r/LetsNotMeet

I’m doing radiology training, so we regularly do duty at a hospital. A few days ago, something really weird happened during my shift.

A young woman came for an X-ray. I was doing the normal positioning procedure and asked her to place her hand properly on the couch. While setting things up, I went inside the exposure room.

That’s when I noticed a man, probably around 50 years old, who had entered the radiology room behind her. At first I didn’t think much of it, but then I realized he was secretly taking pictures of the girl from behind.

Then I noticed something else — he had also taken a picture while I was positioning the patient, so I was in the picture too.

I immediately informed the staff and we confronted him. We checked his phone and found the pictures. We deleted every photo ourselves — from the gallery and even from the recently deleted/bin section.

After getting caught, he suddenly switched his behavior and started saying, “I’m a reporter. What’s your name?”

By then I was already irritated. I just said, “I don’t have a name. Your X-ray is done, now please leave.”

The whole thing felt incredibly creepy. Hospitals are places where people are already uncomfortable and vulnerable. Secretly taking pictures of patients there is just messed up.

Some people seriously need to chill.

I know “trust your gut” gets repeated constantly online, but about six months ago at Dulles airport, my body reacted to a stranger with such intense fear that I still think about it regularly.

About six months ago, my husband (29M) and I (24M) flew from the west coast back to the east coast on a red eye. We landed at Dulles early in the morning, exhausted and kind of delirious in that weird post overnight flight way.

If you know Dulles airport, you know the pickup situation can be chaotic. Arrivals gets backed up constantly, so instead of waiting downstairs, we took our luggage upstairs to departures because pickups there are usually way faster.

It was cold outside, but after hours in airports and on a plane, the fresh air honestly felt nice. We leaned against those concrete barriers outside the terminal while my husband called his mom, who was driving from Potomac to pick us up. Traffic was bad, so we were just standing around waiting.

That’s when a man came over.

At first, there was absolutely nothing strange about him. He looked like a completely normal late 20s or early 30s tech guy. Clean clothes, fleece vest, AirPods in, well groomed (maybe slightly dirt nails). Honestly the type of person you wouldn’t look twice at.

He told my husband he liked his jacket. My husband thanked him. Then he complimented mine too. I awkwardly said something like, “Thanks, man, you too,” even though his outfit was pretty generic.

He smiled and sarcastically replied, “I’m sure you do.”

It was subtle, but something about the tone felt slightly off.

Still, none of it seemed alarming. We made small talk. He asked where we were headed, and we said we were staying with family nearby. He started talking about family too, except every comment he made had this bitter, self deprecating edge to it. At one point he said something along the lines of friends and family not mattering anyway.

We tried being nice about it. Just casual conversation with a stranger while waiting for a ride.

Then something changed.

I cannot explain this properly without sounding insane, but the atmosphere shifted so suddenly that I physically felt it. I got chills all over my body. Not anxiety. Not nervousness. Actual primal fear.

The guy’s expression changed completely.

He was still talking normally, but the way he was looking at us suddenly felt deeply wrong. The only way I can describe it is that he looked at us like he wanted to hurt us. There was this intense anger behind his eyes that absolutely had not been there before.

I remember noticing he had no luggage at all. Just a backpack. Which struck me as odd because he’d mentioned getting off a long flight.

Then somewhere in the conversation he casually said:

“I don’t have a home.”

Again, none of this sounds terrifying written out. But standing there in that moment, every instinct in my body was screaming at me that something was wrong with this person.

My husband usually gets absorbed in conversations and doesn’t pick up on weird vibes immediately, but I knew I needed to get away from this guy without escalating anything.

So instead of abruptly saying we were leaving, I quietly walked back inside the airport and down the ramp toward arrivals, leaving my husband outside talking to him. I made up an excuse that I had to go to the bathroom and he just said "oh the bathroom huh?"

I know that sounds terrible, but I genuinely thought if I acted alarmed or made it obvious I was scared, something bad would happen.

Once I got downstairs, I called my husband and told him, as calmly as I could, “You need to come inside right now. Something is seriously wrong with that guy.”

While I was on the phone, I could hear the man say:

“Oh, is that your friend? Tell him to come back out.”

My husband wrapped up the conversation politely, saying something like, “Nice meeting you, man.”

And the guy responded in this cold, almost mocking voice:

“Yeah. I’m sure you really mean that.”

The way he said it genuinely made my stomach drop.

A minute later my husband finally came back inside. The second I saw him walk around the corner, I felt relief wash over me. Before I could even explain myself properly, he immediately said:

“No, I get it. That felt really fucking scary”

That was the moment I knew I wasn’t imagining it.

We waited inside until my husband’s mom arrived. The second we got into the car, she started asking how we were, excited to see us after we’d been away for a while. And honestly, I was relieved to see her too, not just because we hadn’t seen her in some time, but because it genuinely felt like she had unknowingly pulled us out of something awful.

The entire time we were driving out of the airport, I had this horrible adrenaline still running through me. I immediately started trying to explain what had just happened, talking too fast, trying to describe why the interaction had scared me so badly.

But the more I tried explaining it out loud, the more impossible it sounded.

Nothing had technically happened.

The guy never threatened us. He never followed us. He never raised his voice.

And yet I have never felt a stronger instinctual fear response in my life.

I think part of what frustrated me so much was that I couldn’t properly communicate what had felt so deeply wrong about him. Not to her, not fully to my husband (although he felt it too), and honestly not even to myself.

As we drove out of the airport, we passed the same man sitting alone further down the terminal.

He didn’t look over at us.

But I remember staring at him through the car window feeling like we had narrowly escaped something I still can’t explain.

So to the man outside Dulles airport that morning:

Let’s not meet.

2 nights ago this guy from tiktok/whatsapp got me on facetime under a fake job offer paying $50 a day. while we were on the call he had me cut holes in a shirt and put it on, and he kept making me make the holes bigger for 'energy' and stuff, while asking me if i felt “hotter” or “colder” after each movement. the holes started small and i purposefully didn't cut holes over where my boobs would be, but it still made me super uncomfortable.

i honestly thought it was a legit paranormal thing at first (cut me some slack once a guy on tiktok sent me $350 to stand outside in the mud barefoot) because i really needed the money, and i actually had to ask chatgbt (pathetic i kno) about what he was making me do to fully realize it was an online predator. yesterday he kept texting me being all casual talking about publix and local horror legends like the devils tree (BTW NOT A LEGEND. AN ACTUAL PLACE A SERIAL KILLER USED TO TAKE GIRLS TO MURDER THEM). it takes place super close to where i live. stupidly i told him the city of where i lived.

he kept aggressively asking like 4 times if i was still on the phone with my friend throughout our convo. then he asked what my 'fit' was yesterday and that was it for me. i'm not terrified of a recording, i'm just terrified of what his intentions actually were with all of this.

he knows the city my apartment is in along with the city my grandma lives in (where im staying now bc im genuinely afraid to be alone). the closest thing to an exact location he has on me is that my parents live in the townhouses behind a specific restaurant, and he knows that neighborhood but they have a ring camera and left yesterday for 6 months.

also im 90 percent sure he was in his car during the call, i think i got a glimpse of his dashboard.

at one long point his audio got really really warped. during the call it was definitely odd but i honestly thought he was gay and he wasn’t asking anything too crazy. toward the end i got more and more uncomfortable, bc of what he was having me do. at worst he got a recording of a snippet of my boob out of a hole or something but i don’t even care about like that going around or anything.

another thing is that he hung up the call super abruptly and told me to go to bed the second i wasn’t doing what he wanted quickly or correctly enough because i had taken my ativan and became notably more delayed.

i’m just really creeped out. sorry if this sounds like a huge run on sentence, im just trying to give as much information as possible that i think could be relevant. i do not want to go to the authorities bc i told him a lot of stuff over text that was personal about my own struggles in the past with certain substances.

im just not comfortable with that. i guess i wanted a bigger pool of ppls takes on this since i cant sleep for the life of me and i want to know how “safe” i really am right now, and what you think i should do. he also was really trying to get me to meet him in person in isolated areas like the woods or my apartment, claiming he lived in the same area as me.

EDIT: i’m literally not a minor. a predator is someone who uses manipulation tactics to get what they want—it is not exclusive to minors.

im disgusted with how mean some of these comments are. i came for help not to be pummeled. i have been having trouble filling my bipolar meds and have been doing all sorts of crazy shit lately i normally wouldn’t. think before you comment because you don’t know what’s going on in somebody’s life. i come here looking for help/advice and i get slandered being called “too dumb” to use the internet. nothing like this has ever happened to me before. i’m genuinely disgusted.

for the record, obviously i already blocked him on everything.

When I was 8 I thought there Was a Bird trapped in my Garage for a Week, but now I’m not so sure. The following includes child death so dont continue if you’re not prepared for that.

It started with a complicated friendship I had in elementary school with someone I’ll refer to as Adam. I say complicated because I was more so friends with his older brother than I was a friend of his. But me being 8, Adam being 6 and a half, and Jacob we’ll call him, being 10, I had just naturally grown closer to Jacob and thought I’d known him like a best friend should. But in an innocent, friendly way I truly adored Adam.

Adam was special needs. I won’t go specifically into what he had because quite frankly I don’t remember and it doesn’t matter, but he was prone to loud outbursts and everyone including me as much as I cherished his presence — everyone seemed to have moments where they lost their patience for him. I wish I had met him today. I’d sit through anything he could manage to muster up. I wouldn’t lose my patience with him today. I promise I wouldn’t.

Jacob and I would often play Xbox together. I haven’t touched an Xbox since.

Given Jacob and my age gap, our friendship felt like an honor, one I needed to maintain although only to an extent because I knew me being his friend wasn’t solely out of choice but was also greatly influenced by my house being the closest to Jacob and Adam’s parents’ property.

Regardless, having 2 friends felt nice. A lot of my visits to their house consisted of gaming with Jacob, pretending to write stories on their dad’s typewriter, and playing hide and seek with Adam.
Adam wasn’t too developed in regards to his vocal skills. Not to say he couldn’t talk,he could and did ,however how and what he said was up to him or should I say wasn’t really up to him. They didn’t follow any rules. Naturally, this made it hard to play with him but for some reason he loved hide and seek. He would approach Jacob and I as we 1v1’d each other split screen on Rust (the COD map not the game), and he would stand directly in front of the TV bumping his fist together doing one of his vocal stims. As I said before, his vocal development wasn’t like others. He was limited to a number of vocal stims that abided by no rules. The only exception was one thing: when we’d play hide and seek.

Although this was one of the things Adam was actually decent at, Jacob still never wanted to play this with Adam because he had no patience for it. I feel sick to my stomach typing this. I’m sorry.

When Adam and I would play hide and go seek together, Adam would love to hide and always want me to be the one who seeks. He wouldn’t be able to stay perfectly quiet when he hid. He could never stay perfectly quiet. But playing hide and seek was the closest he ever got to controlling his vocal outbursts, only letting out that occasional vocal stim of his.

One month Jacob and Adam had supposedly been getting into trouble a lot and because of this were grounded and not able to have friends over.

I wish I could tell you how I was told what happened next, but I don’t remember. I wish I could remember who sat me down and how they managed to pass such confusing information to a child my age. But I don’t. Someone did. And all I remember is the new reality: Adam was missing.

Over the next week my young mind would learn a number of things, while also forming questions still yet to be answered to this day.

Second to finding out about Adam’s disappearance, the first thing I remember learning was that Adam had gone missing while playing hide and go seek with Jacob. I think at the time I inadvertently subconsciously made the choice to not unravel any thoughts surrounding this discovery. I was just sad. At the same time, I do remember I would sit in the garage making my little experiments/projects wondering when I’d be able to play with my friends again.

I would make these dumb props of things that would more times than not serve no purpose. I remember doing this until the sun went down. And during that dreadful week, I found myself following that same routine. I believe it was a day or so after Adam went missing that was the first time I heard it.

I was playing, likely building something, when one of my step sisters told me to shut the garage and get ready for bed or they would tell my dad when he got home and I’d get in trouble. I remember reaching to hit the garage door opener, as at the time it was too high for me to reach with ease. It’s hard to write about so far after the fact but as I reached out I remember hearing the garage door. It sounded like plastic slamming against something but I couldn’t make out what. It sounded hard but not at the same time, too hard to be something I recognized but too soft to be the concrete ground. I remember hearing the noise as my arms were raised pressing the garage door button to shut. In this position I was facing the wall, so I remember the noise scaring me and making me immediately jump and turn around. After that I heard a bird chirp.

This scared the living shit out of me as I could not see a bird, but my garage being a 4 door with shelves upon shelves of tools, from my short point of view from everything was limited. For all I knew it was one of my toys that fell, although again whatever fell didn’t hit the ground. I would recognize concrete getting hit by this level of force. I ran inside and called it a night.

The third thing I remember later that week when my dad and stepmom returned. Unlike the last two, this next piece of information I actually recall how I came to learn. It wasn’t directly told to me but rather was something I remember overhearing from my dad. Apparently, Jacob and Adam’s parents wouldn’t allow the cops to search their house.

This felt odd to say the least, and my dad wasn’t shy about voicing his opinion. Their parents said there was no reason to search the house as they already did, yet they left half the town searching the hills far and wide for Adam. My stepmom, the melodramatic one she was, even fainted on one of these search parties and had to be helped by a firefighter. Point being, all these efforts were being made except one. No authorities searched the house.

I remember the first couple of days I was caught up in the excitement and all the changes and all the chisme, but on the third I felt scared. I remember laying in bed crying when my dad came up to me and asked what was wrong. Feels like such a stupid question looking back on it since he should know why I’m crying but I think he was just curious on what my answer would be.

I remember trying to look at him in the eyes although my vision was too blurry and mustering up one thing. “Adam’s not good at hide and go seek,” I said, breaking mid-sentence and bawling at the end. I think I was beginning to understand that Adam wasn’t playing hide and go seek, and I’m not sure he ever was.

I remember the next day I was sitting in my garage, 2 of the 4 doors open with plenty of light coming in as I was gluing 2-liter bottles to a backpack to make a fake flamethrower. I remember forgetting at the time about the nights prior when I heard that slamming and the bird in the garage. I felt so calm, dry face, almost forgetting what a sad week it had been, then I heard it again. Only this time I recognized the sound for what it was. It was that whistling vocal stim of Adam. The on Adam would let out every time we played hide and seek. The one He’d let out when he banged his fist together singling he wanted me and Jacob to stop and play with him.

It let out a “tweet tweet” and the noise scared me. I remember running inside scared, and tired of being alone. I remember going up to my 2 older step sisters and asking if they thought Adam and Jacob’s Parents would let me hang out with Jacob.

I realize now how stupid of a question it was and how inappropriate the timing of such a question was. At the time I was unaware of this. My step sisters on the other hand were aware of this and they let me know it.

They immediately yelled at me, asked me if I was stupid only using a word I’ll refrain from, and told me I was the most selfish person they knew. One of my sisters (the younger of the 2) smacked me across my face and told me to go clean my room or they’d tell dad when he got home and make me get the belt. I ran to my room crying as I was yelled at not to cry or say a word or they’d tell Dad.

That night I fell asleep fast as tears often help you do. I remember waking up in a panic. I felt like I saw something maybe a shadow but the moment I stood up I had forgotten what I’d seen and all I was left with was the sheer panic. I remember having far too much energy to even want to sleep but being in need of consoling. Consoling no one in my house was ever going to give me.

I remember having a thought that at the time I felt made sense. I thought maybe that bird in my garage was Adam. Maybe that “tweet tweet” was his calls and hints for me to look for him that I’d been ignoring this whole time. After all, I never remember him playing hide and go seek with anyone other than me.

Now the garage door wasn’t too far from my room, just a little further. However, I was 8 years old and at the time I would go through these periods where I’d be so scared to leave my room at night that I would piss my bed. All things considered, going to the garage was not a decision I made lightly.

It was one I truly thought might bring me comfort and in my young mind I truly thought there could be a possibility I’d find Adam, be the hero, and everything would be okay. I put a sweater over my pajamas and went in the garage. The door shut behind me.

I turned on a light and walked around, looking and timidly calling out for Adam. When I did I heard his “tweet” once again, only this time I didn’t perceive it as anything close to a bird at all. I perceived it how I’d perceived every one of his “tweet tweets” in the past when we’d played. it felt like I was close to finding him.

I heard it in between 2 of my shelves. I heard it and when I went to turn the corner instead of seeing Adam I heard that loud crashing sound. Like plastic hitting I don’t know what ,hitting something hard. Again though, it wasn’t loud enough to be the impact of my concrete floor. This sudden crash scared the shit out of me and caused me to run and immediately open the garage door for more light. This was a mistake.

My father slammed open the door, He screamed asking me what the hell I was doing but I was too afraid to be honest. “I don’t know,” I replied which sent him into a fit of rage. He made me get his belt and he whooped my bare ass till he was out of breath. I cried and cried. My screams satisfying my stepsisters. I thought I could find Adam.

Adam was found that week, but not by me. He was found buried under a plum tree in his backyard.

Apparently Adam and Jacob had got into a fight over the Xbox which made no sense to me because Adam couldn’t care less about the Xbox. I guess Jacob had used the Xbox to slam Adam across the head and beat him to death. Adam being buried under a plum tree hid the smell from the search Dogs for some time at first, either dumb luck or the doing of someone with more intelligence than Jacob. Jacob did 8 years and got out not long after my senior year of high school. I think about him and “Adam” often but I haven’t reached out. I never will. But I’ve been struggling, and I’ve been feeling panic like I had when I was young and I really want to let this go. I have no one to tell because on all accounts my recollection of that week is completely insignificant when compared to the events that took place at its core but my experience is real. And I’m hoping I never hear from Jacob again and I pray I never hear another bird in my garage.

In the summer of 2021 my boyfriend and I were staying on Tulalip Indian Reservation. The house we were renting had terrible phone service. To get a signal we would have to walk or drive to the main road. It was about a mile walk down the hill. No street lights. Our relationship was very toxic. We fought all the time. And when we did he would take off and leave me at the house no car and not cell service. This was one of those times.

My boyfriend had been sitting in his truck listening to music. When I looked out the window his truck was gone. I walked down to the main road. That was usually where I would find him just parked there where he had phone service. Probably texting other girls.

He was not there so I started walking toward the gas station. And I am trying to call him. The gas station is another mile away. It is very dark. I think it was like midnight or 1 am. As I am walking an old blue pickup drives by and come to a stop about the equivalent of a block away. He doesn't say anything I can't even see him. The driver opens their door. A car comes toward us. He closes his door and drives off. I shrug it off. About 5 minutes later the truck comes back this time driving towards me on my side of the road. He is driving very slowly. The windows are so darkly tinted I cannot see the driver. I notice what I had thought was a canopy is actually made out of wood. Another car passes and he takes off fast again.

I turn around and start back to the house. Here comes the truck again. The wood thing looks like a cage or big wood box with a door. He again stops about a block away and pulls over and opens his door. And again when a car comes he takes off.

My boyfriend is not answering my calls. I am just getting back to the private road that heads up to the house. Here comes that damn truck again. I pass the road and keep walking. I don't want whoever this is to know what road I live on. I don't want to lose phone service. And once I start up that road there will be no traffic to scare him off. This time I start taking pictures of him. I wish I still had that phone that I took those pictures on. I text the pictures to my boyfriend and my best friend saying if something happens to me look for this truck. The truck takes off again. I thought maybe I was safe and he got scared because I took his picture. I called my best friend asked him to stay on the phone with me. I had started walking back toward my road. I figured I was safe. The truck had not come back.

Right when I started up my road the truck came back again. I started running faster than I have ever run in my life. I run up this hill and into the woods. You guys I see the headlights go by. The truck continues straight up to where all the houses are. I keep running up towards the house but stay close to the tree line. It is dark enough I can see the headlights from pretty far away. I hear the truck coming back before I see him. By this time I am around the corner and not too far from where the houses are. I duck down behind a tree and bush. The truck goes back down the hill very slowly. Once it feels safe. I start making my way back to the house. This truck comes back!!! I am ducking behind peoples fences and broken down cars in their yards. This guy is just relentless. I made it safely back to the house. I could hear every time that truck came back. And he was circling. He would drive by about every 25 minutes very slowly for the next 3 hours at least. By then my best friend had driven an hour to get there. My boyfriend finally checked his text messages 5 hours later and came home acting all worried. Whoever that dude is with a wooden cage built on his truck LETS NOT MEET!!!!!

And for those of you wondering why I did not call 911. The US Marshalls had a warrant out for me at the time. Calling the police was not an option.

I hope this is appropriate for the sub.

I lived at my old place for quite some time. It was townhouse style housing and our units faced the alley. The alley had uncovered parking pads for all the tenants and you could see them from our front doors. I knew all my neighbors quite well. All wonderful human beings. I really enjoyed living there for a time.

I also take care of an elderly parent. They are very sweet and capable, just have some major health problems. Their health and safety is of my utmost importance.

At first the neighborhood was actually really quaint. Lots of families. However the last few years I was there, something changed and these bizarre situations started happening with people outside our house. Quite a few different people started showing up at our door and in the alley. Most were actually really nice. Just down and out people looking for cigarette butts and recycling. I kept a good repitore with them and would give them what I had. Fed them, gave them clothes. Most were really nice but some were kinda scary and I had to call the cops a few times.

I started to get concerned for my parent's safety because we'd already had a couple run ins. I was teetering on considering moving because I just wasnt liking the environment for my parent.

Well one day I go out to my car and I feel like Im being watched. I turn around and I see someone duck behind my neighbors' truck two units down. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks but I could see a pair of legs underneath. I kinda brushed it off because I was so used to people being in the alley. And thought I was being paranoid. I go run an errand and come back.

When I get back, I ran to get the mail and my neighbor (let's call him Gary, absolutely wonderful young dad, adorable family) comes out and stops me and says "hey, someone's been standing outside on the pad in front of Mark's (also a dad and also a wonderful human being) house for hours.

Cliche to say but I got fucking chills. I knew I had felt someone watching me. I told Gary what happened earlier and Gary tells me Mark's out with his daughter. Gary asks me if we should go confront the guy.

I was super hesitant because both Gary and I didnt need the bullshit, Gary had just had a second child and my parent's health issues were flaring up at the time. But Mark also had a young kid and we felt it was best to.

We go up to the guy and confront him. Guy is clearly off but very coherent, and well groomed. Its hard to describe. He was very non descript, didnt seem unhoused or unusual looking just "off". Nothing about him screamed anything significant. He was just there. Gary asked him what he was doing and he responds "im just on a walk trying to clear my head".

We both kinda told him to go away (Gary was less polite than me) but the guy just keeps standing there saying hes waiting for someone. Then he says to both of us along the line of "I am having dark thoughts" I think Gary was just as spooked and we both hightailed it outta there and Gary calls the cops.

By this point Gary and I are both in our homes, doors locked and watching the guy. He just keeps standing by Marks truck. Cops show up quite some time later. I was actually panicking because how long they took. I was texting Gary the whole time because his unit was right next to Mark's and had a better view of the guy.

Cops finally show up and question the guy. The guy finally leaves.

Gary tells me that he followed up and when the cops questioned him, he told them that he was staying with one of the other tenants and was waiting for them to come home cause he got locked out so they let him go. Absolutely utter bullshit. I was furious.

We let Mark know what happened and he was just as baffled. Gary and I moved out not long after we didn't need that shit in our lives. I do still worry about that guy and why he was hanging out. Mark and his kid are still doing fine. So is Gary.

Just never want to meet that guy again.

i am from an african country and this happened to me about 8 years ago.

i grew up in the city but sometimes we go to the village and spend a month there during the summer. the village we go to is in the desert and the house we stay in is at the extremity of said village. so far that if you walk for barely a minute or two you’ll find yourself outside the village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by dunes.

i have always found the atmosphere unsettling there at night. 80% of houses don’t have electricity, no street lamps either, so people have to either rely on the moonlight or a torch/flashlight to walk around the streets at night. that is if you find people outside to begin with, as villagers sleep very early and it’s completely still and quiet by 9pm.

there was an abandoned school right across the street from our house. it was so close to the dunes and uncared for that the sand started crawling in and swallowing it. it has always been there as far as i remember but i never ventured into it because in my faith we believe that abandoned places are inhabited by jinns (unseen creatures) and that we should not disturb them.

i have never seen or heard any activity there so i stopped paying attention to it and it just sat there in the background throughout the years.

that year we had guests spend the weekend over at our house, they were my cousins back from the city. we stayed up late chatting and eating food and by the time we finished our late dinner it was 11pm, everyone besides us was probably asleep and the entire village was quiet.

one of my cousins was helping me clean and tidy up after dinner and we realized there was a little leftover food so we decided to bring it out for the stray cats to eat.

we went out and it was completely dark and quiet. since the atmosphere was eerie i decided to tell my cousin about the abandoned school across the street to scare her. fair to say that backfired on me, she didn’t get scared, if anything she got super excited about it and wanted to go explore it. i was against the idea but she insisted and practically dragged me there.

we tiptoed there barefoot and without any source of light since we had no initial intention of going beyond our house’s front door to put down the stray cats food.

we were approaching the fence but everything in my body was screaming not to go inside so halfway there i decided i’m going to come up with a plan to scare her out of it and come back home. before i could even finish my thought process, someone threw a rock at us, it landed right next to my foot and i could tell it came from the school yard’s direction.

we ran so fast back home that i didn’t even process that we were back home until few minutes later and even then i still wasn’t sure what just happened. our parents noticed the state we were in and asked us, we told them, we were scolded for it and told us there could have been dangerous squatters and they probably didn’t want us to come close.

we visited the village multiple times since and the school got renovated in the meantime. but during summer, which is the time round which we visit the village, it’s vacant. and although it’s lit up now, it still looks hauntingly quiet, undisturbed and i can’t help but think whoever or whatever didn’t want us there is still living there.

i dont know how said squatters heard our faint whispers or saw us coming their way in complete darkness but, lets not meet again.

A few years ago my car had been stolen so I needed to buy a new cheap one off of offer up. I did not have enough cash so I walked to the gas station about a half mile away.

At the time I lived in a pretty small town. After 10 pm during the week the streets were pretty empty. I also lived right next to one of the state prisons.

Anyway I already had a bad feeling. The bushes were creeping me out. I kept imagining someone or something jumping out of the bushes so I walked almost in the middle of the street. To give some perspective at 13 years old I was running the streets of downtown Seattle at all hours of the night. I am not a scary or paranoid person. Something just felt off.

I made it to the Chevron took my 500 limit out of the atm. I waited around for a few for it to be after midnight to be able to take out another 500. Grabbed something drinks and snacks and started walking home. Right when I was getting to the bushes I saw someone walking towards me. That was weird in itself.

As they got closer I noticed they didn't look right. THEY HAD A GAS MASK ON!!!!. They were also very tall and big like I would say 6'4" atleast. As they neared I walked in the street to avoid walking past them on the sidewalk. They just walked staring straight ahead. They didn't even turn their head to look as we passed each other. About the equivalent of a block I gad the urge to look behind me and this guy was standing still turned around facing me just standing there in a Michael Myers stance. Just standing there. I literally ran the rest of the way. What the actual fuck?

I have since moved from this neighborhood but was feeling nostalgic for my old neighborhood especially on Halloween, which is when this took place, I know I know " oooo something spooky happened on Halloween " yeah I'm aware but I don't control the date and time things happen. This was a few years ago so details are foggy

Me and my older brother were trick or treating and had already had a run in with a rambling woman going on about " I've waited 6 months for this day " while still walking just talking, maybe not to us just talking as she walked, we hurried along from where we saw her because you don't mess with crazy. A street or so over, there were people ahead, I only saw one that Mt brother pointed out because he said he saw something strange, I only saw a little girl in a purple fairy costume and the out lines of other people with her, however tge man I pointed out was just dancing ? Walking ???- dance walking ?.

I tried pointing him out to my older brother who didn't see him, he was under one of the few street lights, as he danced by a stop sign he turned down a different road and down the street we were going to go down, I told my brother we were absolutely not going that way now, as we passed I didn't see him, it was dark but not that dark, I would've seen him but there was nothing. He was doing ballet ? A weird waltz ? I don't know but nothing was going to stop him on his path, I couldn't tell where his eyes were looking but his head was straightforward but would occasionally turn towards the sky while he danced onward, I know it's been a few years but I always hoped I'd never see him again and now I've moved I'm thinking back on him, he danced well at the very least

Just a little background I haven’t really written anything on Reddit, only some video game posts. So I apologize for any mistakes. Anyway I want to spread awareness to be careful with who you meet in college.

I’m currently a college student starting my third year soon. In my first year there was a guy in a lot of my classes (I’ll call him Jim for the sake of backlash). I’m currently 20 but when I met Jim I was 18, later finding out he was 24. He started to talk to me after seeing that we had a lot of classes together and being the same major (Geology).

Our friendship seemed very normal at first and I never had a bad feeling about him. One day we were walking to a class we had together I started to poke fun at his tan colored had because we would poke fun all the time, and I can’t remember what he said but I said “That’s a weird thing to say” immediately after it felt like the energy switched. He stopped and looked at me and said, “It’s because I’m a serial killer” This was the start of the really weird personality switch up. The worst part about this part was we had a night class together and like the idiot I am, I would walk with him to our cars.

Fast forward there was quite a few things that he had said that should have gotten him kicked out of university. He would say that he’s a nazi and loved those kinda of people. He would continue to find me around campus and sit around me to talk about his racist ideologies. It continued further to him starting to objectify me, inappropriate comments, and utterly disgusting requests. I always had a friend with me after this.

This is where everything went even further downhill.

I was in a computer lab alone one day studying. I heard the slide of a key card (which we all have) opening the door to the room. Of course it was Jim starting in front of the closed door with his hand on the door handle. That is the only exit. I was sitting in the back of the room in the corner (behind me is the wall) the only way to leave is to walk past him but I thought everything would be okay. He sat at the end of the table almost like he was blocking my exit. We started to talk about our end of semester presentation for our mutual class. He was talking about the presentation he was going to do. He wanted to show me the geology of this area he wanted to talk about. Before I could say that I needed to go to class he got up and sat directly next to me. (I was not able to push my way through out of fear of what he would do and him being a lot bigger than me). Everything was fine at first then he started to look at me, get closer and put his arm around the back of my chair. He was talking to me and not looking me in the face but staring at my neck. Like literally staring at my neck and I saw something in his eyes change, like they went black. This went on for minutes until he started to get almost restless. Like he really wanted to do something, whatever that was. I had this overwhelming sick feeling that he was going to strangle me or try to hurt me. I got up and shoved my way through as hard as I could and booked it out of that room. I knew he wanted to hurt me. I feel like my gut instinct saved me from that situation. I practically ran to my next class balling my eyes out.

I ended up not going to that class and went home. He had never tried anything that ballsy. Days after I was told by many people that he was looking for me and for whoever he was asking about me to tell him where I am. This is when I reported everything, the racist remarks, the sexual harassment, him trapping me in the corner of a class. Of course nothing came out of it. The school told my because nothing really physical happened, that they can’t do anything about that situation though this person was actively looking for me. They told me to just call the police and not try to ruin a random guys life.

This caused a huge distrust in already established relationships and new ones. This also caused me to not as easily make friends. I now have a huge fear of this happening again. (Though I go to school with him)

After all of this I wouldn’t hang out with friends on campus or do any work on campus. I went from my classes to home and that was it. That went on for 2 more semesters. Now I don’t see him often and when I do I walk the opposite way. I fear that he might try something in the future. Or I’ll have more classes with him.

Overall, I want people to be more careful around the people that you allow in your life. If they have a weird vibe, it’s your gut telling you something so continue with caution.

So to the guy with the tan hat. Please let’s not meet again.

This happened a week ago. My friend and I (both F18) hop into an Uber, to go to a birthday party we didn't really wanna go to. We spend some time there until someone offers that all of us, we're approx 20, go on a walk, circa 12.30 AM. Great idea, it's common to do that when parties are chill and kept small like that.

My friend, who was supposed to sleep over at my house, and I, decide to bring our bags and coats with you so we could order an Uber before the group turned back around to go home, and the drive would be less expensive since it would be closer to my house.

We start the walk, in a known to be quiet neighbourhood, one of the richest of the city, nothing ever happens, until a car slows down next to us. 5 guys start yelling out the window "Hey girls, why don't you come with us, where do you wanna go?"... The usual. We were multiple girls and there were only 4 guy friends of ours. I tell them to fuck off, that we don't want to talk to them.

They stop but nobody really pays attention until we all collectively hear a honk behind us and upon turning around, the small Fiat is absolutely charging towards us at full speed ON THE SIDEWALK, and on the verge of hitting the slower ones of the group. We throw ourselves on each side, completely panicked and screaming at this point.

Everyone gets up, and some of us start walking towards the car to scream at the guys that were obviously dying of laughter. We scream at them, telling them how stupid that was and they try to calm us down, saying we shouldn't be scared and they're nice.

We continue our way, thinking the guys are finally gonna leave us alone. Until, 100 meters later, we hear the terrifying sound of the car speeding up once again, this time almost hitting half of us on the bike lane, some fell on the ground, I thought instantly that they got hit.

This time, my male friend (18) goes up to them and very calmly (I would've never been that calm) tells them this was so dangerous and could've ended much worse and to just leave us alone.

The first guy gets out of the car. He tries to scare him, lightly pushes him, so my male friend puts his hand in front of him, keeping a distance. The second guy gets out of the car, screaming like a chihuahua and starts pushing and pulling my friend.

At that point, another female friend try to separate them as the second guy does not let go of our friend. I scream that I'm on the phone with the police (I wasn't because I had forgotten the number lol) and this might've scared them because they all get in the car and speed off.

I can't stop thinking about the fact that if anyone at our party was drunk, this could have ended way worse. We ended up calling the police but no one filed a complaint, not even my male friend.

So to these 5 guys and the endless boredom that probably made them do this, let's not meet again.

Weirdest encounter I've ever had in my life a few hours ago.

Its about 11pm, im staying in the Hampton Inn in Ogden Utah for work. Im restless and decide to take a brisk walk with headphones and some loud music to clear my head before getting some sleep.

Everything is normal, until I turn a corner around the hotel building. About 20 feet away from me is a roughly college aged woman wearing a tanktop, short jean shorts, and no socks or shoes, facing away from me.

She is swaying lightly and tugging her shorts up aggressively, generally acting strange and unstable. At this time, I assume the lady is either drugged out hard or is incredibly drunk. I decide I dont want to engage and turn around slowly to walk the other way. She had her back to me the whole time.

After I take a step or two, I feel uneasy having my back to her, especially in my deafened state with headphones. I cut the music and pull an earbud out, and continue walking away.

Maybe 4-5 seconds later, I hear her breathing heavily very near me like some kind of animal and whispering(?) hissing(?) something unintelligible. She is within 2 feet of me at this point. Her bare feet were basically silent on the pavement, and allowed her to sprint right up to me without me noticing. She must have really booked it too, she would have had to clear 15-20 feet in that time.

Reasonably startled, I square up to her, put my hands up with palms facing outward, and exclaim "Jesus Christ!" I must have glanced at her bare feet at this time, because she responds "Oh! What? Did you see my feet? Did they scare you THAT bad? PUSSY!" She seems genuinely puzzled by my reaction, but was very clearly in some kind of manic state.

I quickly walk away, and she continues to shout things at me about her feet, me being a "pussy", and other unintelligible nonsense.

What really struck me as the most odd is that she was totally alone. No crowd of other drunk college kids, no friends, nothing. I expect weird behavior like this from packs of kids, but not a lone young woman? I did a welfare call with the police because I was concerned about how her little routine might go with someone else on the street tonight. Hopefully she got some help if she needed it.

Any ideas what the hell that was about? Im familiar with drug behavior - I've spent extensive time with regular meth users, one of whom had a full psychosis event, so not light users either. This lady was some kind of bath salts zombie or something.

A couple days ago I was standing outside Target, I was minding my own business when this guy came up to me, telling me he had a really good deal for the both of us. He said it was more good on my end, explaining he had a couple hundred dollars worth of gift cards he was willing to buy me food with.

Now obviously I declined this, seeing as at the time I genuinely did think it was a scam. But, now I'm starting to question if it really was a scam or something else??

Firstly, who realistically just buys food at Target? I'm sure there's someone that probably does, but I doubt any regular person has that kind of money to be shopping at Target for food. I was also the only person he approached, this might have been because I was alone though I'm not totally sure since I wasn't really looking around.

He wasn't pushy, but he seemed incredibly nervous given he was stuttering and also fidgeting with the water bottle in his hands as he talked to me. After I declined his offer to buy me things, he walked behind something and was out of my sight so I couldn't see where he was going.

Was this just a scam and I'm freaking myself out over nothing, or was there a chance I could have been in real danger?

So we have this neighbor. No one knows the story but he’s separated or something from the woman who lives there. He sits in his car, watching. He doesn’t like me because I’ve had several issues involving police. I’m not the criminal element I just attract bad people and don’t see it until too late. Yes, I realize that part is on me and I’m in therapy to deal with why I let people like that in my life. This person watches me. I got blackout curtains for other reasons but I’m glad anyway. He creeps me out. He’s always watching. Not just me but everyone. He’s a reason I don’t walk at night because he literally sits in his car for hours, just watching. I hope we don’t meet. Something is seriously off about him that I can’t quite place, but the gift of fear says to go with that and run

I need to add some context before starting this story. In 2023, when I was 17, I got with my ex boyfriend. We’ll call him J. J and I started renting a room in a 3 bed 2 bathroom house about an hour outside Seattle, WA. We had 3 roommates, K and S, in the master bedroom, and W in the adjoined bedroom. We lived in the city, but in a part of town that was heavily wooded, secluded and on a dead end road with little to no traffic.

This story takes place about 2 months after we moved in. But the events leading up makes it that much scarier.

In November 2023, the day after we moved, J got a text from a man called D. D claimed that him and I had been hooking up outside the mall a few miles from the house for the past few weeks. I knew this wasn’t true, as I had never hooked up with anyone through our relationship, and up until the day before we lived 3 hours north. But J believed him. J told D to come to the house, so he could talk in person . J gave D the address and he came to the house in a black pickup truck. They talked outside for about 15 minutes before D left. That was the end of that for a few weeks.

About a month later, my roommate K started noticing a black pickup truck sitting on the side of the road at night. Whoever was in the car would park, turn their lights off, then sit for about 30 minutes-an hour depending on the day, and then they would leave. This would happen about 2-3 days a week, but over the course of the next month, it started happening almost every night. Being 17 and nieve, I didn’t think anything of it.

This all changed the night J and I broke up.

J was not technically on the lease, so when we broke up he moved back north to his sister’s apartment. We had an abusive and unhealthy relationship, and I was honestly just happy to be alone again. However, that night around 2am, the black pickup truck came again. This time, the person in the car got out. I didn’t notice because I was asleep, but a man none of us knew walked around the side of our house, to my bedroom window. The man watched me sleep for about 30 minutes. My roommate, K, had woken up to take the dog out, and when he did he noticed there was a movement alert from the cameras we had in the front yard. K noticed the man and sent me a text, “you need to tell J to leave.”

I didn’t see the text until I woke up for work the next morning, and when I did, I was confused. I had J on life360 and we had been texting up until I went to bed the night before. I checked his location history, and he had been at his sister’s house 3 hours north all night. I was confused, so I asked K what he was talking about. K sent me a screen recording of the man walking over to my bedroom window. I was terrified, I had no idea who this man was, and it definitely wasn’t J.

I called my mom before I went into work that day and told her what happened. Though I was scared, I didn’t feel unsafe. I’d survived my fair share of traumatic shit throughout my life and honestly this was more or less entertaining. I told her I was fine, and that I didn’t want to do anything about it. I promised her to be more alert and sleep with my windows locked. She ended up picking me up from work that night, she told me, “You’re going to come back up with us for a week or so. If everything calms down, you can go back, but this feels unsafe.” I rolled my eyes at her but looking back on it, I am so grateful that she did this.

That night, I slept in the living room of my parents house, I stayed up late because I didn’t have work the next day, and I wanted to binge watch law and order SVU. Around 3am, I got a text from K again, “Can you and J quiet down please.” “Please stop banging on the wall.” “You need to quiet down.” I was extremely confused because I wasn’t home, and I know W had left for the weekend to visit family. I called K immediately, to which I got no reply. I was terrified now for them, because as far as I knew, they were supposed to be the only ones home. I called their Fiancé S, and she answered. I told her that J and I weren’t home, and that W was out of town. S checked the surveillance footage, and saw three men walking the same route to my window on the side of the house. S handed the phone to K, and got my permission to go into my bedroom to check if they got in/were trying to get in. K had a gun, so I gave him permission to protect themselves. When K got into my room, there were 3 men trying to get into my bedroom window. 3 men, all with ski masks. When they saw K, they got into the car and drove away.

To this day, I have no idea who that was trying to get into my window. I don’t know what their intentions were. All I know, is that when I moved out the following weekend that black pickup truck never came back after I moved.

I’ve came up with a few theories, but none can be proven. The first of which, is that this is a friend of my exes, and he set something up. This makes sense because he was extremely abusive, but J had no friends, especially no friends with a car. My second theory, is that I was being watched. I walked 30 minutes to and from work every day, and it isn’t impossible that I was followed once or twice. But truly, I have no idea.

So to the three men outside my window, let’s not meet again.

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.