Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 16x02: I Really Think He Wanted to Hurt Me

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Stories in this episode:I Almost Died Protecting my Friends | TioZer0 (0:39)Delusional Girl I Met at a Conference | EmotionalString7170 (5:43) While Walking My Friend's Dog | AdorableArtist1558 (16:33) I Really Think He Wanted to Hurt Me| CanadianGal3 (24:10) A Job Interview I Still Think About | baconater (32:42) I Was Stalked For A Month and Had No Clue | CoffeeCat086 (37:45) Two Men Followed Me | Fit-Swordfish725 (41:54) Someone Followed Me To My Car: r/LetsNotMeet | IcyAcrobat (44:33) Extended Patreon Content: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished | EssaySeaside Toad-man | Wild ConeMen From the Woods | HazelThird Grade Terror | GirlmoreGirls2143Weird Airbnb Experience | EmilyDue to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate.Want Bonus Weekly Stories? Hate Ads? Join our Patreon for only $5 a month for over 100 hours of bonus content, and it's all ad-free!Send your stories to [e-mail].   Make 2026 your cat’s healthiest year yet. Take advantage of their New Year’s Special and get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/MEET! Right now, Wildgrain is offering our listeners $30 off your first box, PLUS free Croissants for life, when you go to Wildgrain.com/MEET to start your subscription today!Join the Discord:https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gEFollow:- Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty- Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/- Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.               

This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. I live in a city located in a valley with a lot of smaller towns up the surrounding hills and mountains. It's part of the local culture for teenagers and young adults to visit these smaller areas during the winter to drink, smoke weed, and hang out with their friends. My uncle bought a house in one of these areas, so eventually I decided to get the keys and spend the weekend there with five of my friends.

The house has two big bedrooms and three beds in each of them and a lot of extra mattresses. At night, we decided at some point to go back inside and just chill and watch TV, but since the living room didn't have sofas yet, we pulled some mattresses from the bedrooms and just used them. One of my friends, Victor, decided to go out and smoke, and after a while we heard someone knocking on the window just behind us.

Everyone was scared at first until we realized it was probably just Victor. Since we were sitting on mattresses close to the ground, it wasn't easy to clearly see who was at the window, but whoever was standing there was looking straight at one of the girls who was inside with me, so I got up to check. That was when I saw that it was a man who somehow looked a lot like Victor,

but was an older man. As I concluded that it was a stranger, I froze while looking at him, while he looked back at me. I then slowly said, It's not Victor. Everyone else froze and looked at me waiting for my reaction,

but all I could think of was to ask what he wanted. But he just stood there for a second. Finally, he said, There's a bar nearby, and we need a drummer to play with our band. Are you or any of your friends a drummer by any chance? Weirdly enough, I am a drummer, but I told him no, and after some extra long seconds of looking at us, he finally left. Victor then came back, and we made fun of the situation,

making jokes about how it was him the whole time and he was messing with us. Later, most of the group decided to sleep in one bedroom and leave the second one for one of the girls and me because we had been kissing earlier. So we all went to bed, but hours later, I woke up to the girl shaking me. She was terrified. She was whispering that she heard something coming from the kitchen.

So I got up and told her to lock the bedroom while I left to go investigate the sound, like the moron who always dies first in horror films. As I passed by the second bedroom, I thought about calling out to have someone else join me, but just as I saw that all of them were still sleeping, I heard something at the kitchen window. I quickly moved in that direction in silence,

and I checked around, but I didn't see anything at first. I still instinctively grabbed a knife, and then the door opened right in front of me. It was the same guy I had seen before, the one who looked like an older version of Victor. We stood there for about five to ten seconds, just staring at each other, but it felt like an eternity. While still holding the door handle, he made a slow movement with his other hand towards something under his shirt, which was probably a gun or a knife. I also lifted my hand, showing him I had a knife in mine.

So he stopped. The kitchen was quite small, so we were standing pretty close to each other. And at this point, we both knew it would end badly for us if he tried to do anything. So I just shook my head and calmly said, don't.

He kept staring at me for a bit before finally closing the door and leaving. I then went back to the bedroom, told the girl it was nothing, and said we should just go back to sleep. I obviously didn't go back to sleep. But we left early in the morning, and I made sure to ask my uncle and cousins if they ever had received any weird visits there. They said the only person who had ever gone there at night was the old neighbor.

When his wife doesn't let him come home, due to being too drunk, he usually comes over to the house and sits in my uncle's rocking chair to sleep until he gets sober. Every year, my friends mention wanting to spend another weekend there, but I always make an excuse, so we haven't been there since. I don't want them to know what I experienced. They have no idea what happened. This story happened almost a decade ago. It's a bit of a long story, so brace yourselves. I'm a male, and it was my final year of grad school at the time. I was participating as a presenter at a conference.

It wasn't a big deal. It was just a requirement I had to complete in order to graduate from university. The conference was run by a committee of undergrads. It was there that I met a female student who was likely three years my junior, which would mean she was about 21. She was one of the conference committee members, probably a liaison officer, and at first there wasn't anything suspicious about her. Really, she came across as completely normal.

She was polite and seemed genuinely enthusiastic about helping me with the event. But soon after meeting her, I started noticing these little things. for instance, she spoke loudly around me. She was invading my personal space, and she occasionally touched me as we conversed. It made me visibly uncomfortable, but I tried to remain positive, as I know some extroverted people naturally act like that.

Also, at the time, I was already in a serious, albeit long-distance relationship. My girlfriend and I were talking about getting engaged after my graduation, so to me, the girl at the conference was, just another stranger. I was just there to present my paper, get my certificate, and go home. When the conference ended, I assumed that was the last I would hear of her. But a week later, I got an email. It was from the woman at the conference. She said that she wanted to write a paper

on a topic similar to what I had presented, and she asked for references. This seemed totally normal. So I responded to her, sent a few PDFs, and wished her luck. I figured that would be the end of it. Except it wasn't. A few days later, she emailed again. This time, she asked me if we could meet in person so that I could check her draft. I politely declined and told her she should just email it to me. She didn't let it go, though. She insisted that she needed to see me in person. Then she mentioned needing a certain book, which, unfortunately for me, she knew I actually owned and didn't need anymore. So I tried to rationalize things to myself.

Maybe she was a struggling student, and I assumed that if I gave it to her, she probably would have stopped her insistence right there. So I decided to go ahead and give her the book in person. I thought I could just make it quick, and we could call it a day. The next day we met at the University Library. I swear our exchange lasted less than five minutes. I handed her the book and said that she could keep it and left.

I made sure my expression was cold enough, hoping it sent the signal loud and clear. She, on the other hand, looked extremely thrilled, like a kid seeing their favorite ice cream truck. But again, I tried not to think too much about it, so I went home and that was it. That was when the creepiness began. A few days later, I got a text from her. It was really weird because I never gave her my number. It turns out she dug it up from the participant confirmation list at the conference, something which should have been kept for registration purposes only.

I was immediately creeped out. Irritated, I texted back, saying my number was strictly for personal use only. She replied, Why not make it personal this time? This confirmed that the girl was definitely nuts. I thought to myself, I don't have time for this. So I didn't respond. I thought ignoring her would make her go away.

But instead, things only escalated. A few weeks later, a friend pulled me aside and asked, Hey, are you dating that girl that you met at the conference? I froze. What? No. She looked at me seriously and said, Well, she's telling people that you two are.

My stomach dropped. As I mentioned, I was already in a committed relationship and planning to propose soon, so the last thing I needed was for some crazy rumors to spread. In a panic, I denied it immediately, explaining that I barely knew her. Hell, I couldn't even laugh the rumor off because I felt like it would definitely jeopardize everything. That was when my friend said, I think you need to see this. She happened to follow this girl's private Twitter account.

and she showed me screenshots from it. And man, while I do love some scary stories, this ranks in the top three creepiest things I've ever seen. Her Twitter bio literally had my username in it, like we were together. And almost every tweet was about me. Some were cutesy, some were slightly R-rated, but all of them framed us as if we were an actual couple.

He looked so tired today. I wish I could cuddle him to sleep. Thanks for making my day. It was the sweetest library date ever. He acts cold, but I love it when he plays cool. Was the library the date she was referring to? Yeah, that was the five-minute handoff where I shoved the book into her hands and left. That was it.

But in her head, it was a romantic rendezvous, even creepier. She was sub-tweeting to me without following me. For instance, if I tweeted something like, man, what a long day at work, she would reply, Wish I could pamper you after work, you deserve to be happy. It was like she had crafted this alternative universe

where we were in a relationship. She was broadcasting it for all of her followers to see, and worse, it was without me even knowing it. And so, I told my friend that the rumors weren't true. I asked her to tell everyone in her immediate circle that this girl just wasn't right. I thought that would alleviate things, but it didn't. The following week, my friend showed me more screenshots from her account.

This time her tone had shifted completely from Lovi-Dovey into rage. She was tweeting about me ghosting her and calling me ungrateful. She was acting like I betrayed her. And then came the tweet that made me go cold. He has a girlfriend. I won't believe it until I see her. but if I ever see her, I'll make that person regret stealing him from me. That was the moment my fear turned real.

Before then, it was disturbing but harmless. It was like watching someone hallucinate, but now she was full on threatening my girlfriend. And that was where I drew the line. So I then searched for her name on the web and blocked all of her social media, going into full paranoia mode, and I told my close friends what was happening in case she tried to rope any of them into her narrative.

Luckily, my girlfriend believed me when she saw the tweets and the pictures of the girl. She could immediately tell this wasn't someone that I would ever be interested in. Thankfully, soon after, I graduated and had a chance to move away from the city where the university was. I was living hours away, and my girlfriend, who is now my wife, was living with me. But the idea that this girl even thought of targeting my girlfriend made me shudder. years later, that same friend who spilled the tea said that she had done the same thing again now to another guy in her cohort.

The pattern was exactly the same. She would spread rumors, reframe innocent encounters as romantic dates, and post about him obsessively. The scariest part wasn't just her obsession. It was how easily people around her could have believed it. If my girlfriend had seen the tweets before hearing my side, or if colleagues had believed the rumors first, it could have wrecked my life.

So to the girl from the conference, let's never meet again. I don't have a cat myself, but a lot of people that are close to me do. And once you start hearing cat parents talk about food, you realize how stressed they are about getting it right. So I end up sending smalls to my cat friends as a gift because I get it. I have the same problem with my dogs. I sent a small sampler to my cousin last year because her cat was always picky. And honestly, I knew what was going to happen. She texted me after the first few meals and said,

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and I was visiting him on a free day from school. His roommate's dog started whining, clearly wanting to go outside, so I offered to take the dog out for a small walk around the complex. My boyfriend's apartment It wasn't in the worst area, but it also wasn't the best area. But I felt safe enough to walk the dog around by myself, especially because it was broad daylight outside. Also, I was wearing a big sweatshirt, some shorts, and I had my hair undone and thrown up in a sad attempt of a bun. I also had my large glasses on,

so I wasn't exactly drawing any attention. I usually wasn't drawing any attention anyways, so I didn't really expect to be getting any with the, the lazy outfit I was dawning that day. As I was walking the dog to the grassier area, I walked past the dumpster where the guy was standing. I acknowledged him, but left him to his business. As I passed him, he said,

I like your dog, what breed is it? And then he came over to pet the dog. If you've ever had a pet before, this isn't a suspicious interaction and it's very common. With a friendly smile, I replied, Oh, I think it's a Chihuahua mix. I'm not sure it's my friend's dog. After he stopped petting the dog, I went to continue my walk. But then he started to follow me.

This had never happened to me before, so I didn't know what to do. And I understand if you think my next actions were a bit strange. He walked faster to step in line next to me. He was trying to continue the conversation about dogs. Now, I was trying to be polite, but I was also starting to be. get nervous. Then my stomach dropped when he asked where I lived. I tried to stay calm and act like it didn't bother me, though. I calmly responded, oh, I don't actually live here. I'm visiting my boyfriend. And then I turned to my boyfriend's apartment to insinuate how close he was and demonstrate how

far I've walked so far. He then said, oh, I'm here helping my uncle move in. I bet your boyfriend wouldn't like that I'm talking to you. I nervously laughed, to be polite, but started thinking of how to get the hell out of this situation. I didn't want to just freak out and run, but I also didn't know this guy. I didn't know if he had anything on him that he could hurt me with. And then I realized that, thankfully, I had my phone on me.

So then I started walking to a patch of grass that looked good for the dog to walk into. But before I could get there, the guy told me to stop. We were in an area of the complex that was next to some stairs. The grass was literally right in front of me, and something about him telling me to stop made me freeze. Again, I had never been in a situation like this,

but I was quickly learning that I apparently had the survival skills of a peanut. The guy then sat on the stairs and remarked, Now your boyfriend can't see us. He played this off as a joke and started talking. But I couldn't really focus on what he was saying as I was trying to find a way to escape the situation without getting hurt. I was scared that if I tried to run or do anything on my phone, he'd try to restrain me or hurt me in some way

since we were in this blind spot. So I figured my best bet was to try and be calm and nonchalant. So then I said, Hey, I need to go. The dog really has to go to the bathroom and I need to get back to my boyfriend. The guy didn't seem to resist my request until he stood up

and then he said, well, can I at least give you a hug goodbye? Before I could respond, he wrapped his arms around me and pushed me up against the cement wall that was behind me. He was forcibly pressing himself up against me and I was just tense.

So I again froze up. I was terrified since I realized how bad the situation truly was. I knew if I didn't try to get away, something terrible was going to happen to me. In an attempt to sound more stern, but surely sounding more pathetic than anything, I flatly said,

I really need to go see my boyfriend. Thankfully, he let go and backed away. Then he said, I'm sorry, and waved goodbye before he began to walk off. I then walked to the grassy area I intended to go to, shaking. At that point, I could see the area of the complex where my boyfriend was,

but I couldn't see the apartment directly. I got my phone out, called him, and began heading back over there while looking around behind me with every step. I told my boyfriend to get outside since something had happened, and I told him that I was scared. He asked what happened, but I was afraid of that guy. I was worried he had some type of weapon on him. I was worried that if I told my boyfriend

he would immediately come out and try to beat the guy's ass. I was terrified my boyfriend would get hurt. The guy was around my height, 5-6, and my boyfriend stands at a good 6-2, and he's built, so he could have beaten the guy's ass, but again, something about him seemed crazy. I didn't want to risk that guy pulling out some type of weapon.

My boyfriend ran outside to me. He walked with me, and we let the dog do the business, and then we headed back inside. The whole time I was looking around like a maniac terrified that this guy would pop out of nowhere. When we got back inside, I finally told my boyfriend about the situation, just like I predicted he got up to go out and find the guy. I begged him not to because I was terrified of him getting hurt, so he finally settled down and comforted me. After that, I saw the guy one more time a few weeks later. My boyfriend and I were heading to my car to run an errand when a truck drove past.

There, in the passenger seat of the truck, the guy was looking out the window staring at me. He smiled and waved at me before the truck pulled away. It really gave me the creeps. I felt sick. I never saw him again, but I still look over my shoulder everywhere I go. Even if you think it's safe to walk around, please remember there are weirdos out there.

It doesn't matter what you wear or the time of day. They may still come after you. I never walked around the complex alone after that. I made terrible decisions in this situation that could have gotten me really hurt because I was young and naive. Despite this, it's been a couple of years, and I've definitely learned from this experience.

I'll never put myself in that position again, so to the guy who followed me, terrified me, and was an overall creep, let's not meet again. In my late teens and early 20s, I was friends with a girl named Lucy. She was a very lonely kind of girl whose parents were honestly pretty shitty parents. Her mother was verbally abusive

and her father couldn't care less about anything. Because of the lack of love in her life, Lucy searched through dating sites for love and comfort from strange men and she wasn't afraid of meeting them face to face, even if they had only been chatting for a few days. My friendship with Lucy was a strange one. I found her quite annoying sometimes, but I felt awful for her because of her loneliness and the lack of friends and love in her life.

Sometimes I didn't want to hang out with her, but I would still accept her offer. When it was just the two of us, she was normal and okay to be around, but also very appreciative of having someone give her attention. We had a small group of friends, and she would try to get us all together as often as possible, and having the whole group together was quite fun. When we were all together, Lucy was kind of hyper, and you could just tell that she was happy to be around people

who didn't insult her like her mother did. On one such occasion, Lucy suddenly told the group that she had a boyfriend. We were all surprised because we knew she met a lot of guys online, but we had never heard her say that she was dating anyone exclusively. A few days later, she then set up a day for our friend group to meet Trevor. None of us were looking forward to it because we thought he was going to be like all of the others, a temporary boy toy. When we met him, we all felt awkward. He barely spoke a word, and he wouldn't look directly at any of us. Lucy was trying to be funny, but he would just give her dirty looks. Needless to say, we thought he was a weird one and we could tell that he didn't actually care much for her.

As the days went on, Lucy kept telling me how much Trevor didn't like me. me. This was weird. I'm always polite, respectful. I smile a lot at everyone, but for some reason he just didn't like me. She kept saying that he thought I was using Lucy for her money. I'm not sure why he thought that, since I typically paid for everything when I spent time with Lucy. To keep this part of the story short, I'll just say, I think he was trying to find reasons to convince her to cut me out. I got a terrible vibe from Trevor. He dressed like he didn't care about life. He never smiled.

He didn't shake any of our hands when he met us, and everyone had an overall uncomfortable feeling about him. After months of Trevor trying to convince Lucy that I was a terrible friend and that she shouldn't be hanging out with me anymore, she started to do as he said. So then she started to hide me from him. If she and I were together, and he happened to call her on the phone,

she would lie and say that I wasn't there. If she were with our friend group, he would ask her to confirm that I wasn't there. When he was going to join the group for an outing or just to hang out at her place, she would tell me I couldn't come. Lucy would do whatever her boyfriend said just to keep pleasing him

so that she wouldn't lose him. Now, here's where things actually get scary. Lucy called me one day and said that she wanted me to come hang out at her place. I agreed and she came to pick me up. We went to her house and watched TV for a bit. We then decided that it was a nice day outside and we should take her dogs for a walk to a nearby park.

Then we could go back to the house and have lunch. While at the park, she received a phone call. Now let me say that Lucy is not a private person whatsoever. She had never, ever walked away to answer her phone until this day. After she picked up the phone, she walked far enough so that she knew I wouldn't be able to hear anything that she was saying. It was suspicious but not enough to question it.

Once she ended the call, she began walking toward me with a look on her face as if she were trying not to smile. And then she said, So I need to bring you home now. I was slightly confused because we had only been together for about an hour. When we spend time together, we usually spend the entire day together.

And she would never want me to go home. She would even frequently beg me to sleep over to avoid being alone, so I didn't really understand. I was apprehensive, but I said okay, and we walked back to her place to drop the dogs off, and we got into her car, and off we went. About 10 minutes into the car ride, I realized she wasn't going in the direction of my house, so I questioned, where are we going? She smirked, but she didn't respond. I laughed uncomfortably and asked again, seriously, where are we going? She continued to smirk and not answer me. Then I started to realize she was heading in the direction of where her boyfriend lived. I asked once more, this time with anger in my voice,

where are you taking me? Her response was bone-chilling. Trevor wants to talk to you. I wasn't having any of this. I demanded that she let me out of the car, but this evil smirk never left her face, and she responded, It's okay, he just wants to talk to you. I was upset at this point because this guy was creepy. He despised me.

Why did he suddenly want to talk to me? Why couldn't he talk to me on the phone? Why did Lucy need to take me over to his sketchy apartment? She absolutely refused to let me out of the car. She had the doors locked, thinking that it would keep me from getting out, but I waited until she reached a red light. I then grabbed her wallet from the back seat, and I took out her bus pass and bolted out of the car. I had no idea where I was or where the nearest bus stop was, but I was not about to let this crazy-ass boyfriend do whatever he had planned. She yelled for me to get back into the car, but of course I ignored her.

As she sped off furiously, I immediately blocked her number on my phone, and I removed her as a friend on social media. I also warned our friend group about what happened. I haven't spoken to her since that very day, and she's also lost five other friends who were in that friend group. This episode of Let's Not Meet is brought to you by Wild Grain. One of the best changes that I made this year was keeping really good bread in my freezer, and that's entirely because of wild grain. Wild grain is the first bake-from-frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, artisanal pastries, and fresh pastas,

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This is about the weirdest job interview I've ever had. It happened sometime after February of 2018. My brother's community college was having a job fair and I went thinking, hey, this seems legit. I'll go, take some resumes and see what happens. At the job fair, there were a couple of cool booths, people looking for photographers, etc. And then we came across this table.

I asked them what they did and their response was, we work with contracts and entertainment. Or something like that. I handed my resume to this guy and he looked at me and set it down. Without even looking at my resume, he said he wanted to schedule an interview with me and I agreed. I should mention that at the time, I wasn't doing well mentally. I was in the middle of what I now know as an emotional and mental breakdown. I wasn't really eating or taking care of myself.

So you can imagine what I actually looked like. Nonetheless, I secured the interview. I then did some internet research and found that this company didn't really have a digital footprint besides their website, which was very bare bones. And there was nothing about them on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Indeed, or anything. They were nowhere to be found. The job interview was in a random building right off a freeway. When I showed up, there wasn't any parking near the building, so I parked in a nearby neighborhood and walked over to the building.

When I got there, there was this guy who, I would say, appeared to be in his mid-40s. He was friendly and he helped me figure out how to get to the floor I was supposed to go to. He said he was on his way out and I thanked him for his help and went up. When I got up to the floor, I realized I had forgotten my resume in the car, so I left the building to walk back down to get it. it. When I made my way back to the building, I saw the same guy just standing by the window of the building. He was standing there staring into nothing. He seemed surprised that I was behind him and not upstairs. I thought it was strange, but I went back up to the floor where the job interview was. The lady at the front desk was a blonde girl who was wearing a spaghetti-straps shirt and black pants.

She ended up being the one to interview me. Her attire was so casual, and this was the strangest thing to me since the guys I met at the job fair were in suits dressed sharply. At their booth, they said they worked with direct TV, and they told me they were working on handing out Obama phones on the streets.

Also, the whole office was decorated with basic decorations from Target. I literally saw the decor from their office later at Target. The following week they scheduled me for another interview, and this time I saw the same older guy whom I had run into as I was coming in for my first interview. As I was walking into the building,

he had this weird, panicked look on his face, but I proceeded into the building and I went up to the floor. This time, there was a different young woman at the front desk. She was dressed a bit more professionally, and she had much more of a this job is so amazing I love my life attitude the interview this time around

was a young guy in his 20s and he was wearing a suit that was comically too big at least two sizes too big the guy gave me an interview and stated that they were going to start my onboarding the job sounded nothing like what was initially described to me which obviously felt very weird

so I declined and I ended up bailing I emailed the community college about it later, and what they told me was that they couldn't do anything about the people at their job fairs who lied about their jobs. As someone who has worked in a college department that held job fairs, that really concerned me. How did they not verify the people or companies who showed up to this thing? At my old apartment, they would painstakingly verify anyone before agreeing to let them be at our job fair.

To this day, I'm still worried about it. this. How many other college students have met these people? What was their exact goal? And why did they have no real digital footprint or any social media presence? Both of those are a must for an entertainment-centered company. How many people fell for this? And what exactly did I get myself into. I'm from Texas, and I usually end up walking to most places due to being severely visually impaired, which leaves me unable to drive. This probably isn't the safest idea, but I walk around a lot at night, especially during the summer, which seemingly lasts from April to October in my area. As such, the temperature around that time can reach up to 100 degrees, which isn't anything unusual for

Texas. One of my usual destinations was a convenience store a few blocks from my previous house. On one ordinary night, I set out to go there to get myself some Pepsi and a stash of candy. My town isn't very big, and most people drive everywhere. So as I'm walking, it's very unusual to come across anyone else on my route to the store. But on that night, a man appeared out of nowhere and started talking to me like he knew me. It wasn't unusual for people naturally to keep watch on me, being a hard-of-hearing blind girl with forearm crutches. This guy had no reason to be there and was walking way too close beside me. He asked me where I was going and I told him. I then sped up as much as I could since this part of the route was very dark, with only a subway that was closed

for the night. But I knew he definitely wasn't there for a $5 foot long. I tried to appear calm, even though the alarm bells were fully ringing in my head. I was so nervous. I was shaking to the point that I was afraid I'd drop a crutch, which was probably the worst thing that could have happened to me right then, especially since this was when he started making these really crude It was making me sick, but I continued my walk. Additionally, the store was only about 20 yards away, so I figured my best bet was to just continue. Once I was safely inside,

I felt better when I saw my friend at the cash register. He handed me a bag to carry my stuff in until I was ready to be rung up. After I got up to the register with my things, my friend asked, Hey, did you ever find my 3DS? I was perplexed by the question at first, since I had never borrowed his 3DS,

but then the creepy dude came in, grabbed a bud light, and slammed it on the counter. Realizing my friend was trying to make me stall, I played along, and I sat on the stool at the counter for a second, like we were having a normal conversation. The creepy dude then slammed a 10 on the counter.

and after he was handed his change, he went outside. He's still out there by the ice machine, my friend warned. I continued sitting there for about 20 minutes, and he still hadn't left. So my friend called his manager, and after explaining the situation, she told him to lock up and take me home. I did exactly that, and he even walked me to my door when we got there. I was so shaken up about the ordeal that I made sure to have my key and my key and my right hand as we got to the door.

After I stepped inside, he told me his manager had told him to give me a pepper spray. He showed me how to lock it and unlock it so I'd be ready to use it. Before he left, my friend said, call us before you come from now on. That guy's come into the store after you

for the last four weeks. After my friend left, I double-checked to make sure that all the windows and doors were locked, but to the creepy guy who had been following me, let's never meet again. I would like to consider myself a night owl. I like staying up as much as possible at night, which can cause some problems. One night I got home after working late and my dog was really restless.

To solve this, I decided to take him out on a walk to calm him down. It was almost two in the morning at this point, and I had some concerns about going out at this time of night, but I lived in a safe city and a safe neighborhood. I had gone out at night before, although never this late. I put his leash on and we left the house. After a few seconds of walking on the sidewalk in the dark

with just my flashlight illuminating my surroundings, I heard two young men talking, and I could hear them walking on the other side of the sidewalk behind me. My heart dropped and my throat tightened. What were the odds that I would cross paths with someone right at this? this hour while in such a vulnerable position. I tried to keep my cool and continued walking at a fast pace,

trying to think of what I should do. Even worse, I then heard the men cross the street, and they were then behind me. They were probably a four-second sprint away from me. Then the craziest thing happened. One of them started making a growling noise. At this point my adrenaline kicked in, but I knew that running would be a dumb eye.

idea because it would escalate the situation. So I just continued speedwalking for a minute until I finally got on the main street with lights and some cars. The growling behind me continued until I reached this point, and then I noticed that they stopped and turned back. I was extremely thankful to the universe that nothing happened, and I hid near a building until I felt safe enough to walk back to my house from a different path. The walk home was sketchy. as it was nearly pitch black at this point. I was extremely paranoid, and I wasn't sure if they had left,

but I didn't see them, so I booked it and got back home safely. My first reaction to this situation was that they were just some dumb teenagers trying to scare me or something, but the more I think about it, the more it scares me. Who is messed up enough to purposefully

follow someone in the dark and make growling noises to intentionally scare them? I'm thankful I made it home safe, and I will no longer be walking at night. I've been going to the gym every single day consistently for about six years. I usually work out in the evenings around 8 or 9 p.m., and my workouts tend to last until about 10 or 11.

In the summer of 2018, I switched to L.A. Fitness, which is a big health club chain. I had been going there for about six months when an older man, in his 30s or early 40s, began to approach me, nearly every single time I was at the gym. Now, I'm referring to him as older because I was 18 at the time, and that just seemed old to me. He was about 5-8, and I believe he told me his name and his actual age, both of which I forgot. Keep in mind, since I was only 18, I interpreted his intentions as friendly, and while I was being friendly in return, I tried to end the conversation quickly, since he liked to try and chat for a long.

time, and I just wanted to get my workouts done. In the beginning, when he first started approaching me, he would tell me that he thought I was very beautiful, and he would say that he would love to take me out for drinks. He asked for my name and how old I was, which I told him because I thought it was innocent enough. He also told me that he had a younger daughter with his ex, and he described his ex as a psycho, and then told me that he would love for me to meet him. his daughter. Obviously, I brushed off all of these invites, and eventually I began to get really annoyed. This also made me dread going to the gym because I didn't want to be approached by him. One day, after about a year of his approaching me nearly every day, regardless of my changing the time

that I would go to the gym, an older gentleman who was exercising on a bike behind me noticed this man coming up to me. By then, I had been ignoring the creepy guy every single time he approached me for several weeks, and I kept pretending to focus extra hard on my workout while listening to music. He just stood next to me and began speaking, calling my name, and trying to get my attention, but I kept ignoring him. After a few minutes, I guess he started to feel awkward, so he walked away. The man behind me on the bike Then got my attention and told me That he had seen this guy talking to me several times

He warned me that he had even seen him Watching me work out from a distance Every time I was at the gym He told me that I should straight up tell him To leave me alone and report him Since what he was doing was harassment I thanked him but decided to brush it off Since I was worried about this guy being creepy too

occasionally I would work out with one of my friends who told me that she noticed a strange older man watching me work out at the gym and I brushed that off as well I was really naive back then I truly thought that this guy wasn't actually a threat but the next time the guy tried to approach me I went ahead and told him leave me alone

I said that I had a boyfriend and I let him know that I wasn't interested after that he left me alone Now fast forward to December of 2019. One night, at about 11 p.m., I was getting done with my workout. I noticed him at the gym, but I didn't think he had spotted me, so as soon as I saw him, I decided to cut my workout short, and I began walking to the front doors of the gym.

I had one headphone in and one out, just in case. The gym was relatively empty by that time, so I was a bit nervous to walk to my car alone in the dark. even though I had parked close to the entrance. As I was about to reach for the doors, I heard him calling my name. Stephanie! I immediately began to panic, so I started walking faster.

Then he caught up to me and started tapping on my back. When I didn't react, he then ripped my arm, still saying my name. By this point, some people at the gym had started to pay attention, so I briefly turned to him and yanked my arm away. Then I ran out of the gym, ran to my car, locked the doors, and got out of there. He had never done anything like that before,

so I was quite shaken by it. By the time I went to work out again the next day, at around 8 p.m., I had talked myself out of being scared and decided I would just keep my eyes open and be extra cautious of him if he showed up. I was working out by the dumbbell area at the far end of the gym where the benches in the mirror spanned the entire wall.

There were machines and workout equipment behind me, and through the mirror, I could see everything that was going on. I saw him enter and walk to a machine just a few feet behind me, so I began rushing through my workout. I finished a set of exercises that I was doing, and I looked up in the mirror to see what he was doing, and I saw him grinning at me from his machine in the reflection. I immediately got goosebumps, and I began to put all the equipment away.

I avoided looking in his direction or at the mirror at all. When I came back to pick up my water bottle, which I had left on the bench, where I was working out, I briefly noticed that someone was sitting on the bench next to it. I looked into the mirror to scan the surroundings, and I realized it was him, and he was staring at me in the mirror. I was extremely on edge and nervous, so I immediately went to leave and asked one of the front desk attendants to walk me to my car. When I got to my car, I locked the doors and called my boyfriend to tell him what happened.

After talking on the phone in the parking lot for about ten minutes, I noticed a big truck directly across from my car. Whoever was sitting in the driver's seat started the engine and turned their brights on, straight in my face. I thought it was strange, so I squinted into the light to try and see who it might be. I could see the outline of a shorter man. I quickly realized it must have been him. So I booked it out of there, checking my mirrors to see if anyone was following me.

By that point I was shaking. The truck had pulled out of the parking lot and was now driving behind me. I still couldn't clearly make out who was driving, but I was freaking out. I drove almost all the way home, but that same truck was still behind me, and I realized I didn't want to literally just lead him to my house because out of all of the naive things I had done thus far, that would take the cake. So I pulled into a grocery store parking lot that was well let and really populated, and I waited to see what he would do. He kept driving past me, and I waited 20 minutes before driving home to make sure that I wasn't being followed. After that, you would think I would just call the cops and maybe change gyms, but no, 18-year-old me was in denial that it was him following me in the truck, and I was still in denial

about the possibility that anything could actually happen to me. Plus, I didn't have any encounters with him for the rest of that week, so the incident just began to leave my mind. By the time the following Tuesday rolled around, it was January 2020. I was at the gym once again. It was around 11 p.m. I had just finished my workout and was about to leave. I hadn't really paid attention to whether this guy was there while I was working out or not,

but I scanned the gym before leaving, and I didn't see him around, so I headed to my car, got in, and forgot to lock the doors. Now I sat there, casually texting my boyfriend, asking him when he could call me. We were doing long distance at the time, so we usually called each other at night. Then suddenly, someone started knocking on my window.

This was unexpected, so I slightly jumped as I looked out the window, and it was him. He started calling my name, and I saw him reach down to the door handle. Somehow, in those few moments, I remembered I had not locked the door, so I immediately hit the lock button. And then he smiled at me, as he was reaching for the door handle, and I'll never forget that smile. He almost looked smug like he knew that wouldn't help me. He began to bang on the window and repeatedly tell me to unlock and open the door. He was also tugging on the door handle.

In retrospect, I realized my first instinct should have been to call the police, but at that moment I decided to call my boyfriend. My phone instantly hooked up to the Bluetooth in my car and it started ringing very loudly, so loudly that it could be heard. outside, and I think that is what saved me. As soon as he heard the ringing, I assumed he believed I was calling the police, so he immediately ran away and got into his truck, which was just one space over from mine. When he pulled out, that was when I finally saw that it was the same truck that shown its

headlights at me, and had followed me almost all the way home just the week before. I was shaking as I talked to my boyfriend, I explained what happened, and also called my mom and told her what happened as well. I don't know why, but I still didn't call the police to report it. I think at the time, I wasn't sure they would even believe me, and I didn't think that I had any evidence to back it up. But since then, I have changed gyms and gotten a taser. And now, I only work out during the day,

and I look over my shoulder every single time I'm somewhere by myself. I still wonder what would have happened that night if I hadn't remembered my doors were unlocked. He could have been a kidnapper, serial killer, trafficker, any kind of predator, really. But no matter what, weird, desperate older guy from the gym, Let's Not Meet. Thanks for listening.

If you're a patron, stick around after the music for your extended version of this week's episode. If you want to get access, go to patreon.com forward slash Let's Not Meet podcast. To sign up and support the show today, you'll get access to add free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate, plus bonus content in those weekly extensions with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radiocast at Cryptic County Podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on Twitch at Twitch.tv.tv.com. If you have a story to share, make sure you send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. This week you have heard, I almost died protecting my friends by T0. Delusional Girl I met at a conference by Emotional String 7170. I was walking my friend's dog and this guy started following me by adorable artist 1558.

I really think he wanted to hurt me by Canadian Gal 3. A job interview I still think about by Baconator. I was stocked for a month and had no clue by Coffee Cat 086. Two men followed me in the dark by Fit Swordfish 725 and finally someone followed me to my car by icy icey. acrobat. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. We'll see you next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet. Everybody stay safe.