Something weird hap­pened while I was in Toronto.

I was sit­ting on a patio with John on Queen Street West, when I noticed Mike walk­ing down the street with a girl. I met Mike as we were simul­ta­ne­ously earn­ing our com­puter sci­ence degrees in Ottawa, so I call him over, and I ask him what he’s doing it Toronto. He tells me he moved here about a year ago, which I didn’t know; the last time I saw him was at Pat’s birth­day party.

We make some more small talk, and he intro­duces me to his friend. Then, for some rea­son, he turns to me and says, “I don’t know how things are between you and [the stalker], but she’s friends with her too”.

I also met “the stalker” in uni­ver­sity. We started as friends, but at some point she told me we were meant for each other, then got all psy­cho when she said I wasn’t spend­ing enough time with her, and started send­ing me ram­bling e-mails like this:

u have a beau­ti­ful mind dude… i donno who told u dif­fer­ent was it that
red­head bitch that wouldn’t date u? i think i’m feel­ing homi­cidial against
her right now >:{

yor mind is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who the fuck cares if yor good at school or not.….…

I haven’t talked to her since — in early 2005 — and I’ve been avoid­ing any con­tact with her, des­per­ately hop­ing she would for­get about me, but she kept send­ing me e-mails, some as recent as last year, and read­ing my blog. I don’t know how Mike knows about the whole sit­u­a­tion between us, because I didn’t say any­thing to any­one but my close friends¹.

So I remain silent, hop­ing the entire mat­ter will be dropped, but a voice in my head is scream­ing “WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP?!” Then Mike’s friend turns to me and says, “Oh, you know [the stalker] too! I’m going to CALL HER AND LET HER KNOW YOU’RE HERE” (empha­sis mine) as she pulls out her cell phone.

As politely and calmly as I can, I say, “Please don’t”, while try­ing to mask my grow­ing dis­com­fort. In order to remain civil, avert gos­sip, and avoid turn­ing her against “the stalker” with my side of the story, I don’t say any­thing or offer an expla­na­tion. For some rea­son, she doesn’t get it, and she brings her phone to her ear. I’m par­a­lyzed by anx­i­ety, unsure of what to say, won­der­ing to myself, “Is this really happening?”

I real­ize it would prob­a­bly be inap­pro­pri­ate to smack the phone out of her hand, so I sit. And wait. And after what seems like an eter­nity, she puts the phone down, and says, “I couldn’t get a hold of her”.

Oh thank you god thank you god thank you god, I promise to add some­thing to the col­lec­tion plate next time I’m in church.

When she sees the relief in my face, she says, “Oh, I didn’t real­ize there’s some kind of his­tory between you two. I thought you were jok­ing. I won’t bring it up with her.”, and I do my best to muster a calm, “Probably a good idea”.

John says it makes a great story. I think it made a great heart attack.

1. Although she did choose to pub­licly embar­rass her­self by post­ing crazy com­ments on some of my entries, so maybe that’s how. [↑]