Who’s Your Stalker Now?
During a game of drunken Truth or Dare in college, my friends and I decided that the best course of action was to go around the room talking about our sexual fantasies. By the time it was my turn, we’d already heard from everyone including Matt, my friend Matthias’s roommate. He’d spun some elaborate tale I hadn’t followed involving some older woman that he’d screwed in the pool room of the hotel he’d worked, but he had shifty eyes so I totally didn’t believe him. I was beyond loaded, so I couldn’t figure out why the room was looking at me expectantly.
When they nudged me to speak, I slurred out, “I…dunnooo…I just….like…sex?” In hindsight, I should have kept my whore mouth firmly shut.
Whether it was that drunken proclamation, punctuated by stabbing myself in the leg with a lit cigarette or that I’d said “hello” to him when I walked into the apartment, I can’t be sure, but I made a grave error in judgement. While the rest of the room rolled their eyes and laughed at me being a drunk asshole, Matt fell deep into..something with me.
I must have made quite the impression that night, because the following weekend when we were both in our hometown I got a phone call from him. It seemed that he wanted to meet up that evening for dinner. Being that I was in town to see my family, I politely declined and he hung up on me angrily. What I didn’t realize was that I was about to unleash an unholy shit storm neatly atop my own oblivious head.
I’ve since gotten better about reading people, but at the time, I was pretty naive and mistook his shifty eyes for “needing to replace his contacts” not “being a fucking psychopath.” Bad move, Aunt Becky, bad move. By the time I crawled back to my shoebox of a dorm on Sunday night, my roommate looked at me somewhat wide-eyed and said, “Someone named ‘Matt’ has been calling you every ten minutes for the past three hours. He won’t leave a message but he’s kinda creeping me out because he gets mad every time I tell him you’re not here.” Well, fuck.
The following week, I began to receive reports of Matt hanging around our dorm and the phone calls continued unrelentingly. Finally the following week, I stumbled blearily out of the dooms with the throngs of other students making their way to 9AM classes, when I saw Matt hanging out by the gigantic fountain that we called The Ashtray. He was scanning the crowd intently, clearly looking for someone and I kept my head down and managed to walk right past him without him noticing me. When I returned from class, I saw him there again. He caught my eye and trapped in his line of sight, I walked up to him. He asked if I wanted to get lunch, and I told him the truth, I had other plans, and rather than accept that gracefully, he stomped away, angry.
I stood there for a couple of moments, dumbfounded. Certainly, I wasn’t going to date him, but I would have been his friend, jagged edges and all, before that little tantrum. After that stunt, however, absolutely not. I found out that he’d harassed all of the people that had been at the party about what a horrible bitch I was.
A couple of nights later, I called over to Matthias’s apartment in search of Matthias, and Matt answered the phone. Rather than call him out on his bad behavior, I figured it was best to pretend that the entire situation hadn’t happened, so I simply asked if Matthias was home. Recognizing my voice, he growled, “NO!” into the phone and hung it up without so much as asking if he could take a message.
Well, then. I’d had enough. I turned to the dorm room which was full of my friends and said, “Fucker just hung up on me.”
Outraged, and knowing that Matt had been a jackass to both Matthias—who wouldn’t hurt a fly—and me, who really didn’t deserve the anger, we hatched a plan. We didn’t get mad, we got even. My friend Pashmina acted first.
She grabbed the phone, dialed the number and when Matt answered, she said very sweetly, “Hi Matt, it’s Pashmina, you know, Matthias’s friend? Well, I was calling to see if Matthias was home. We were going out and wanted to see if he could come with us to the coffee shop…” On and on she droned about her boring plans. Eventually, she hung up the phone and handed it to James, who dialed the number.
“Hi, this is James. Is Matthias there? I was calling to invite him to study with me in the library for our history midterm and I know he likes to study with a partner…” on and on James went about his plans for the evening. Eventually he hung up, passing the phone to Pashmina’s roommate, Marcy. This continued no less than eight times. Each of us, calling with some long-winded, rambling story about why we needed to see Matthias and what we were doing and blah, blah, blah. It must have been excruciating for him to listen to.
What can I say? My friends love me. More importantly, my friends also know a good time when they see it.
After we all had made our calls to Matt, we sat around smoking our cigarettes and nursing our tall rum and Cokes looking at each other and laughing at our ingeniousness. There was no way Matt would be bothering any of us again because we were too fucking annoying. If he was childish, we could beat him at that game.
About half an hour after the last phone call, one by one, we all called Matt back, telling him not to have Matthias call us, after all, because, wouldn’t you know it? PLANS HAD CHANGED. I think after the third or fourth phone call, he finally took the phone off the hook. I can’t believe it took him that long.
After that, though, we all noticed that Matt would deliberately go out of his way to avoid all of us when we’d cross paths on campus. If he’d spy me walking his way, he’d walk across the quad so as not to accidentally sideswipe me.
I’d suddenly gone from hot ticket to plague-bearer and I couldn’t have been happier.
i’ll never forget my stalker. after refusing to answer his calls and much less see him again. he threatened to knock on my door since he knew where i lived!!! he called me a b!tch, whore…etc etc. after about a month of not calling me. he calls acting all nice, so i tell him “umm, dont you remember the last time you called? he gave me this “story” about how he was in a bike accident and had hit his head and couldn’t remember much the past few months. umm, yea right!!!! i politely told him i had to go and it would be better if he never called me again. so then he yells into the phone.. “FINE, i did want to talk to you anyway you fuc#@n b1tch!!!” and he hangs up the phone.
never heard from him again(thank god!!!) :/
What is it about college? It’s seems to be the ideal breeding ground for the most appropriate revenge ever. For instance, my sophomore year of college – I broke my shoulder over break. My arm wasn’t in a cast – just a bright blue sling & it hurt – a lot. One day in a Lit class – everyone starts laughing about something & the idiot sitting next to me reaches out & slaps me – on the broken shoulder! The entire class gasped – I saw literal stars – it hurt so bad I couldn’t talk. She said “I forgot about your arm” The freaking blue sling didn’t remind you????
Later that night – revenge. She lived on a different floor from me & had a high loft for a bed. I had friends tell me when she went to bed – I waited an hour for her to fall asleep & then I called her every half hour for like four hours. Every half hour that idiot climbed down from the loft, stumbled across the room & answered the phone – just as I knew she would, “boyfriend might be calling”.
Childish & petty? Sure – but it made my shoulder hurt less.
I had the cutest little stalker in the world for a while… He was 5ish and my friend’s younger brother. I was 16. When I’d go over to her house, he would hide behind curtains and peek out at me. When she was on the phone with me, he’d ask if he could say hi. But when she would hand him the phone, he’d start giggling and run away – dropping the phone. One time he even tried to call me by hitting redail after she’d hung up. The same thing – giggling then drop the phone. This went on for about a year.
Eventually he got up the nerve to tell me that he thought I was pretty and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I guess that was all he wanted because after that I’d get a hello from him when I came to visit, and he’d try to hang out with us, but all of the hiding and giggling stopped. Now he’s 10 years older, and starting to date, and his sister loves to remind him on that crush.
I love it. More proof that you’re a genius, AB.
Heehee.
Why don’t I ever get tired of “shut my whore mouth.”
FUCKING BRILLIANT.
the next time someone starts annoying me, i am going to explode a rain of unholy annoyance upon whomever is unfortunate enough to start that shitstorm.
now i kinda can’t wait for someone to bug me!
Hilarity at it finest!
The only stalker that I know of from college just called himself out recently on facebook—ew…I thought he was all clever and glib so I accepted the friend request. THEN he feels compelled to acknowledge his crush…from 20 years ago…and “invite” me to our reunion—um, ick. Yours is way better and much funnier, as it was enjoyed right then and there with your college peeps!
you have the best friends. i’m still hiding from my stalker (hence the initial instead of name).
some people just need to learn that fuck off means fuck off.
Auntie becky,
This was so fucking hilarious that it hurt my body when I laughed because an overly zealous massage therapist (therapist = “the rapist,” BTW) bruised me by trying to massage my deep tissues even though I told him i don’t have any deep tissues. Laughing about this was worth the pain because it was so damned funny.
You niece,
Alexis
Getting even is the best fucking thing in the world.
Oh, Aunt Becky, this is ingenious. insidious & ingenious.
Although I once had an instance where I stood a girl up because of a stalker. I met Karen in my first music theory class in college . . . but seeing as we were in very different majors, and were in different years in school, we didn’t cross much. We made plans to head out to play mini-golf over lunch one day, and when that day came, I had a bass student (I would tutor music education majors on the bass to get them past their stringed instrument tests) who had to move things back half-an-hour.
Not a biggie, I thought – and I went to call Karen. Only, I had never called Karen before . . . all flirting had either been in class or over lunch. When I looked up her number, it simply wasn’t there. When I logged into the school electronic address book, it wasn’t there. I knew her name, I was certain of her name, but she wasn’t listed.
It turns out that she had a psycho-stalker from in town that was pretty relentless with her. So, she had her name changed in any/all listings to her middle name & her mother’s maiden name. I didn’t know this.
I ended up cancelling the bass lesson (which kind-of sucked, because I wanted the $10 to play putt-putt with) to head out with her, where I heard the whole story. And, you know, got her phone number, so that I might be able to contact her in the future.
awesome. i need more stalkers, they make for the best stories 😉
This is nothing short of genius!! Really, I should shut MY WHORE MOUTH, because I’m giggling like a school girl.
Well played, ma’am, well played… <3
Oooh, I’ll have to tell you how I got rid of my stalker!
The guy’s name was Keith and he stalked a number of girls/women. Several exes and me, his friend’s ex. Anyway, it was my turn (again), and he was following me freakin’ everywhere. One Sunday, I got mad and went to church. Afterward, he was standing there, trying not to be seen, watching, so I went up to him and said, “I am *so* glad to see you here! It is so wonderful that you’ve found Jesus! Here, take my hands!” Then I grabbed his hands and went off on the longest, sappiest, most cloying Jesus prayer I could think of. I prayed for his soul. I prayed for the baby of the people he was standing with pretending to know. I prayed for any and everything I could think of in that moment.
NO ONE likes an evangelist. I never saw him again. 😀
I told this one to a therapist. She loved it and asked if she could suggest it to other women in her practice. Hehehehe.
That’s beautiful in its structure and delivery.
I am so glad you wrote this post, you reminded me of some of my “get even” schemes. You rock! Just remind me never to piss you off…
[…] vagina? It was totally WEIRD – I mean, he’s my dad, and Oh Em Gee, did you SEE the way Matthias’s crappy roommate has been stalking me around campus because that’s just creepers, and really I’m so […]