'I've been told I'm highly stalkable.'
Somebody seemed to follow me to work yesterday night - generic young white man; generic young-white-man clothes (light grey hoodie, I think; white T-shirt underneath); tallish, at least compared to me. I'm still not sure if he really had a sinister motive or not.
The guy was standing, rather ominously, in a dark corner of one of the out-of-the-way little paths I sometimes use as shortcuts when I'm not sure I want to use the main footpath for one reason or another* - I'm grateful that I did use the main footpath, now. (I ducked past an unseen someone while walking along that little side-path just a few nights ago; I felt his bemused attention and assumed, at the time, that he was a resident of the nearby flats wondering who the hell I was. I wonder...?) He followed me at a little distance all the way to Sainsbury's - along my route which leads me, I am newly and gruesomely aware, down under a bridge and along the side of a road and through lackadaisically steetlit footpaths and past big overgrown bushes† - and the things that mainly made me nervous were a) the way he started walking almost immediately on sighting me, and b) the way he always seemed to be looking directly at me every time I had occasion to take a quick glance back.
I suppose I must've been more afraid than I thought, because I've never been so glad to walk by a mob of mouthy teens in my life; or to get straight into work without hassle over doorkeys. By hometime I'd convinced myself it was just paranoia from watching 'Millennium' and listening to PJ Harvey all week (an entirely disproportionate amount of her songs are about murders and seedy disappearances).
Of course, someone seemed to follow me home, too. (This is, defending my hyperactive paranoia, after I'd forgotten the walk to work altogether; I really am perfectly capable of compartmentalising my workday like this.) I'm not even sure if it was the same man, but he sure seemed to be craning his neck after me, and he followed me almost to my street (at this point I panicked, made a sharp turn, and took a long and elaborate route home, running quietly as soon as I was out of sight: I don't want stalkers, imaginary or not, finding out where I live). He was watching the road from the bus station; seemed to react to me through the window; was on the footpath already, a little way behind me, by the time my walk took me there; and it felt creepy, which was the main qualification, just like eight hours before. Generic young white man; dark, generically-shortish hair; white T-shirt, with some sort of black screen-print. I wish my walk weren't so distinctive.
From this I have at least three, more or less equally plausible, explanations:
It was all paranoia; they were two separate men, and they just happened to be going the exact same way as I was going, and they were staring because I'm strange;
For whatever reason, someone was following me last night at 10.40pm and then again this morning at 6.05 am; he knows my route and he knows my neighbourhood;
I'm reading too much into the behaviour of two separate men who, for whatever reason, really wanted to have sex with me (I'm not that bad looking from a little distance away, okay?).
I really need more data.
[ETA: Also, I'm going to pretend that the overpowering and otherwise inexplicable sense of déjà vu I felt, just typing all this up, isn't some sort of omen. What the hell, Self?]
[ETA: Unless of course I already blogged all this in one of my dreams. This is entirely possible, ha.]
* Usually mouthy teens.
† Where people definitely can hide, and often do, albeit only to have drunken sex. There's a man-sized gap by the wall I usually hurry past as quickly as possible.
The guy was standing, rather ominously, in a dark corner of one of the out-of-the-way little paths I sometimes use as shortcuts when I'm not sure I want to use the main footpath for one reason or another* - I'm grateful that I did use the main footpath, now. (I ducked past an unseen someone while walking along that little side-path just a few nights ago; I felt his bemused attention and assumed, at the time, that he was a resident of the nearby flats wondering who the hell I was. I wonder...?) He followed me at a little distance all the way to Sainsbury's - along my route which leads me, I am newly and gruesomely aware, down under a bridge and along the side of a road and through lackadaisically steetlit footpaths and past big overgrown bushes† - and the things that mainly made me nervous were a) the way he started walking almost immediately on sighting me, and b) the way he always seemed to be looking directly at me every time I had occasion to take a quick glance back.
I suppose I must've been more afraid than I thought, because I've never been so glad to walk by a mob of mouthy teens in my life; or to get straight into work without hassle over doorkeys. By hometime I'd convinced myself it was just paranoia from watching 'Millennium' and listening to PJ Harvey all week (an entirely disproportionate amount of her songs are about murders and seedy disappearances).
Of course, someone seemed to follow me home, too. (This is, defending my hyperactive paranoia, after I'd forgotten the walk to work altogether; I really am perfectly capable of compartmentalising my workday like this.) I'm not even sure if it was the same man, but he sure seemed to be craning his neck after me, and he followed me almost to my street (at this point I panicked, made a sharp turn, and took a long and elaborate route home, running quietly as soon as I was out of sight: I don't want stalkers, imaginary or not, finding out where I live). He was watching the road from the bus station; seemed to react to me through the window; was on the footpath already, a little way behind me, by the time my walk took me there; and it felt creepy, which was the main qualification, just like eight hours before. Generic young white man; dark, generically-shortish hair; white T-shirt, with some sort of black screen-print. I wish my walk weren't so distinctive.
From this I have at least three, more or less equally plausible, explanations:
I really need more data.
[ETA: Also, I'm going to pretend that the overpowering and otherwise inexplicable sense of déjà vu I felt, just typing all this up, isn't some sort of omen. What the hell, Self?]
[ETA: Unless of course I already blogged all this in one of my dreams. This is entirely possible, ha.]
* Usually mouthy teens.
† Where people definitely can hide, and often do, albeit only to have drunken sex. There's a man-sized gap by the wall I usually hurry past as quickly as possible.