In high school, I was an aspiring actress. My parents hired me an agent. I had auditions every month.
One day, my friend from school invited me to hang out for her birthday. It was going to be the whole weekend. My agent had booked me a really big audition that Saturday. I had to pick between those two and I chose the birthday party. I didn't even have to think about it. Sorry, not sorry! My agent was extremely upset. He called me several times. I did not answer. Then he contacted my parents and said for me to call him if I still wanted to work together. I never called him.
Through acting, I had met a lot of other actors my age who were working with the same agent. When I stopped acting, I stopped talking to them. We didn’t really have that much in common anymore. It also would have been awkward to keep in contact because they were still working with the agent I had fired. So I wished them the best and moved on with my life.
It wasn't that simple though. One kid named Bobby started texting me, asking how I was doing and when I would be back. I did not respond at first because I did not feel like explaining everything. Eventually, I told him because he was not giving up.
He asked to be friends and said I was his favorite person to hang out with. That was really sweet. I said I would be happy to stay in touch. Bobby and I lived an hour away from each other. Most of his weekends were busy acting. I didn't know how practical it would be to actually be "friends" but I wasn’t opposed to the idea.
Then he started inviting me to things. Every weekend, he invited me to something like the beach or a hike. I always said no. We weren't dating, related, or even close friends with each other. So I wasn't going to drive an hour for something like that. And a lot of those ideas felt like dates.
Eventually, he switched strategies and asked if he could pick me up from school that Friday. He said he had a surprise. I had this moment where I was like "okay, this could either be fun or a learning experience." I told him where to pick me up from and what time.
He picked me up, and instead of being excited, he immediately started talking about how unsafe my area was. That was rude. So now I was annoyed and not in the mood for a surprise anymore. I wanted to know where we were going. He said it was his favorite restaurant and told me which one. I had been there before and it I actually liked it.
We got there and ate. The food was good, but the whole thing felt like a date that I hadn't agreed to go on. I wanted to make it feel less like that, so I told him that he didn't need to worry about bringing me back home. I would take uber. For him to drive me back now was going to feel like too much. I took my phone out, checked how much Uber would cost, and put my phone down on the table.
He got really angry because it turned out he had planned an entire night, literally a sleepover. He had planned on taking me to the beach after dinner. He had picked out a movie for us to watch later at his place. He had a sleeping bag for me. And he had bought ingredients to make breakfast for us the next morning. I was hearing all this for the first time and I said it was not going to happen.
He tried to tell me how much fun it would be. We went back and forth a little. I think I said something like “this is not negotiable. I'm taking Uber to go back home."
Remember how I said I put my phone on the table? He grabbed it and laughed. That gave me a flashback to fifth grade when kids used to take each other’s things as a prank. That made me really mad. I hate making scenes, but I screamed "help!! he's stolen my phone!! He wants to kidnap me!!”
Everyone looked in our direction. The staff came over. They made him give me back my phone.
They took me to a little office in the restaurant and asked me what happened. I told the story. They were really nice. They let me order whatever I wanted for free. I didn't have the appetite but it was still really sweet of them. I was secretly hoping they’d offer to pay for my uber to get back home, but they didn’t so I had to pay for it myself. But that’s okay. They were still the sweetest.
The last I saw Bobby was when they were taking me to the office. They did, however, tell me that I could go back and eat there whenever I wanted because Bobby was banned from going there.
Bobby actually texted me multiple times after that to apologize. I didn’t respond. I never blocked him because I was honestly curious to see what he’d keep sending me. Over the next two years, he continued texting me updates about his life and apologies for that day at the restaurant. I think he eventually realized I wasn’t going to respond ever and he gave up.