Pretty through the Window

I never liked dating. But my general strangeness had already labeled me a freak and a bitch, so dating seemed like a normalizing step. Unfortunately, I was too preoccupied with school and personal projects to differentiate between passionate and obsessive. This was a problem. I wonder if I had payed more attention that I could have weeded out the stalkers. My Bad. 

Psycho Bob

My first stalker was Psycho Bob. I met Psycho Bob at a seance orchestrated to relieve the boredom of a high school dance. He was just Bob then. Bob was 6’1” with hazel blue eyes, dirty blond hair, and a damaged personality.

We dated for a year before Bob’s “psychoness” began to seep through. His love notes entailed passages such as keeping my dead body encased in wax. I am sure he thought it was romantic, turning me into a Bodies exhibit. I slowly became aware of his possessiveness, spying, stalking, and accusations of cheating. 

I decided it was time to say good-bye to Bob, but Bob, now Psycho Bob, did not agree. The attempt ended with his hands around my throat threatening to, “squeeze out my last breath.”  There was a sense of, Oh, fuck! Probably not as scary as waking up chained in his basement, but still. I somehow convinced him to let go. Then he said, “It’s not over until I say it’s over.” Typical.

I was starting university and decided I was going to be a Bitch to him until he broke up with me. Bitchiness triumphed! A week later I was Psycho Bob free. It was genius!  Or so I thought. 

He called me constantly asking for forgiveness. He threatened to let his fish starve because he was too depressed to feed them. Yes, his pet fish did die and it was all my fault. When that ploy didn’t work, he claimed to have cancer.  Miraculously, he was in remission a week later. Apparently, Jesus loves him. 

Once he finally realized it was over, he left hate mail at my house (which I kept), roadkill on my doorstep (which I did not keep), and stalked me around campus. He even ranted about me on university radio. Great for my social life (thumbs up). I should have sued.

It finally ended with a restraining order through the University.  

The Foreigner

After Psycho Bob (PB), I was understandably jaded. I decided to focus on my studies. The Foreigner overlapped with the tail end of my break-up with PB, my freshman year at university. Like PB, he had dirty blond hair and blue eyes (a sign), unlike PB though, he had a Ukrainian accent. The Foreigner was part of my small group of friends that met up after class, went out to eat, and mostly just hung out. 

After a few months, I started to get strange phone calls at night, mostly hang-ups. I assumed it was PB until I received a call with nothing but music playing. It was No Doubt, “Don’t Speak.” I had my suspicions who it was after The Foreigner started showing signs of jealousy towards my other male friends. 

I confronted him about the phone calls. I expected him to deny it, but he didn’t. I told him that if he wanted to talk, he could. The Foreigner then admitted that he had also sat in his car across the street from my house, watching until my light went out. 

Defiantly not okay. I made him promise to stop. He reluctantly agreed. Two nights later, I saw his car across the street (I must look pretty through the window). I walked up to his car and told him, very firmly, to leave. 

That was the end of that. 

Since then I’ve steered clear of the blond haired, blue eyed types. No offense.