Let's Not Meet Again

Balcony Stalker

I'm a woman in my mid-20s. I live in a mid-sized city, at the edge of a mostly yuppie neighborhood that is close enough to downtown to still be considered "urban", but still relatively quiet and considered "safe" by most people who live in my city. We have our fair share of car break ins I guess, but that's the usual extent of our crime reports.

In addition to my full time office job, I work part time as a maitre'd at a high end restaurant. After work around 11pm on Sunday, I really didn't feel like cooking and was dreaming of a cold margarita, so I went to the bar across the street for a late dinner by myself, still decked out in my nice work clothes (a conservative dress and heels). This bar is somewhat of a dive, and I always forget that they host punk shows in their back room on Sunday nights which typically draws a sizable crowd.

The commotion and swarm of rowdy drunk people didn't bother me much until I felt someone bump my bar stool towards the end of my meal. I looked back, and a guy maybe 10-15 years older than me was pressed up against the back of my seat and smiling at me. I brushed him off as a drunko trying to get the bartender's attention, until I felt his hand gently rubbing my back for a few seconds. I looked back at him obviously confused, and he smiled again. I had just finished closing out my tab so, a little flustered, I jumped down from my bar stool and stumbled a bit since I was trying to move quickly.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He was very tall and slender, wearing a tattered red plaid jacket and a newsboy cap.

"Yeah, why? I only had two drinks. I'm not drunk or anything. The bar stool is just high up and I'm short."

"No, you don't seem drunk. It's just that you look so sweet and innocent, and I want to make sure you're okay and feel safe here." I kind of laughed to myself, because even though I looked out of place in this dive bar during a punk show, I have lived across from the place for years and have been there countless times.

"Yeah, I'm totally fine."

"Do you want me to walk you to your car to make sure you get there okay?" By this point I was beyond tired of this guy's unwanted attention, but I'm used to being approached by creeps when alone in public. What I said next was a huge mistake that I will never make again--

"Actually I live just across the street. Really, I'm fine." He grabbed my shoulders gently, looked me in the eyes with a huge grin on his face, and pulled me into a bear hug even though I resisted.

"I just want to make sure you're protected." Whatever dude. Good night.

My one minute walk home was uneventful, and I forgot all about him for two days.

There are a few bars on my block and two convenience stores, so the area experiences pretty high foot traffic and is well lit until about 1:30-2am, which makes my story even more alarming as no one on the street saw (or if they did, they didn't report) what happened next until I did. I live alone on the second floor of a duplex. My bedroom faces the front street, and there is a balcony attached to it. The only way to access this balcony is to either walk through my bedroom, or somehow climb up there from the street which would take a certain amount of dedication and athleticism. There's a big window by my bed where I have a full view of my balcony, and since I'm not on the ground floor and I have trees blocking my windows from my neighbors across the street, I usually leave the blinds open so that the sun wakes me up in the morning.

Two days after the encounter in the bar, I was sitting on my bed reading a little after midnight. Thank goodness I didn't have music playing for once, because I heard a noise outside on the balcony. First a muffled "thump", then some faint creaking footsteps. I whipped my head around to look out the window, and there he was-- standing at the edge of my balcony, about six feet from my window, smiling and waving at me like he was just dropping by to say hello to an old friend.

Naturally, I lost my shit and booked it in the opposite direction, out of the back door. I've experienced a home invasion before (which is a story for another post), so I was on autopilot and called the police. They showed up within five minutes, but he was gone. The officer told me a bunch of things that didn't need repeating-- to lock my doors and windows, keep my pepper spray by my bed instead of in my purse, and for god's sake stop telling strangers where I live. If I saw the guy again, I was to call the police immediately (duh).

Since then, I've had a million horrible thoughts about what could have hypothetically happened to me, and what might have actually happened to me in the days (or weeks, or months...years?) leading up to this without my knowledge. If I had been asleep, for example, or not heard him out there, he could have easily broken my bedroom window and climbed right in. If he'd had a gun, he could have shot me through the window at pretty close range. And, for all I know, that night at the bar was not the first time he had seen me-- and that night on my balcony was not his first time up there. It goes without saying that I'm keeping my blinds closed from now on because, come to think of it, there have been times when I've had a sinking intuition that I was being watched while sitting on my bed, but always brushed it off as nonsense and didn't even bother to look outside. But I need to stop speculating-- what happened was already scary enough.

So, creepy punk guy on my balcony, I hope we NEVER EVER meet again