed to get some words out through the shakiness of my voice to explain the situation.

[00:32:20] Having no idea who could have been on the other end of the phone, my dad assured me that we were going to be fine. He then picked up the phone and called the police. While waiting for the cops

[00:32:32] to arrive, we walked around the house, hunched over, trying our best to stay out of view as we shut all of the windows and lowered the blinds. Once the cops arrived at our house, they asked to see my phone.

[00:32:44] They decided to call the number back, and of course, to nobody's surprise, there was no answer. They left a message and that was that. The police told us there wasn't much else they could do on their end,

[00:32:56] but they said if I received another call, I should let them know. After they left, I was still so scared and anxious. Was what the caller said not enough of a threat? Was blowing our heads off really not a threat?

[00:33:12] Couldn't they at least have tracked the phone number? I guess it wasn't of any importance until someone actually had their heads blown off. I felt that calling the police was pointless. Since my sense of security has been violated,

[00:33:28] now I sleep with my windows shut and locked, and my blinds are always drawn once the sun goes down. To the mysterious caller who threatened me with a gunshot to the head, let's never meet. A couple of summers ago, I was

[00:33:48] attending a family wedding out of town for a cousin of mine. The night before the wedding, a large group of wedding attendees were celebrating in the bar in the hotel lobby. We were having a grand old time until I noticed that one man with glasses

[00:34:04] had been bumping into me repeatedly over the last half hour. His bumping was not an innocent gesture. Instead, it felt a little more like, whoops, I fell into your chest with my hands. My classic female internal response had been guarding the integrity of this guy

[00:34:20] presuming he was a drunk friend of my cousin's. But I finally snapped and asked the man if he needed help with anything. I didn't want to appear rude or cause trouble during my cousin's big weekend, but he didn't answer me. He just blankly stared at me,

[00:34:36] unresponding, so I knew that something was off. I quickly learned from another woman around me at the bar that I wasn't alone in these interactions, so a friend of mine pulled him aside and firmly told him to leave the bar, and that this behavior was not tolerated.

[00:34:52] It seemed like he left, so we carried on, drinking with family and friends that had joined us. Twenty minutes later, I looked next to me and this dude returned. He was staring me square in the face again.

[00:35:04] My friend reminded the guy about the talk we just had with him minutes prior. The dude finally decided to speak his first words of the night, and they were directed at me. Without breaking his stare, he called me a whore.

[00:35:16] Now, I'm not a whore, and that's beside the point. I was amazed that this creep had a voice and dared to challenge me. I asked him just to confirm, what did you say to me? He stammered, slowly repeating himself. I replied, that's what I thought

[00:35:32] you said. Then I punched him several times, right there in the bar in front of my whole family and their friends. He fell to the ground, and his glasses flew off and broke. He was quickly removed from the bar by two other wedding guests, acting

[00:35:48] as bouncers during this situation. By the time we were able to inform the front desk about what was going on in the bar, he was long gone. I wish that he was apprehended by the police, but everything happened

[00:36:00] so quickly. That night was pretty monumental for me. It was the first time I had hit someone since I was a kid. I was 28 when this happened, and punching anyone was 100% out of character for me. The scene plays out more heroically in my mind, since it

[00:36:16] was the first time I ever felt compelled to respond to unwanted sexual attention. Like many women, I have experienced unwanted sexual attention in many forms. I've experienced verbal abuse with cat calls, mental abuse with manipulation, and even physical abuse. I've never reacted to these

[00:36:32] instances before. Whenever something happens, I generally feel powerless and paralyzed. I'm not sure, maybe it was the several glasses of liquid courage, the fabulous jumpsuit that I was wearing that night, or the support of my friends, but I was ready to kick this guy's

[00:36:48] ass. I'm glad I reacted and stood up for myself, and all the other women who were being groped by that guy at the bar. The bottom line here is remember your voice, stand up for yourself if someone is taking advantage of you,

[00:37:00] never worry about being rude, and resorting to violence doesn't usually need to be the answer, but every once in a while, it sure feels justified. To the pervy guy who left the bar with broken glasses that night, let's not

[00:37:12] meet again. Who knows what object of yours I'll break next time. I'm a 32 year old gay male who's huge into Power Rangers and anime. I've played Pokemon for as long as I can remember, so you can imagine my excitement when Pokemon Go was released.

[00:37:44] I played the game for years, but it got to the point where it would be better to play with other players. The park that is local to me is called Cogshall Park. It's a beautiful park, with a huge

[00:37:56] pond in the middle of a wraparound trail that has a gazebo that looks over the pond. I found out that a lot of Pokemon Go players gathered here to play, so I set out to find some friends

[00:38:08] to play with. I found this group of people who were really into it. They had a club name, a website, and a discord server to coordinate meetups. I befriended everyone in this group and I was with them almost all summer back in 2019.

[00:38:24] We regularly got together early in the morning and usually stayed out pretty late. Sometimes, almost dawn the following day. We would just walk around town catching, trading, and battling Pokemon. There was this boy in the group who I would later develop a huge crush on.

[00:38:40] We'll call him Hector. Hector was the most popular one in the group. Of course, he was drop dead gorgeous with hazel eyes and a semi-built body with a Spanish accent. He's Puerto Rican mixed with Persian. I was head over heels with him.

[00:38:56] But I'm the type to not act on my feelings, so I admired him from afar. One of the admins of our group ended up getting married and moving away, so I was asked to fill in as admin.

[00:39:08] That meant spending a lot of time with Hector, so of course I wasn't going to turn that down. One day Hector asked me to come over and help him update our website and to do some house cleaning on our discord server. He wanted anyone that hadn't been active

[00:39:24] in 30 days or more to be removed from the server. I went over to his place and we got to work. We had been so busy working that I didn't even notice the time, and suddenly it was very

[00:39:36] late. It was like 2am. I told Hector I needed to be heading home and suggested that we finish up the next day. To my surprise he asked me to stay the night. As I said before, this guy was

[00:39:48] gorgeous and I was crushing on him hard, so this wasn't an offer I was going to refuse. So we got ready for bed. I laid down on his huge bean bag that he had in his room. A giraffe could

[00:40:00] literally fit on that thing. After about an hour of shooting the shit and not going to sleep, Hector said, I've noticed the way that you look at me. Do you like me? This was completely unexpected so I understandably froze. I struggled with how to proceed.

[00:40:16] I wasn't sure if I should tell him the truth, so in the end I just told him, it's complicated. I was very self-conscious about myself and thought, how could someone like him like somebody like me? He could tell that I was in my thoughts, so

[00:40:32] he asked me to explain, so I did. The last thing that he said during this conversation was I like you too. Long story short, Hector and I started spending a lot more time together and eventually ended up in a relationship.

[00:40:44] Things started to take a turn a few months later at the end of the summer, sometime around September. A new girl who we'll call Emily moved to our area in New York City and she joined our Pokemon Go group. Hector and I weren't much for PDA

[00:41:00] but it was very obvious that we were dating. Emily approached me one day and asked me if Hector was seeing anyone. I said yeah, Hector and I are a couple. She was really surprised and the only thing that she could manage to say in response was, really?

[00:41:16] Despite the fact that I provided Emily with clarification about Hector's romantic status, I noticed that she would blatantly throw herself at him. She was always sitting on his lap, hugging him from behind, calling him daddy. This started to

[00:41:32] annoy me, like a lot. I had to have a talk with Hector about it. He just called it harmless fun. That same day it was one of our group member's birthdays, so we headed to his house. Emily wound up getting sloppy drunk

[00:41:48] and I mean sloppy drunk. At some point in the night, when she was on Hector's lap again, she suddenly landed the messiest wettest kiss I had ever seen on Hector's lips. I was sitting right next to him. This threw me into a rage. I got

[00:42:04] up from where I was sitting, grabbed Emily and pulled her off of Hector's lap. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone laying a finger on a woman but that absolutely set me off. I looked at Hector and said we gotta go, now. I didn't say a word

[00:42:20] to Hector as we made our way to his apartment because he had all the opportunity in the world to push her off but he didn't. We talked about her earlier that day so he knew exactly how

[00:42:32] I felt about her sitting on his lap. He was trying to apologize but I wasn't having it. We finally got to his place and his phone started ringing. It was another member of our group. He picked up and all I could hear was Emily screaming

[00:42:48] Hector's name with a blood-curdling scream in the background. I looked at Hector, told him to handle it, then rolled over to go to sleep. A few days later we were all hanging out at our usual spot when Emily showed up and ran toward Hector.

[00:43:04] She literally tried to land another kiss on him. This time Hector stopped her in her tracks and told her that she can't do it. Then Emily turned, looked at me, called me a slur and then stormed off. We recovered briefly

[00:43:20] and then continued playing Pokemon Go. It was community day which was a pretty big event. I had to work later that night so I asked Hector to take me home to pick up my car so I could get to work.

[00:43:32] I worked at GameStop at the time and was scheduled to work during a midnight release. Once Hector took me home I got into my car and headed home. After I worked the midnight release

[00:43:44] I was closing up the store when out of the corner of my eye I saw something at the display window. It was Emily. She was staring at me with this menacing look on her face.

[00:43:56] I went to the door and asked her if she was okay and she just stared at me without saying a word so I closed the door and said Okay, crazy. When I turned my back after locking the door she started to scream at the top of her lungs

[00:44:12] while punching and kicking the door. I pressed the panic button for the police on my phone and immediately video called Hector to show him what Emily was doing. He just said, I'm coming and then hung up. Then the police called to ask if I pressed

[00:44:28] the panic button. I told them that I did and I put them on speaker so that they could hear what was going on. The dispatcher told me that somebody would arrive literally in seconds as a police officer was cruising through the Walmart parking lot

[00:44:40] next door doing some routine checks. Soon after a female police officer showed up, caught Emily in the act restrained her and put her in the back of a cruiser. A few minutes later Hector showed up and hung out until I was done closing up.

[00:44:56] We headed back to my place and I told him everything that happened. I also told him that I wanted her out of the group and away from us. The next day I removed her from the social apps of the group and filed

[00:45:08] a restraining order against her. A few weeks went by and Hector was away for his sister's wedding in Puerto Rico. He went solo since I couldn't get the time off of work to go with him. We hadn't heard or seen anything from Emily since. But suddenly

[00:45:24] I got a random friend request on Facebook. This happens all of the time since I help run the popular Pokemon group. I get about 20-25 requests a week. I accepted the friend request without even thinking about it. Then I got up from my bed to feed

[00:45:40] my sugar gliders. It took me about 10 minutes to wash their food bowls, get their food out of the freezer and feed them. By the time I got back to my phone I had about 20 messages on Facebook Messenger. I opened the messages

[00:45:56] and they were photos. Photos of me feeding my sugar gliders. Now I have a 3 story home. When I feed my sugar gliders I have to go down the stairs and take a right into the kitchen. Immediately to the right is the door to my living room. I installed

[00:46:12] a sliding blind door to prevent my dogs from going into the living room at night. So this meant I had to open that to walk into the living room. Then to the left there's a wall with a door

[00:46:24] at the very end that connects to a closed off porch. I put the cage for my sugar gliders in front of that door since I don't use it. Right next to the glider's cage there are 2 windows with about 6 feet of space between them.

[00:46:40] I could tell that those 2 windows were where the photos of me feeding my sugar gliders were taken. I ran to the window and looked but nobody was outside. I walked to the front door to go outside and when I looked

[00:46:52] to the left where my cars were parked, my car was destroyed. Somebody had written all over it but not with a pen with a sharp object like a key or a screwdriver. I immediately called the police and they showed up 30 minutes later. I showed them the photos

[00:47:08] that I got on Facebook Messenger and the damage that was done to my car but all they said was that they couldn't do much since we had no proof it was Emily. After the police left I

[00:47:20] called Hector to vent to him about what happened and after I finished talking to him I just went to bed. A few days after that Hector was back. We went to Walmart and bought a security system to install in my home and Hector's home. Then

[00:47:36] months went by without any incident, that is until we were at the usual hangout spot. Somebody said Hey isn't that Emily? Sure enough she was screaming and yelling that Hector assaulted her and beat her. Her clothes were muddy, dirty, ripped and ragged and her

[00:47:56] hair was all gross and matted. Other people that were in the park called the police and Hector was arrested due to her severe allegations against him but he was let go later that day since come to find out

[00:48:08] Emily is supposed to be medicated but she had been off of her meds for months. She had been unhinged since she moved away from New York City. Emily's parents explained everything to us. They said

[00:48:20] that Emily had been missing for weeks and from the looks of it she was living in the woods of the park where we would hang out so that she could watch us. Where she had been staying in the woods she had water bottles

[00:48:32] that Hector drank out of and his sandals that went missing from months ago. She also had some of his hats, shirts and even two sweatshirts of his. Emily has been in the hospital ever since and Hector and I

[00:48:44] are still together to this day. We also still play Pokemon Go. So to the very unhinged Emily from New York City let's never meet again. Thanks for listening to Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Don't forget to stick around after the music if you're a

[00:49:10] patron for your extended ad free version of this week's episode and if you'd like to get access to that and a bunch of other ad free bonus content head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up

[00:49:22] and support the show today. This week you have heard The Campaign by Zee, The Spirits Told Him We Had To Be Together by Sarah, He Was Scouting Us by Rachel, Tom's Knife by Anonymous, It Wasn't a Test by Ginny, Unknown Caller After 3am by

[00:49:38] Gabriela, What Did You Say to Me by Betty Cross and finally When Pokemon Go Becomes Pokemon No by O'Neil. All of the stories you've heard this week narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet

[00:49:54] a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you have a story to share send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, My True Paranormal Podcast,

[00:50:10] Welcome to Paradise It Sucks as well as the Old Time Radiocast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you all next week. Stay safe.