Customer following me
I’m (23) a waitress at a popular diner around town. We serve thousands of people weekly, but we do have a strong group of regulars that come in multiple times a day. One man, let’s call him Joseph (maybe mid to late 50s), started making creepy comments towards me after I ran into him in a grocery store. He kept on saying how he didn’t know that I had a body like that and that my uniform covers it. I laughed it off and said that I had class and quickly left the store. After that, his friends started making comments towards other people saying that I’m the one that Joseph loves. Shortly after those comments started happening, I got the constant feeling of being watched. One night, I heard a crash in the other room. I thought I was home alone, so I texted my roommates and asked if anyone was home. They all said no. I barricaded my door shut and went to sleep, thinking I was just being paranoid. The next morning my roommate asked me why I texted them that. I told her about it and she mentioned that when she opened the curtains, our utility closet door was open. We live in these apartments that have a balcony and the utility closet is on the balcony. The utility closet has an exterior door, so there is no way it could have blown open, and the weather was really nice that night. It wasn’t windy or stormy. I asked my other roommate if she had been in the utility closet and she said no. Random creepy things would happen, like I would run into him in places frequently. Things started to slow down, and I didn’t feel like I was being watched. But then on my way back from my friends house I noticed that this car had been behind me for a bit. I didn’t think too much of it, because it looked like one of my neighbors cars. I parked at my apartment and this car pulls behind me and parks so I can’t leave. I hop out of my car and run to my apartment, and I slam the door shut. I look out the window and I see this car pull in front of my building and the driver gets out and leans up against his door. It looked like he was looking at me, but I couldn’t tell because it was too dark. Eventually after about 10 minutes, he leaves. I finally get a pair of size 12 men’s work boots and put them outside of my door. Since I’ve done that I haven’t had a problem like this.
Side note: there was another waitress named beth that told me that Joseph somehow got her number. He started to message her asking why she wasn’t home and that he drove by her house and didn’t see her car. So this type of behavior isn’t out of the norm. Other waitresses told me that they would pass Joseph on the street going and that he would do a u-turn and follow them to whatever store they were going to.
**all fake names
Edit: I forgot to add that a few months later, I ran into him at a thrift store and he told me recently that he’s been waiting for me there.