Okay, enough about my husband, old boyfriends, and the occasional overly confident man who just can't take a hint. Let's really go into the weeds and get our feet dirty with the worst kinds of men: the dangerous kind.
Guy Number 1 lived in my dorm during my first year of grad school. He was not terribly smart, but he must've been keen enough to notice that I studied a lot, so I was probably smart. Presumably it was for that reason that he showed up in my doorway one evening asking me for help with his algebra homework. To set the scene a bit, he was way over six feet tall and it was basic, 9th grade algebra. But I was so nice.
Ha. Now I know better.
So I was feeling pretty elated after a BioChem exam and didn't have any plans to touch a textbook the rest of the night, so I took mercy on this poor lost soul and proceeded to spend the next two hours trying to help him understand word problems. Eventually it got late (as in, like after 11pm) and I finally had to point out that I couldn't exactly pull an all-nighter with him. He reluctantly vacated my room. Probably shouldn't have let him in to begin with.
Anyway, he comes back a day or two later to tell me that he took his algebra test and he thinks he might've done better on it thanks to my help. Naturally, I am just so proud of myself for making a real difference in someone's life! That ought to put some good Karma out into the universe for me, right? He wants to thank me, but his only idea is to take me to the bar, which I wasn't about to do (thankfully I was a little wiser than that, at this point), so I politely declined but thanked him for the offer.
Fast forward a few weeks and it's final exams. I'm a graduate student, so hopefully it goes without saying that I spent most of my time studying, which was exactly what I was doing when this guy came by to see me again. This time he wanted help studying for his final, but he was on his way somewhere and couldn't do it right then. Fine, I say. Come back tomorrow and if I'm not in the middle of doing my own work, I'll try to help you for a little while. As fate would have it, I spent most of the next evening sitting on my futon with a textbook open on my lap, studying. Guy #1 comes by, sees that I'm occupied with -- hark! -- my own work, and proceeds to just lose his absolute shit. No, you didn't read that wrong.
He went nuts on me. I mean, coming in the room and looming over me (see previous: over 6' tall) while actually shouting sort of nuts. While he lays into me about how "we talked about this" and a few other baseless assumptions, I stare up at him in shock. Just... bewildered.
Eventually I try to defend myself, because I really don't think I deserve this shit. I'm paying over $500 a credit hour and I take at least 16 credit hours per semester, so not only do I not have time to be at his beck and call, I also can't afford it. I try to remind him that I have my own classes and my own exams to prepare for. I try to tell him other methods he can pursue to get help with his work, like going to his professors' office hours or attending a study group. A variety of other perfectly reasonable suggestions which he either dismissed as not an option or flat out told me were bad ideas. Bad ideas, he says, as if standing in my room and shouting at me was a good one. Eventually I get really overwhelmed and kind of scared by his behavior and I tell him he needs to get out my room. He obeys -- but only to the doorway, where he turns back around and continues to shout at me from the hall. I shut the door in his face and he finally left.
Thankfully, nothing further happened with him, at least not for me. I overheard a fight he had with the Resident Assistants in the kitchen at the end of the hall a few weeks later. I guess he volunteered to bartend for a charity event and just.. didn't realize it was volunteering. They argued for over an hour about him getting paid for it/not getting paid for it. They ended up sending him to his room like a child or they'd call security. True story.
Eventually, he exposed himself at the Rec center to some poor woman who was probably just trying to lose a few vanity pounds by jogging around the track a few times a week. After that, he got kicked out and I imagine he's become either a wife-beater, serial rapist, or serial killer in the meantime. A real winner, that one. I don't even know if he ever told me his name.
We'll need to fast forward years to get to Guy #2. Picture me: a perky young pharmacist working in a department store pharmacy, wandering around the clearance bins near the cash registers after my shift is over. I have a small list of things I need to get before I go home, but before I get started, Guy #2 walks in the spots me.
At first, I didn't even notice him. I just went on my way to get diapers for my baby and maybe some new pajama pants for him, when I notice Guy #2 was also in the infant clothing/diaper area of the store. There's nothing wrong with that of course, but he was acting weird as fuck about it. He didn't have a shopping cart or even a basket. He barely looked twenty, so it was also a bit of an odd part of the store to find him in. But even at that point, I just assume it's a coincidence.
Next stop is the toy department -- that's where things really set off alarms in my brain. As I'm looking through the Hot Wheels, I notice him walk by the aisle going one direction... then he comes back by the other way a minute or two later. This whole sequence repeats itself a second time, and I notice he glances down the aisle at me as he goes by. When he sees me noticing him, he quickly looks away. Maybe he's shy. Maybe he's a murder. Who can know?
I decide to test my theory that he might be following me by taking a very obscure route all the way across the building to the other side of the store, ending up in women's shampoo. He must've lost sight of me, because after lurking around for a few minutes, I don't see him anywhere.
Whew, I shook him off. Now I can check out without being assaulted.
As I approach the front of the store again, however, I almost get there when I finally see him again. We seem to notice one another at the same time, and as I immediately dart into the girls' clothing, he does too. He still has no cart or basket -- no items in his arms. I can tell by the way he quickly averts his gaze that he's staring at me whenever I'm not staring at him.
I can't stay in this Godforsaken place forever. I have a family and I haven't had dinner yet. So I check out using the self-check area. There's a small line but it moves quickly. Guy #2 gets in the line a few people behind me (nothing to buy, remember), and as I'm paying for my stuff, I make direct eye contact with him and just stare at him. Not in a watchful way, as before, but in a I'm on to your shit, you shit. I see you kind of way.
This passive display of aggression apparently spooks him a bit, for he aborts mission and goes on down the aisle past the other checkouts. With his back turned to me at last, I literally dart from the store and sprint across the parking lot to my car. I don't start the engine, though, because a moment later he emerges from the front door and just stands there, looking around for me. Eventually he wanders away on foot, disappearing around the side of the building.
I have no idea what he planned on doing to me -- maybe nothing. Maybe he has a kink for stalking women through department stores, or maybe it makes him feel powerful even though he's not.
Or... maybe he's a rapist murder. Again, who can know?
I encountered him one other time, and even as I type this now I can say that I've thought about this moment a lot since it happened. Being an employee, I park near the back of the lot and I happened to be wrapping a present on the backseat of my car (going to a party after work, obviously not prepared). I'm standing on the ground, facing into the car with the passenger door open beside me. Using the backseat as a makeshift table, I wrap the gift while the paper makes a bunch of noise. As I'm finishing up, I hear someone pass by my car behind me. Now, it's not unusual for people to walk to the store from neighboring areas, so I'm not alarmed -- only curious. I glance over my shoulder to have a look at this traveler... and it's him.
He keeps on walking. He doesn't look back at me. I doubt he knew it was me, but as I drove away a few minutes later, I thought about how easy it would've been for him to shove me in the back seat, slam the door, and drive away with me. My car keys were right there -- with a push of a button, he could've started my car and I'd be gone.
I think about that shit all the time.