So where to begin.
Several years ago I had a stalker, but i had no idea how bad it was. The first time I met him was at a party. A DJ was playing in the building across from the bar my friends like and they invited me and my then boyfriend (now husband). I'm not much of a party person. My friends know this and so we kept walking back and forth from the party to the bar to get snacks and get away from the noise. I started to get a headache anyways and decided to just sit on the curb outside the part for a while, and eat some chicken strips. My Friends and boyfriend would take turns coming out every couple minutes to check on me and make sure i was alright. I kept assuring them that i was having a good time, and i really was. The music was good, i had snacks and there were other people hanging out in the street and we kept chatting about random stuff. That's just my vibe.
Enter stage left. Ryan.
He came up and started chatting with me and one of my girl friends who was checking on me. I didn't think about it at the time, but as i'm typing this, i realize i never actually saw him in the bar or at the party. I have no idea where he came from, but he jumped into our conversation. He seemed pretty normal at the time. He wanted to talk about books and anime, and I was fine with that. My boyfriend Jay came out of the party to have a cigarette and hang out for a minute and he and Ryan chatted for a bit. This is when things started to get kinda weird. He started talking about how his father was in the Italian mob and that the only reason he and his mom had moved to our tiny town was because they were in hiding. It was pretty ridiculous and it seemed like he was trying to intimidate my boyfriend. Jay had been involved in a fair amount of gang activity and drug dealing back when he lived in Denver (he had cut ties and gone clean before we met) and almost laughed in this guys face when he was trying to describe his "Mafia upbringing". His backstory was very Hollywood influenced. Eventually he and our friends wanted to go back into the party for a bit, and they asked me several times if it was ok. I told them it was fine and I wanted them to have a good time, but they checked up on my at more frequent intervals throughout the night. Every time Jay would leave, Ryan would start going on and on about how he would never leave his girlfriend alone at the party, that is he had a girlfriend he wouldn't let her sit outside and abandon her. It didn't matter that I wanted to be outside because of sensory issues that all my friends are aware of and were always extremely accommodating of, or that i had chosen to come to the party knowing my limitations. He just kept bemoaning my "terrible situation" and my "neglectful" boyfriend who was only respecting my wishes. It was clear to even me and my oblivious state that he was trying to pull some kind of move. The next time Jay and my friends asked my if i wanted to go home, i said yes and that was the last time i thought about him for a while.
Time went by and the only interaction i had with Ryan was at the grocery store where i worked. He came in everyday, bought a coke and bag of chips. He'd say hi, i'd ask how his moms health was, then he'd leave. That was it. Later that summer, me and Jay got married. We had decided to do everything ourselves to save money and we were busy! Our friend Dave had been ordained sometime back and agreed to oversee ours. When he arrived, Ryan was with him. Dave and his wife were providing Ryan's mother in home care at the time, and had a habit of helping out wayward souls. We assumed Dave had brought him to be nice and we were to busy to ask about it. He stood off to the side and didn't really try to talk to anyone so we hardly noticed he was there. Even offered us a "vacation on his father private jet," that was very hard to decline with a straight face. No harm done.
Time went by and the only interaction i had with Ryan was at the grocery store. He came in everyday, bought a coke and bag of chips. He'd say hi, i'd ask how his moms health was, then he'd leave. That was it. Then one fine day i saw him at the local library. I used to go everyday back then, and i had never seen him there before. I still didn't really know him at all, so i picked a random computer to use. He approached me, we said hi, i asked how his mom was, then i went home. Suddenly he was at the library everyday. He always seemed to walk in a few minutes after me and sit at the computer next to me to chat. I thought I was being paranoid, but it definitely seemed like he was there because of me. Then one day, when i got up to go home, he got up as well. He walked with me to the front door and asked if he could walk me home. I got a really bad vibe and i very much did not want him to know where i lived, so i lied and said i was going to the store. He walked with me to the store and kept making flirty comments. It was actually making me mad more then anything considering he had met my boyfriend. I went in to the store and walked around for a bit, and he stayed with me the whole time. I tried to go really slowly, and act like I was being indecisive, but eventually i grabbed my usual snacks and checked out. He asked me again if he could walk me home. I replied that i was going to go for an afternoon walk. He asked if he could join me and i told him i prefered to walk alone and listen to my music loud. He said he was fine with that and followed me anyways. I didn't know what to say, "Go home!", "Fuck off", "Leave me alone creep", all seemed like appealing options but there was that little voice in the back of my head telling me I was being to sensitive and over reacting. That voice sounds strangely like my mother and I'm sure a professional could explain why. After an hour of walking around multiple blocks over and over praying he would get bored, I admitted defeat and walked home. He followed me the entire way. When I opened the front door, my dog growled the way wolves do in movies and lounged passed me as soon as Ryan tried to step onto the porch. Jay had heard the growl and managed to grab him by the harness before he jumped on my pursuer. I now had an excuse, and told Ryan to go so we could get our dog back inside. As soon as the door shut Jay asked me if everything was ok and if Ryan had hurt me. Our dog had never EVER acted that way before. He loved people! Even strangers on the street! But he had looked like he would have ribbed Ryan's head off and that alone was enough to convince Jay that Ryan must have done something awful. I explained what had happened and the next day Jay bought me my first taser and I arranged to have one of my work friends pick me up and drop me off. I did not go to the library anymore.
He'd come into the store where i worked. He'd say hi, I would ignore him, and ring up his groceries as fast as I could. Months went by and nothing weird happened. I started to relax and didn't think about Ryan at all, i had so much else going on. Then one day he came into the store and announced he had a fiance from out of state and that she was moving in with him. I was shocked, but gave him my congratulations. He said he wanted her to make friends, and that i should come to his house and meet her, because we had so much in common. The way he said it... something in his tone was disturbing and all i said was "Oh". Then he leaned over the counter and said "It's only right that you should meet her". I can't put into words what the look in his eyes was, but it scared me. There was nothing in his words that was directly threatening, but my mind was screaming "He wants to get you alone!" I must have looked very visibly distressed because my coworker Drew came all the way out of the back to check on me. Drew was a big guy that worked in the butcher shop of the store and they put a big flat screen behind his counter connected to all the store cameras so he would know if he needed to come out and scare anybody. It had no audio but apparently I looked so scared that he felt needed. I explained the interaction with the added info that he had followed me before, so we got the manager and arranged it so i wouldn't have to serve Ryan in the store anymore, and made sure all the staff knew to keep an eye on him.
Months went by without me seeing Ryan. I still got nervous, but life goes on. I honestly thought the situations was done. It couldn't possibly get weirder right? I had taken all the precautions people tell you too. Nothing could happen.
Almost two years after my first meeting with Ryan, my friends invited me out to a party. Jay was working and couldn't come, but i knew everyone who was going to be there and hadn't been out of the house in a while so i got dressed up and went. Dave and his wife were there and we got talking. He brought up that they weren't caring for Ryan's mother anymore and that they were about to be kicked out of their house for being 6 months behind on rent, not to mention the city had turned off both their water and power. Dave and his wife owned the property and were not looking forward to cleaning it up and re homing the mom's dog. Apparently Ryan had threatened to shoot anyone that came to the house to evict them. He and the sheriff had been throwing around ideas as how to get him out the house, and were wondering if i'd be willing to talk to him and lure him out of the house for the police. I mentioned that i hadn't seen Ryan in months and described the store incident. Dave laughed at the part about the "Fiance", of course a lie, and said he was glad that i had stopped hanging out with Ryan and that he and his wife had been worried about me. I shook my head and said i'd never hung out with him before. That's when Dave stopped and his face suddenly got serious.
"You've never hung out with him?" He said in disbelief, and I got really anxious really fast. I repeated again that i had never hung out with him, because he freaked me out and explained the library incident. He was in total shock, but continued
"But haven't you been to his house?" He asked, and i told him no that i had never been there even once. I wasn't even sure where the property was.
"Have you ever met his mom?" Again i said no, i had never actually met the woman and told him that i didn't even know Ryan had a dog until he brought it up. There was a pit in my stomach through the entire exchange and my voice kept getting louder through the conversation. I was very confused and very freaked out. He called his wife over and she walked up smiling, and asked what was up. Dave leaned close to her and said very seriously "Kayla has never been to Ryan's house." Her face dropped and she looked terrified.
"You've never been there?" She asks and this point im so freaked out that i just started yelling
"No! I've never been to his house! I don't know his mom! I didn't even know he had a dog!" I shouted in the middle of the bar. "We don't hang out, i have never hung out with him! I barely know the guy!"
Finally they started explaining everything. Over two years he had been telling them that me and him were close friends. That I came over to his house almost everyday, to hang out with him and play with his dog. That we'd go to the library together. He told them about how much his mom loved me, and she would even pretend to have met me using information from my facebook page. He has told Dave that he had been invited to our wedding to trick Dave into bringing him. He told them that i was very unhappy in my marriage and that i was going to leave my husband for him as soon as he figured out how to "break Jays spell" over me. They knew the last part was bullshit, and that me and Jay were very happy and healthy. They had assumed i was just oblivious to his feeling and I was just trying to be friends with him to be nice (it wouldn't be the first time someone played off my sympathy) but they never imagined that the entire relationship he and his mother described had been a lie.
This story doesn't have big, climactic, blowout ending, but in this case that's probably for the best. The Sheriff did end up going down there to evict them. His mom was taken to a shelter and Ryan was arrest for illegal gun possession. Apparently the Sheriff discovered there was something in his record that made it illegal for him to own any kind of firearm (I couldn't tell you what though). There were dozens of guns in his house that were confiscated by the state. And I don't mean hunting rifles. I mean shot guns, and assault rifles and hand guns. He's out now, but no one has seen him since.
I still think about just how lucky I am, as strange as that sounds. This was a situation that could have ended so so much worse, and all because I ignored my bad vibe about a guy at a normal party. A lot of other people don't get as lucky as I did.
