11x23: The Neighbor Who Stalks Me

[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. For privacy reasons, I'm changing some information so as not to give away my location.

[00:00:45] Other than that, the rest of the story is 100% true. I'm a long-time lurker and first-time story sharer. The story happened back in November 2019. For some background, I'm a 20-year-old female and

[00:01:01] I live with my family. I go to a religious meeting twice a week with my family, and we have been going to these meetings forever. We had never experienced any problems before, so this type of situation was new to us. This new man began attending our meetings,

[00:01:19] and of course, he was welcomed. To describe him, he was in his 40s or 50s, and he kept himself relatively well-groomed. He would stand near the lobby doors, but just stare at whoever was around.

[00:01:35] Quite quickly, I noticed that he didn't really talk to anyone, and conversations he engaged in ended rather fast. As an antisocial person, I never paid much attention to it, nor did I ever

[00:01:48] attempt conversation. I just let him be. One day, about two weeks after he started coming around, he came up to me and began talking to my younger sister and me. We were in the front in the

[00:02:02] opposite corner from where he was standing in the back, and he made a beeline straight to us. I had no idea who he was, and of all days, this was the day I decided to be conversational.

[00:02:17] I had a normal enough conversation with him, while my younger sister barely said a word. He glanced over at her and asked which of us was the tallest. With all my pride, I declared that I

[00:02:28] was. Then he asked who was the second tallest. I'm second oldest of four children. My older sister wasn't there, so the only other option left was my younger sister and my brother, and my brother, who was three feet tall. They were clearly the shortest.

[00:02:48] I remember sarcastically thinking, take a wild guess. Then he was quiet for a few seconds, and my awkward self decided that I was done with interacting with people for the day, but before I could part ways, he piped up and asked,

[00:03:05] What do you do to your sister when she gets too shy? After my sister and I exchanged very confused glances, I asked, what? He said, Yeah, when she's too shy, what do you do? Do you ever just shake her?

[00:03:26] I laughed it off awkwardly and replied, um, no. My sister and I were a bit weirded out after that, I was mostly confused as that was one of the strangest conversations that I have ever had.

[00:03:41] I started to just brush it off when a friend of ours who saw him talking to us came over. Our friend warned, I don't know all the details and I don't want to make a big deal,

[00:03:54] but try not to engage with that guy and keep your younger brother away from him. Apparently, our friend knew him before we did, so we took her advice. At the time, there was nothing to be super concerned about, but we were fine with steering clear of him.

[00:04:13] And for the sake of my baby brother, who was 5 at the time, we wanted to protect him. Later on, my brother was going to the coat room, and that same guy stopped him and tried talking

[00:04:25] to him. He kept trying to give my brother a high five, and he was leaning in rather close. My brother is very shy, but he's also a total boss. He wasn't having any of this,

[00:04:39] and he was blatantly trying to get away from the man. I don't know what came over me, but within a quarter of a second, I was by my brother's side. And I was like,

[00:04:50] oh, I better go with him to get his coat. The man glared at me and asked, I repeated that we were going to get his coat. I wanted to give this man the benefit of the doubt,

[00:05:03] so I didn't consider this interaction for very long, but I did acknowledge that it was creepy. The next few times we saw him, he made little attempt to interact with me, so I figured that was it. He continued to stand at the lobby doors during meetings,

[00:05:22] but he was now equipped with this device that looked like a giant Bluetooth with a green light. He had this device strapped around his head, and it would beep occasionally. I assumed that it

[00:05:36] was an old school Bluetooth device of some sort, but I found that this new accessory made fewer people interested in interacting with him. I thought that it was funny that he had something

[00:05:48] that seemed a little cumbersome on his head, but I was still uneasy when he was around, since he would stare at me almost the entire time. And I mean stare. He would always have this creepy

[00:06:00] smile plastered on his face as he followed me around. I was freaked out, and my friends started to make a bigger deal about how cautious we needed to be around him. One night, I had a few

[00:06:15] of my friends over, and they revealed that the device on the man's head was actually a camera. I was horrified. This meant that he was videotaping people in public places without

[00:06:27] their consent. Now, many of you might say that what we did next was idiotic, but we were just a bunch of young girls. We found his Instagram profile, and we decided to follow him so that

[00:06:40] we could see it, and then unfollow him. That's all we wanted to do. When we searched for him, we discovered that he had three profiles. They were all set to private. One of my friends made

[00:06:54] another profile, and he accepted her follow. We scrolled through his profile, and the captions on his posts were so odd, but we continued to scroll through to fulfill our curiosity and

[00:07:06] have fun. But pretty soon, he sent us a message. We all flipped out as he asked questions such as our exact location and age. He kept trying to video call us on Instagram, but there was no

[00:07:21] way that we were going to pick up. The last straw for us was when he said, You were really a good person. You would show yourself. It's not like I'm touching you.

[00:07:34] It's only video. That was definitely it for me. It was the full-fledged proof that I needed to confirm that he was a creep. And with that, we deleted the account. My friend Edna, she said that

[00:07:50] it was evident from our conversation that he had a thing for younger girls and seemed to be looking for a wife. And this made me shiver. The way that he spoke to us on Instagram was so robotic

[00:08:04] and demanding for information. He made us feel like just because he was talking to us, we were automatically obligated to give him exactly what he wanted. So I made sure that my sister,

[00:08:16] my brother, and I were never in a place where we would have to be alone with him. And after that, the creepiness continued. He kept on attending meetings where he would be videotaping me while staring at me intently. He made it very clear that I was his target.

[00:08:34] Edna's family was pretty familiar with him and from their explanation, it seemed like he essentially creeped women out to death and then he would eventually ask them out. He has followed women home on more than one occasion. Once he fixates on someone,

[00:08:52] he basically gives them the works and he was pretty notorious for it. Meanwhile, I was getting more scared by the day and I always dreaded going to these twice-weekly church meetings. He would follow me around every single time and my heart seized whenever I saw his

[00:09:11] eyes. My friends made a joke of it and they said that it was only a matter of time. I don't blame them for cracking jokes since they didn't know the whole story, but at least they would block me sometimes when they caught him staring at me.

[00:09:28] My friend's dads attempted to distract the man and obscure his view of me and my friends, but he would ignore them and move just so that he could keep staring at me. He ordinarily only spoke to women and children and he would show nearly no emotion or acknowledgement

[00:09:47] when men tried to speak to him. It was so odd. Just picture a man trying to talk to a wax figure. I started to hate myself for not calling this man out on his behavior, but to put it into context,

[00:10:01] whenever he did anything, it was like pouring cold water into my veins. All I could do was stand there, frozen. It finally reached a boiling point when one day, he got far too close to me.

[00:10:15] Before we went to church that day, I was internally so scared to see him, but I just didn't want to tell my parents. When we got there, he was actually in closer proximity to me than usual,

[00:10:28] and I was getting a workout from constantly moving to avoid him. Eventually my mom, Edna, Edna's mom, and I were all in the coat room, which is a pretty open space on the side of the lobby.

[00:10:43] I started shoving my mom out of the coat room when I saw him approaching and from the corner of my eye, I noticed that he was rushing. I gave my mom one more little push,

[00:10:54] but then he grabbed my arm and yanked me for about six or seven feet backward until we were in the middle of the coat room. He didn't yank my arm in an angry way. It was more like he finally caught

[00:11:09] me and was reeling me in. I turned to look at him and couldn't help but think that his eyes were something that I wouldn't mind gouging out. I hated the way that he made me feel when he looked

[00:11:21] at me or talked to me. As we were standing in the middle of the coat room, he asked me something, but I can't even remember what it was. I just remember responding quickly and trying to free

[00:11:33] myself, but he was still holding on. He had this knowing look on his face the entire time, but I proceeded to shake myself free. Then, I had to take my mom outside since my mama bear was

[00:11:46] ready to draw blood. Edna's mom asked me if I was okay, but I couldn't give her a sufficient response since I had too much on my mind. My dad was in the car with the rest of my siblings,

[00:11:57] unaware of what was happening. I begged my mom to get to the car before the man came outside because I was scared that he might follow us home. We quickly left. We almost never get fast food,

[00:12:08] but I'm so glad that my dad decided to take us to McDonald's after that. I went inside McDonald's with my brother while the rest of the family stayed in the car to hear the story of what just happened. Not even 10 minutes later, my mom barged into McDonald's

[00:12:24] and told me to go back to the car while she waited for the food. I was confused. I thought that she was mad at us for taking too long. I even internally huffed, fine, apparently you think I can't carry a

[00:12:38] Happy Meal and fries by myself. Now in the middle of my internal gripe, I turned and there he was with his portable camera. He was waving while pointing his camera directly at me. He had the

[00:12:51] camera mounted on his head. So wherever his head turned, that's where the camera was facing. I looked over at my mom when I finally realized why she came in so fast. He followed us from our church meeting to the McDonald's and parked right next to us.

[00:13:09] When my mom saw him, she hurried inside. We then left as quickly as we could, giving him no time to leave the line and come follow us. I was very shaken. I didn't know what to do. I was terrified

[00:13:20] that he would follow us home. We ended up skipping the next meeting and then exactly one week later, after the McDonald's incident, we went back. We arrived at this meeting later than usual and when we got there, I saw his car. I immediately thought, great, now what?

[00:13:39] But when we went inside, he wasn't there. Turns out, the day that we were not there, he was interacting with the kids in very inappropriate ways. It was the first time the parents weren't hovering over their children in weeks so they were being videotaped. He was

[00:13:57] constantly looking for excuses to touch them and he was hugging them for far too long. That was the very last straw for everyone there. Since we arrived late, we didn't realize that he

[00:14:11] was barred from coming in. He was told that he was perfectly welcome to come in, only if he took the camera off. He got aggressive and threatened violence so the police were called. I can't

[00:14:24] confirm where he is now, I've heard that he's still out and about but let's just say that he's not coming back to our church meetings anytime soon. I'm just so glad that it's done. I'm still getting

[00:14:36] a feeling that sometimes he's watching me but for the most part, I've been able to get back to normal. To finish up the story, I want to put it out there that no one should ever judge a victim's actions.

[00:14:50] In an ideal world, showing creeps who's the boss is something I definitely strive for and advocate for but before you ask someone why they didn't react in a certain way, understand that sometimes it's impossible. A lot of people may feel prepared for these moments but sometimes when something

[00:15:10] goes down, the only thing you can do is nothing. Sometimes people don't react in situations because they're afraid of how the people around them will react. Whether we like it or not, people always

[00:15:23] ask victims of harassment what they were doing. Although I got a lot of support, there were one or two people who alleged that if I didn't look in his direction, none of this would have happened

[00:15:37] which is very illogical. So to make the world a better place, stand up for the people who are shackled by fear. If you can't do something then support them and if you're the one experiencing it,

[00:15:52] tell the right people. Don't ever think that your normal actions had anything to do with inviting something to happen and most importantly, stay safe. I've never spoken about this to anyone,

[00:16:22] not even my parents or any of my friends. I'm a 22 year old male and this happened when I was 14 through to the age of 15. My friends and I would always hang out at the local mall during our free

[00:16:36] time. One day, I arrived earlier than my friends and I was waiting for a seating area to clear in the food court. There were a couple of couches around this area so it was a common area for people

[00:16:49] to come and sit. So after I sat down, I didn't really notice this but a man came over and sat on the couch across from me. I was sitting and looking at my phone not paying attention until he spoke up

[00:17:04] and said something along the lines of, do you come here often? I looked up to see the man who appeared to be in his late 50s or early 60s. I told him that I often came to this mall with my friends

[00:17:18] and he introduced himself. I still remember his first name as it was the same as my dad's. I did not get a weird feeling from this man initially. He seemed normal enough and I honestly

[00:17:31] had no reason to be weirded out by someone like him. So I told him my name and we started to make small talk. I'm a sociable person and have been since a young age so I was fine with talking

[00:17:44] to somebody who I assumed was just an older man wanting someone else to talk to himself. He asked me what I like to do and I said that I enjoyed going to the local lake to fish and swim.

[00:17:56] He said he enjoyed the same. I also said I enjoyed making music. He said that he enjoyed the same. I shared that I was an avid piano player and then he excitedly told me that he had a piano at his

[00:18:10] house. Now there are a few other things I mentioned and he said that he enjoyed every single one of them. It all felt normal at first but as we continued to talk I just got this weird feeling.

[00:18:24] It was almost like he was trying to prove something and win me over with everything he was saying. He said he had a boat at the lake and suggested that we should go there sometime.

[00:18:37] He even let me know that he lived right across the street from the mall. Now even though we had just met he said that I was welcome to stop by and play piano anytime.

[00:18:49] He went as far as telling me the exact complex that he lived in and how to get there from the mall. He even said that if I wanted to I could go over to his place that very day to play his piano.

[00:19:04] With every passing minute I felt like he was trying harder and harder to get me to leave and to hang out with him. Then the weirdest primitive instinctual feeling took over.

[00:19:18] It was like I was reacting to being in the face of evil. After 10 minutes of talking with him I had to lie and tell him that my friends had arrived and I was going to find them. He somewhat sadly said okay and wished me well.

[00:19:35] A couple of weeks went by and my friends and I returned to the mall once again. We were all walking through the mall when out of the corner of my eye I saw the same man. He was in a hoodie walking past us in the opposite direction.

[00:19:50] He and I locked eyes for a split second and my heart immediately dropped. I didn't look back and honestly I forgot about it soon after. For months every time I returned to that mall I would be reminded of him as I kept seeing him there.

[00:20:07] Although I saw him often I kept brushing it off as a coincidence. A lot of people were regulars at that mall. I really didn't think too much of seeing him as he never spoke again after the first day I met him. I would just occasionally

[00:20:24] have sightings of him and he'd always be looking at me when I spotted him. I was naive even though I had a semi-weird feeling every time I saw him and just brushed it off

[00:20:36] until one day. I went to the mall with my friends. We hung out for a few hours before leaving and going our separate ways. But when I got home I went to my room. Nobody else was home and

[00:20:49] I was by myself for a couple of hours. My mom got home at around 7 or 8 and came into my room looking very worried. She asked me if I noticed a man outside. I said no and then she showed me her

[00:21:04] phone. We have two security cameras, one in the front of the house and one in the back. About 20 minutes after I got home someone approached our house. We lived off of a very

[00:21:16] busy street and there's a wall out front that blocks a majority of the view of the street. On the security footage we did not see a car park or anything, we just saw a man walking up to our

[00:21:30] house from the street. The camera was located near our front door looking out into the driveway. As he got closer I realized that it was the same man whom I had seen at the mall.

[00:21:43] Immediately I felt sick. I watched him approach the house and then look through the glass of the front door. He walked over to the side of our house near our driveway and left the view

[00:21:56] of the camera. I remember that he didn't show up on any of the footage from the back camera so he must have just stayed on the side of our house for a bit. My room wasn't located on the side

[00:22:11] of the house where he was so I had no idea what he was doing. He then came back around and looked through the front door again before walking away. I don't know if I was just too

[00:22:22] embarrassed or scared to say anything but I said that I didn't notice him. I also said that I didn't recognize him. My mother found it weird that he was looking at our house but ultimately

[00:22:36] assumed that he must have been transient or something. Since we live off of a busy street with a bus stop right in front of our house we just went with that theory. After this happened

[00:22:48] my dad added more security cameras outside to deter people from walking up. I never admitted to seeing him before being shown our security footage but after he showed up at my house it

[00:23:01] confirmed my strange feelings and my suspicions that he was following me around. I don't know what his intentions were. He never came back to the house and we moved to a different part of the city

[00:23:14] not too long after. When we moved I was too far away to go to that mall again. I haven't seen him since and I wish to never see him again. During my sophomore year of high school I was unfortunately involved in a school shooting.

[00:23:44] It happened during lunchtime and I'll never forget the chaos that unfolded in front of me. Right before the bell rang I heard what sounded like somebody slamming lockers as hard as they could. The noise echoed through the halls and before anyone could think a kid ran down the

[00:24:02] hall screaming, he's got a gun! Now mind you it was close to the end of the year so sadly a lot of us thought that it was a messed up senior prank. The reason I say this is because over the

[00:24:16] past few months there were students posting on Facebook saying that they were going to shoot up the school. As a result out of the abundance of caution the school had police officers in our classrooms guarding us non-stop throughout the second semester so when this actually happened

[00:24:35] we didn't know if it was real or fake. Our security guard who was previously a sniper in the military ran down the hallway to see what was happening. Not even a minute later he came

[00:24:47] running back to tell us to make a run for it and we did. Kids were jumping over tables and they were jumping over each other as teachers were trying to pull kids into their classrooms. All hell broke

[00:24:59] loose the moment we realized this meant life or death but all I could think about was where's my sister? She had left for the bathroom moments before the first shot rang out and I remember

[00:25:13] not knowing what to do. Was I supposed to find her first or hide from the gunman who was coming straight for me? Instinct took over and I ran. I ran as fast as I could up the stairs and into my

[00:25:27] fourth period classroom. The teacher had sent a student out to see what was going on but I intercepted him and rushed us both inside the classroom telling him to lock the door. I remember

[00:25:39] everybody staring at me wondering what was going on and that's when the principal got on the intercom and said something I'll never forget. This is a code red teachers hide your students. I repeat

[00:25:52] hide your students this is not a drill. I didn't have to say a word after that and the classroom I ran into took action. We barricaded the door with desks and chairs after pulling in as many students

[00:26:06] as we could. The teacher told us to turn off all the sounds on our devices but told us to text our parents. When I did my mom happened to be right around the corner from the school and she raced

[00:26:18] over despite me telling her it was not safe. I felt like I could have gotten my mom killed that day and I still regret telling her since she came right away though she remained safe. Everything

[00:26:33] was a blur after that. I remember my sister texting me to tell me that she was safe but the gunman was trying to get into the classroom that she was in. I remember hearing the SWAT team clearing the

[00:26:46] hallways and hearing about there being multiple suspects on the radio but none of them could be found. I remember seeing multiple snapchats posted by my schoolmates of teachers guarding classroom doors ready to take action. Some had scissors while others had a bat or some other kind of

[00:27:06] sporting equipment. Seeing the camaraderie over social media was slightly wholesome but a school of people should never have to defend themselves against angry classmates with guns. That was something that should have never happened especially on a day when our collective guard

[00:27:25] seemed to be down. We were in lockdown from 1 45 to 10 pm that night. As far as I know the shooters were never found and miraculously nobody was fatally injured. Thank god. Once we were cleared to evacuate, walking out and seeing food and papers scattered in the hallways was rough.

[00:27:48] Everyone had to have their hands up in the air as we walked out of the school and before going outside we were patted down to make sure that we didn't have any concealed weapons. My parents hugged

[00:27:59] me harder than ever before and I was just happy that we all walked out together and were able to see another day. Shortly after that I dropped out of high school and moved back to my hometown five

[00:28:11] states away. I lived with my brother for a bit until I got my own place and that's when I met Devin. Devin was about three years older than me and funnily enough he was my first grade crush's

[00:28:25] older brother. It seemed so unlikely to connect with somebody like this yet there we were. He was pretty good friends with my brother and we would hang out whenever we had kickbacks. From what I

[00:28:39] saw he wasn't a bad guy and he didn't seem to have any beef with anyone. He was a very laid-back stoner type of guy. He was really cool until we all got drunk one night and it slipped that he

[00:28:52] nearly shot up his high school. Everyone that was there knew this about him already but it was news to me. Surprisingly they all played it off as well he didn't actually do it so... Even my brother had the same light-hearted impression of this. I was disgusted. I told

[00:29:13] everyone about what I had experienced so they dropped Devin from the friend group pretty fast. I wound up moving again and I no longer talk to any of those friends including my brother and that's something I'll never be sorry for.

[00:29:30] It's been almost 10 years and I'm still slowly moving on. I just wish that the trend of validating other people's past intentions and behavior would stop. It's not a game and if you ever feel the

[00:29:43] need to take these drastic actions please don't. It's not worth ruining your life or the lives of others. To the school shooters that were never identified and to Devin I'll be more than okay

[00:29:56] if I never meet any of you again. I moved into my new house about a year or two ago. I had lived in the area with my family for a year before we were evicted from our other house due

[00:30:26] to the owners of the rental wanting to move back in. For context I'm a young female still living with my family. We wound up moving into a new house very close to the rental that we were evicted

[00:30:38] from. When I looked out my bedroom window of the house that we moved into I had a view of my fence as well as the neighbor's house which was situated on top of a hill. Due to that house being at an

[00:30:51] incline they had a clear view of our house so the fence didn't block anything from their view. The first encounter I had with the man I'm going to be talking about was late at night. I was with

[00:31:04] some friends while all of our parents were out at a party. At the time my friends and I were old enough to be left at home alone and we were responsible. We were just relaxing in my room

[00:31:17] with no lights or music on. We had just turned the TV on when we heard my dog start barking for a good 10 minutes. I was passive about this because my dog barks at absolutely everything. She barks

[00:31:33] at birds, the power line, bugs on the front porch, anything that moves. We started hearing weird noises that sounded like crunching, circling the perimeter of my room and loud scratching on the

[00:31:48] walls. The moment my friends and I started to get very scared we heard the loudest bangs I have ever heard pounding on the glass sliding door in the back of my house. My three friends and I ran

[00:32:03] out of my room to investigate and find out what in the world could be making that much noise. We were greeted by an aggressive dog. This dog was jumping up on the glass pounding on the door.

[00:32:18] My dog was so scared and she usually doesn't do this but she backed away until she was in my room behind me. All of her fur was standing on end and then we saw him. There was a man dressed in all

[00:32:35] black standing at my door. We were all standing perfectly still but one of my friend's fight or flight response was triggered and just as he jumped to lock the door the man lunged for the door as

[00:32:49] well. My friend yelled, what are you doing here? Who are you? The man just responded with a simple I don't know before walking off with the dog. When our parents got back we told them about

[00:33:06] the man and the dog. They asked us why we didn't call them. Truthfully, I know we should have but I didn't want to ruin my mom's birthday party. Two days later my mom confronted our neighbor while

[00:33:21] he was mowing his lawn. She said something about there being a man at her house while she was out and he said that it was in fact him. He said that his dog had run into our backyard through our gate

[00:33:35] and he had to get his dog back. He said that he meant to let her know that this happened but did not. I thought that this seemed like a story that was normal enough until we thought back to that

[00:33:47] night. The gate that his dog supposedly ran through has a strong clasp that was securely in place that night. We have that strong clasp because of our dog. We needed something on that gate to ensure

[00:34:01] that our dog would not get out. Ultimately it doesn't allow anything to come in but there is a way that this clasp can be opened by hand meaning that this man must have opened the gate to let

[00:34:14] himself and his dog into our backyard. My theory is that he heard the music stop and since it was dark in our house it must have looked vacant from his point of view. We filed a police report but

[00:34:28] nothing came from it and then one night when I was in bed I was almost asleep but still getting comfy. I sat up to rearrange my pillows and turned so that I could properly make it comfy. I then saw

[00:34:43] a face right outside of my window staring back at me. The person was wearing a black face covering. I didn't know what to do so I texted my mom. I was just frozen. I heard some movement but by the time

[00:35:01] my mom came and checked nobody was there. Ever since then I have noticed my neighbor is always watching me. Whenever I catch him looking he'll appear to be busying himself and then I'll catch

[00:35:15] him continuing to stare when he thinks I'm not paying attention. So dear old neighbor who watches me relentlessly let's never meet again. America online aka AOL was a big thing when I was 13. What made it particularly popular for my generation was AOL instant messenger which was

[00:35:51] AIM. This happened around 2002 which means I had freshly turned 13 and I was in 8th grade. There were many times when I went to the chat rooms by myself or with friends just googling around and chatting. Unfortunately, even way back then unsolicited photos were a thing but

[00:36:13] usually they were relatively easy to steer clear of. I didn't have any photos of myself posted anywhere. It was possible to post photos back then by taking a photo with a digital camera

[00:36:25] and uploading it to your computer from there but I never made the effort. Besides, I was 13. I was very self-conscious back then which I'm sure anyone can relate to. But one day a guy popped

[00:36:39] up on my screen wanting to chat. I was very naive back then but I felt like everything was going fine at first and we quickly fell into a pattern of talking. He said his name was Dave and he lived

[00:36:53] in California. Eventually, after chatting and getting to know each other, he told me that he loved me. Problem was, he was 19. Now I'm not proud of this but at first, since I was 13, my

[00:37:07] solution was to send pictures of some random girl and say that they were me. He instantly fell for it, telling me age was just a number and he told me how mature I was. I didn't think that this was

[00:37:22] a big deal since he didn't live in my state. I figured there would never be any chance of us meeting. Eventually, he told me that he and his mom were moving to a city that was about an hour

[00:37:34] and a half away from me. After they moved, he started begging me to meet him and go see a movie. He didn't even care what movie. He said that we could see anything. I decided that I had to come

[00:37:47] clean about the catfishing and tell him the truth. I said that those were not pictures of me. They were somebody else. He was furious. He had been looking forward to meeting a different child

[00:37:59] this whole time. Dave forgave me a few days later and said, I still want to meet with you because I love you. He said all of the things that somebody says to a young girl to get her to swoon

[00:38:13] and I fell for it since I was only 13. So, I told my best friend everything and asked her if she would go with me to meet him. She and I made this whole plan to have him drive to see me and we'd

[00:38:26] go to the movies so I could finally meet who I thought was the love of my life. We had been talking for a while so I feel that I had been brainwashed into believing that all of this was

[00:38:38] totally normal. I didn't tell my mom obviously and honestly, she didn't notice anything was going on to begin with. On the day that my best friend and I were going to meet up with Dave, her mom came

[00:38:50] and picked us up from school. Then she said something that made my stomach drop into nothingness. She said, girls you're not going to the movies. You are not going to meet that man. You are going

[00:39:05] to get seriously hurt or kidnapped. I can't allow you to go. I cried because honestly, I could handle everything and meet this older person and be fine. My best friend's mom told me

[00:39:17] she wasn't going to tell my mom but I had to promise never to speak to him again and never plan to meet another stranger online. He did end up showing up where we agreed to meet and was

[00:39:28] upset that I wasn't there. He went on aim and flew off the handle in a way I hadn't experienced at that age yet. It really scared me. I was scared of how close I was to allowing this angry,

[00:39:41] full-grown man to be near me. I never talked to Dave again after that and I'm glad that I didn't because looking back, I believe I easily could have been kidnapped or worse. I'm grateful that

[00:39:54] my best friend's mom stepped in that day. Because of her, I'm here today and learned an important lesson. I'm a female and I was 25 when this happened. It was 2018 and I was living with

[00:40:14] my boyfriend in our hometown. We live in a small city that's relatively poor. There are some drug problems in our town as there isn't much else to do. My boyfriend, now husband, was over at his

[00:40:27] friend's house. It was a Saturday night and he said that he'd be home at around 9. His friend lived two towns over which was about a 20-minute drive away. At the time, we lived in a duplex.

[00:40:39] While many duplexes are split side by side, ours was split upstairs and downstairs. It was honestly more like a large house that was later converted into a duplex. My cousin rented the downstairs

[00:40:53] unit of this duplex. She was kind of a loud neighbor so I always knew when she was or wasn't home. And on this night, she was not home. Her downstairs unit had a front porch with a front

[00:41:07] door and a side door. The front door to the upstairs unit where my boyfriend and I were living was located behind the building at the top of a set of wooden stairs.

[00:41:18] The way that our street was situated, the backs of the houses on my street and the street that ran parallel to ours all faced a narrow alley. This meant that for the most part, the driveways were

[00:41:29] only accessible via the narrow alley. On that night, I was home alone watching TV. I heard someone come up the stairs and knock on the door. I looked at the time and noticed that it was 8 30. Even though

[00:41:42] it was earlier than planned, I assumed it was my boyfriend, especially since it wasn't unusual for him to return home earlier than expected. I usually unlock the door for him when I heard him come home

[00:41:55] so he wouldn't have to fumble with his keys outside in the dark. So I got up and opened the door to someone who was not my boyfriend. I opened the door and a very thin man was standing there.

[00:42:08] He was wearing jeans that were way too big for him and a hoodie. He was teetering back and forth nervously. I was so shocked considering how positive I was that it was my boyfriend coming up those steps. The jittery man asked, can I use your phone?

[00:42:28] I looked behind him down the stairs and into the alley and I saw a big Ford Explorer type SUV idling with someone in the driver's seat. Unsure of what else I could do in this situation,

[00:42:40] I panicked and blurted out, yeah hold on. I then shut the door and locked it. I think I was in shock about there being a stranger at my door instead of my boyfriend. Luckily this man couldn't

[00:42:52] see me through the front door because I was just standing there frozen. Something just told me that this was not okay. After a few minutes, I heard him walk back down the stairs and I quietly crept

[00:43:04] over to the door and saw him return to the SUV, get in, and drive away down the alley. I called my boyfriend and told him what happened. He told me he would head back home but like I said, he was a

[00:43:14] few towns over. It was a 20 minute drive. After he got home, I calmed down and honestly, I felt slightly guilty. Why had I not just lent this man my phone? Was it really that weird? But then I

[00:43:29] thought about it. They went down an alley and upstairs on the back side of a house to ask for a phone. They didn't go to my cousin's unit and they didn't pick any other house on the street

[00:43:43] and when I didn't return to the door, they left the street entirely. I'm not sure what they wanted but this experience genuinely creeped me out and to the creepy guy at my door, let's not meet again.

[00:44:00] This happened to me a few months ago back in July. For context, I live in a fairly run down part of my city. I was invited to my friend's house for dinner. After we ate, we watched a

[00:44:24] movie together and then I needed to head home as it had gotten pretty late. I realized we didn't have enough money to get a ride home and I was too embarrassed to ask for money myself.

[00:44:36] It was raining on this particular night but the rain wasn't that bad and my friend only lived a few minutes away from me. I had my headphones with me so I put them on so that I could listen

[00:44:47] to some tunes as I walked home. As I started walking, I noticed that the roads were empty with the exception of a few cars passing by on occasion. I find desolate walks like this

[00:45:03] comforting. I generally love these types of walks but then, suddenly, two men came out of a building from behind me. They tried to huddle close under my umbrella which struck me as odd but they seemed

[00:45:19] harmless. They were older than me and seemed friendly. They started to make small talk which slowly escalated into them asking me very personal questions about my home life I had never seen these guys around town before so I gave them fake information, fake names,

[00:45:37] fake hobbies, fake family, fake everything. I figured that this was the best way to prevent myself from getting screwed over if this was some kind of bizarre scam. I picked up the pace

[00:45:50] and they did the same in order to keep up with me. I wasn't about to walk these guys right to my house so I started heading toward a convenience store that was nearby. I knew that there would be other

[00:46:03] people there so I thought this would be a good place for me to go lose them. Why don't you invite us over for a cup of coffee? one of the guys asked. This guy who I had just met

[00:46:14] minutes ago wants to come to my house. I was shaken up at this point. As we continued walking, I kept taking short glances at them until I mustered up the courage to fully run towards

[00:46:29] them to get a good look at him. I turned to my left to look at the first guy. His face was different. He appeared to be drunk or high. He briefly smirked before his face dropped.

[00:46:43] Then he tried to pull something out of his pocket. That was finally it for me so I swiftly closed my umbrella and ran. I could hear them running behind me which only made me run even harder.

[00:46:56] I looked back and I saw that they were gaining on me. The sidewalks were slippery from the rain so I kept tripping and even slipping a few times but each time I got back up, I kept running.

[00:47:09] I ran in and out of alleyways to try and lose them or at the very least confuse them. I ran until I couldn't feel the muscles in my legs anymore. The rain started to pour harder so I

[00:47:21] hid behind a dumpster but they were still coming after me. I heard them calling out fake names that I had given them so I stayed put for a while until I was sure that they had given up the chase.

[00:47:32] I finally got to the convenience store. I went into the bathroom which was in the back of the store and looked at myself in the mirror. I had cuts and bruises all over. There was a cut in my shirt

[00:47:43] which made me realize that at least one of these guys had a knife. I was so focused on running that I didn't even realize that they were trying to slash at me. Then I did what I should have done

[00:47:54] in the first place. I called up a friend to come and drive me home. When my friend came to pick me up, he thought that I had gotten into some sort of street brawl. I eventually made it home,

[00:48:05] drenched, and took the longest shower of my life. I threw away the shirt that I wore that night and my headphones were destroyed but I figured that it was a small price to pay for such a successful

[00:48:17] escape. I don't know what the deal was with these guys but I hope I was their first and last attempt at whatever they were trying to pull. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not

[00:48:41] Meet, a true horror podcast. Make sure you stick around after the music for your extended ad-free version of this week's episode if you're a patron and if you'd like to get access to that head over

[00:48:51] to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. This week you have heard It's Just a Matter of Time by I'm Just Another Reader. I was followed for

[00:49:03] months by a man I met at the mall by raviolis123. The would-be school shooters by thickstandard4475. The neighbor that stalks me by majorpresentation15. AOL was popular when I was 13 by thenburyher. Creepy guy at my door by 4409293. And finally, surrounded by time traveling traitor.

[00:49:35] All of the stories you heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message

[00:49:48] boards online. Don't forget to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, my true paranormal podcast. Welcome to Paradise That Sucks and the old time radio cast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you all next week. Everyone

[00:50:04] stay safe. This story happened.