Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 16x03: Gatsby and Daisy

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Stories in this episode: My Stalker Was Convinced He Was Gatsby & I Was His Daisy | justascrolling (0:38)Alone In Small Town Nowhere | TheWarDog10 (18:14) Woke Up to a Staring Man in Our Hotel Room | pugalug14 (24:02) Creepy Encounter | Wardens_Myth (30:49) My Knife Saved Me | ThatSynGirl (36:09) Minor Stop May Have Prevented Tragedy | sleepwalkfromsherdog (40:53) Barry | EndOfMe (45:03) Extended Patreon Content: Come Out and I'll Show You" | Curious_SparrowMy 9th Grade Teacher Was An Absolute Creep  | Victoria SouthgateThe Scary Man at QT | AnonymousA Setup in Massachusetts | LaurenThe Man in the Cape Cod Movie Theater | Katie J. Due 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 todayJoin 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.               

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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'm a 30-year-old female, and I had one of the most terrifying stalking experiences 12 years ago. I was 18 years old, and the great Gatsby movie with Leonardo DiCaprio had just been released around that time. Being really young, I was inexperienced and very naive about how to remain safe, when receiving unwanted attention. As such, I made every mistake in the book with this guy,

who was 23 at the time when he started stalking me. I had just graduated from high school and took a job at a health food store in the downtown area of the city I was living in. It was my first customer service job. The owner was a big hippie who was easy to work with, and she was flexible with scheduling people's hours. At first, I worked different.

shifts until I eventually took the afternoon shift, which meant that I had to close. Due to how small the store was, I was alone during later shifts, and I didn't work with any of my other coworkers. Sometimes the store owner would sporadically drop by to grab items off the shelf for personal use, and then leave after about 30 minutes or so. As a side note, our store was situated next to a building that had subsidized housing for those recently released from incarceration or those who were low income. So, the evening and nighttime hours

could be risky for young women to be out without a male escort. Every restaurant downtown had staff who escorted girls to their cars as it was common to be followed with assaults happening after dark. I was on edge during closing time, but I felt some reassurance

as there was parking outside our back exit, just a few feet from the door. But I was in the store closing out the register, cleaning and locking up every night alone. The front of the store was where the cash register was set up, but your back was to the large window that was right next to the sidewalk since the register faced the inside of the store.

It wasn't uncommon for me to feel people watching me, and I always caught creepy guys, looking at me through the window right behind where I was standing. Again, I was young and inexperienced, so I never communicated my fears or reported the randos that would just be a foot away from me, only separated by that glass window. Anyway, I picked up a shift during the summer Farmer's Market one morning.

It was a great day. I was so happy to work in the morning and have a higher flow of customers. One guy who will call Cam came to the store with a brochure for a local event at a spiritual center in the downtown area. I was cordial and I smiled as I got permission for us to post the brochure

at the cash register. He was obviously high, not on anything crazy, and looked at chill. You could tell that he was in his own reality, though. I only talked to him for about five minutes. I didn't think much of this encounter and I moved on with my day.

During my next shift, Cam came into the store again. He struck up a conversation and was trying to keep my attention. I was again working in the afternoon, when we maybe had two to three people come in before closing time. He was just hanging out at the register. I was trying to drop him some hints and let him know that I needed to focus on work, but he just kept following me around the store. He was commenting on how gorgeous my life,

legs were, and he said that he thought I had been an angel the last time he saw me. He kept telling me that he had a spiritual awakening because I had shown him interest by being so nice to him. He was insisting I was flirting, and he said that the sun behind my head made my hair glow like a halo. Again, being so young and inexperienced with guys, I was equally creeped out, but also just a tiny bit flattered because I had never received that kind of attention. I thanked him for the compliments and didn't call out that they were inappropriate at the time.

I just made some excuse that I needed to focus on work and walked away. Per usual, he shadowed me everywhere I went, watching me. But he wasn't really talking anymore. I was starting to get freaked out. I let him know that he was loitering and told him that he needed to leave unless he was there to shop. Given how pricey the items were, I figured that would finally deter him. But after I said that, he ended up using his food stamps to buy a soda or a piece of candy every hour. He spent maybe $3 every hour and made the excuse that he was a paying customer, so he was allowed to stay.

Eventually, I went to the bathroom to at least get some privacy. My boss had seen him hanging out in the store before, but never made a little bit of a little bit. comment. I called her and told her I was getting scared about this guy's perpetual presence. I let her know that he was making an excuse to stay by buying one cheap item so that he would count as a customer and be able to stay during my entire shift. I really thought that my boss would give me some support and come to the store. She was a self-proclaimed feminist who espoused consent and boundaries. So I felt some major whiplash when she defended his presence. She told me that she said, The store was in the red and on the brink of needing to close.

Because he was spending money, she said, I shouldn't try to push him out of the store. I tried to argue that he wasn't generating any significant income, but she doubled down and insisted that money was money. And then she said I was overthinking it, and Cam was just a kind soul who had found a similar soul bond with me, and we were creating positive energy in the store. I mean, I was hit with a very unexpected roadblock there, and all I could do was carry on.

The idea of quitting didn't even cross my mind. Being my first job, I was worried that it would look bad if I left after just a couple of months. It was really hard to find a local position, at least one that was flexible with school hours, and I would be starting my first semester at the local college very soon. Things slowly escalated from there. Cam started bringing me flowers every day. He would leave long notes confessing his love and insisting that we were soulmates.

Then he'd randomly play the Great Gatsby soundtrack. He would go on and on telling me that he was the Gatsby and I was his Daisy. He said that we were destined to be together and that my denial of our bond was just like Gatsby's attempts to get Daisy. He said we were living out the movie but our ending would be the coming together of souls wrapped in passion.

He had this crazed look in his eyes every time he brought it up, and then he just started straight up calling me Daisy. Anytime another customer would come in, he would get very angry and jealous, so I quickly ignored him and walked away. He started calling himself my bodyguard. He said it was his duty to beat up anyone if they looked at me wrong or made a pass at me since, in his words,

that would have been a threat to our love. Again, I want to emphasize, I was so naive for thinking that I couldn't quit this job. I was also naive for thinking that I couldn't tell anyone about this. It's also an understatement that I was a complete numschool for not making a police report, creating documentation, setting boundaries, or even telling friends, parents, and coworkers what was going on.

Anyway, a few weeks passed, and he didn't show up. He did this a few times, so I thought he finally lost interest, or at least I figured there would finally be a break. But he always showed up again. On one such occasion, upon his return, he told me he was hospitalized, and with that, the same routine started all over again. Then one day I got a text from an unknown number. It was Cam.

He got my number from a co-worker by lying to them and saying that he had a new phone and had lost my number. Then, on top of that, he did a reverse search on my number and wound up finding my address. He didn't have any of his own methods of transportation, and I lived on the other side of town. Our town also didn't have a bus system, and it was way too far to walk. So as far as I know, he never came to my house. It's entirely possible that he did. I just wasn't aware of it. I didn't block his number, but I should have.

I was scared to do so because he knew where I lived, and he was so entrenched in this idea that we were bound to each other. I thought if I were to interfere with that, things would escalate even more. I either ignored his texts, or I made up half-hearted excuses as to why I couldn't respond. I was always curt with him. but he wouldn't take the hint. When I started my semester at school, it got worse. He formed a group of friends and told me he would introduce them.

First, he wanted to have me over to his apartment. When I declined to go there, he just brought them into the store. I thought his friends were nice people, but they were siding with him and saying that he was a really nice guy, and they told me I should give him a chance. They told me he was just melodramatic and liked playing into fantasy. but he wasn't a bad guy. A few days later, Cam told me that he was worried about my safety, especially on the darker evenings.

He said that he'd have his friends posted outside, in front and back of the store to make sure I was safe, and they did exactly that. It was freaky. Growing up in a household of abuse, I didn't register the danger of this situation. I was accustomed to having bad things happen to me, so I was still stuck in a household of abuse.

compliance response mode. I thought it was best to remain submissive, and this behavioral pattern didn't make me fight the setup. Cam's friends then started bringing me more deliveries of gifts from Cam, and the five of them started loitering inside the store with Cam during my shifts, each of them buying one small thing per hour so that they could still be considered customers. It was getting scary. I was a young female working alone in a store, constantly being circled by six guys.

If they weren't hovering around me, the exits to the store were being blocked by them, as they were insistent upon being my bodyguards. Kicking them out at closing time became my nightly habit. I couldn't complete my closing tasks with them in the store, so I always had to ask them to go, and I would lock the store and finish my work in the dark so that they wouldn't be able to see me inside. I would even stay in the building for two additional hours just waiting for them to go away. It worked one week. But then one night, when I stepped out the door, I saw that all of them were either leaning against the wall right by the exit or leaning on my car drinking and smoking.

Cam saw me walk out and tried to approach me to hug me as all his buddies whooped in the background. He reeked of alcohol and weed. And honestly, I thought they were going to grab me and force me to go over to his apartment. I set my car alarm off, and I startled them just enough that I was able to jump into the car, lock the doors, and floor it out of there before anything could happen. I didn't give my job any notice after that. I just told the owner I was done, and I still didn't tell anyone about what was going on. Cam kept trying to text me, though.

He told me I was denying our destiny, and he said that he wasn't going to give up on us. I didn't reply and I blocked the number But he would get new numbers and continue texting me His texts got more threatening as I continued to ignore him I also started hearing cars driving by my place at odd hours of the night He would text me to let me know he was still my dedicated protector And was making sure I was safe So it's pretty clear that one of his buddies was giving him rides to snoop at my house

and while things felt like they were ramping up out of nowhere, all of a sudden it stopped. Radio silence. I was so relieved. Six months went by with nothing. Then one day I got a random phone call from an unknown number. I was in group chats with other students for projects, and I thought one of them was calling me,

but when I picked up it was Cam. He told me he violated his parole, and he had been in jail for the last six months. He said he had thought of me every single day. He said that I was still his daisy and he was going to come for me. He told me we would finally be together and he would prove to me that we had an undeniable love. As he delivered this monologue, I was pale as a ghost.

Speechless. All I could think of was to lie and say I was going to be abroad for studies in two weeks. He then started screaming at me for running away from our connection. He said he would find me and come after me. me no matter where I went. I hung up the phone, trashed it, and got a new phone with a new number. I also deleted my Facebook, and I finally moved to a larger city an hour away. I upended my entire life because of this piece of trash, and I was so inexperienced and naive. I made a lot of mistakes, but I was just glad the worst-case scenarios never actually played out.

This experience had a steep learning curve, but it taught me how to protect myself in the future. That wasn't the last of my weird encounters, though. A guy at college who transferred to the larger university from a local college formed a similar fixation on me and started following me around the larger campus. He had a fetish for being stalked. He would find me at the school union and talk about how hot it would be

if he found me going through his trash in the middle of the night. Thankfully, it was a huge campus, and I enlisted friends to help me watch out for him and let me know where to avoid. There are so many creeps out there, and it really sucks being a woman. Please stay safe, and Cam, let's not meet. Have you heard about Delete Me? Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is something. that I think about a lot more than I used to.

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Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join DeleteMe.com slash not meet and use promo code not meet at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com slash not meet and enter the code not meet at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash not meet. Code meet. I used to live 45 minutes in the bush in a very small mountain town.

In the winter, the population was between 3 and 500 people. Since we lived so remotely, my husband would usually work away for two weeks at a time, and then be home for two weeks. While he was gone, it was just me, our two-year-old daughter, and our pets. There were no police in the area, and if you needed them, you had to count on a 25 to 60-minute wait, depending on urgency. So for this reason, we talked about getting a dog. We knew that we would need one who would protect the house, therefore we got a Rottweiler. Who knew she would be such a baby? My Rottweiler has an uncommon name, and being from a small town, having a new puppy, with a fat, fluffy belly and an uncommon name, people knew me more by

my dog than my personality. Her name is zoo. So I ended up making a lot of dog people friends who routinely asked if they could include my dog in their hikes and plays. She's very well-behaved, and she was great to bring along. She also helped tire her dog friends out. On one such evening, one of our dog people friends asked late in the day if he could take Zhu on a hike with him and his dog. He had a cross-eyed lab, and Zhu helped lead her down the path in poor lighting.

It was very sweet. They loved each other. I was cool with it because she always came home tuckered and happy. On this night, a story. came in very suddenly as my friend was hiking in the mountains behind his house. He had cut it short due to the sudden intense winds and rain, so he called me from his house and asked if he could keep zoo overnight. He told me they were all drenched and she was comforting his dog. I was kind of hesitant because my husband was gone

and something about the storm just made the night feel dangerous. But I also didn't want to force my friend back outside during the storm again. It was already dark with storm clouds and the sun had set, so I just agreed. That night, I put my daughter down, smoked a joint, watched the storm pass from my covered deck, and then went to bed. I slept mostly naked and kept my blinds open because my bedroom backed against my deck, which was walled, covered, and locked shut. At some point in the middle of the night, I rolled over in bed and squinted at a light, shining through the window.

As I opened my eyes, dazed and confused, I looked up at the lit string of lights that hung around my window on the deck side. For a moment through my blurred, sleep-filled vision, I thought I saw someone peering in with hands cupped around his eyes to see into my dark room. I remember feeling very exposed,

as I realized I was naked from the waist up. I then pulled the blanket up But my mind malfunctioned I told myself Zoo would bark if someone were here You're dreaming I looked back to the window The light was off again

And that was it I then drifted back to sleep within seconds The next day I woke up like normal I went about my morning And didn't think about what had just happened at all Then my friend dropped Zoo off and all was fine. That is, until I went outside and saw the string lights around my window, they were lit up again.

My heart jolted, and my stomach dropped, as I remembered suddenly and intensely what had happened the night before. The string lights were those cheap battery-operated ones, and I had a large, gorgeous set of lights strung across the length of my deck already, so I never used those cheap lights. It had a three-click button. The first click turned it on, the second turned it off, but I set it on a timer so it would turn on again in a few hours. The third click is what shut it off entirely. It was a stupid button system, and it irritated me enough that I knew I never touched that button. My daughter was also far too small to reach

where the button was, so in order for them to be turned on, someone had to have touched it. someone who didn't know that the second push set it to a timer instead of shutting it off I felt my heart race as I ripped the batteries out of the lights and turned to inspect the deck nothing was out of place but there were scrapes under the door as if the deadbolt had been dragged

someone had been on my deck and was watching me through the window and what were the chances that someone had been there the only night my dog wasn't had I scared them off when I rolled over and looked up maybe pulling the blanket up around me and firmly locking my back door had made them rethink their approach

but why didn't they take anything if they bothered with being out there I had weed in a jar on my deck and a Google Home sitting on my table it's been three years and I still don't know I don't know if it had anything to do with my dog but my gut tells me it does At least I don't live there anymore.

Two years ago, my husband and I flew to L.A. for a weekend getaway. We stayed at a boutique hotel off sunset. It was more of a hipster type of place. Not normally somewhere I would stay, but it was nice, clean, and had a good vibe. We met up with our friends who lived in L.A. and went out for dinner and drinks. It was late at night when we came back to the hotel and I was exhausted and jet lagged. It was about 1.30 a.m. or something like that. My husband was a very deep sleeper, and I'm an extremely light sleeper,

except when I've had a bunch of drinks, which I had definitely consumed that night. So it was lights out for both of us very quickly. At around 3 a.m., I woke up suddenly and opened my eyes since there was a light on in our room. The room was totally dark when we went to bed. The light was coming from the doorway. and when I looked up, I saw the illuminated silhouette of a man standing at the foot of our bed.

He was just standing there. For a moment I was speechless, confused, and also still slightly intoxicated. After spotting him, I hadn't moved yet, my reaction was delayed, but then stark fear and reality of the situation finally kicked in,

so I gasped and said, said, What the fuck? The man was wearing a red plaid shirt and had dark hair with a beard. I couldn't make out his features as my eyes were adjusting to wake up, and the lighting that illuminated him shadowed half of his face. The man then said, I need to speak with Drake.

Now, I know this may sound somewhat comical, but I assure you, at the time, it was fucking terrifying. I screamed, Get the fuck out. This jolted my husband awake. My husband immediately sat up and saw the man at the foot of our bed. My husband is six-five, which may not have been evident,

giving that half of his body was underneath the bedding. In any case, the man panicked and responded, Sorry, wrong room. Then he bolted out of there, slamming the door. My husband jumped up and ran to the door, but stopped him from going outside into the hallway. Who knows if the man was waiting there, trying to lure him out,

or maybe there were other men out there ready to pounce? I looked through the peephole for a bit, but I didn't see anything. We were both in shock. We just sat there, probably still drunk, but also in disbelief. We then called down to the front desk, but nobody answered.

We called repeatedly, and still nobody ever picked up. We contemplated what to do next, and around 20 minutes later, we decided to get dressed and go down to the front desk. An employee was at the front desk, and there was also a bar in the lobby. My husband walked around to see if he could spot the guy who was in our room, and as he was searching, I went up to the desk and started telling the guy what happened. But as I began the story, I burst into tears. this was when I realized how shaken I was. The employee got the manager

who asked me what time the man came into our hotel room. I explained, I didn't know how long he had been standing there until I woke up and saw him. I also told him that I thought he must have been in there a long time just waiting for me to wake up. My husband came back from his search at the bar empty-handed and we went back up to the room.

The next day the manager called and said that there wasn't anything on the security cameras. I didn't believe him, but he then offered us a free night at the hotel as compensation, even though he claimed he didn't see anything. We took the free night because what else were we going to do? Plus, we wanted to go about the rest of our mini vacation. But why was this man in our room, and how did he have a key card?

The thought I have most trouble with is, what would have happened if I hadn't woken up? Our door was locked, but clearly someone had a duplicate keycard. Here's what I've learned. If you don't already, always use the deadbolt on your hotel room door. This is something we never thought to do before, but now I always check it twice. Now that the holidays are over, you might be feeling that post-holiday spending hangover. The food, the drinks, the gifts, it all adds up fast.

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Plan required, $15 per month equivalent. taxes and fees extra initial plan term only, less than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy, capable, device required, availability, speed, and coverage varies. Seamintmobile.com A couple of months back, I was up late playing video games. It was about 3 a.m., and I had been playing for several hours. I was starting to feel restless from sitting for so long, so I decided to go for a walk. I lived just outside of a relatively small and quiet town in Ireland

And being a grown man in my 20s, I figured I didn't have any reason to fear being out for a walk late at night. Plus, I had already done so plenty of times in the past. So I put on my jacket, grabbed my headphones, and started on my usual path. I followed the road outside of my house and onto a bypass on the edge of town. The air was crisp and refreshing and the road was well lit from the street lights. It seemed like it was going to be a pleasant walk.

The bypass has a footpath on one side that's on a slight hill, so it's sort of elevated from the road. Hugging the footpath is a small wooded area that's nearly pitch black at night. I was looking down at my phone contemplating which song I wanted to play next when I noticed the legs of a person

whom I almost walked into. This caught me off guard since just moments ago I had been looking ahead and hadn't seen anyone at all. I glanced up to see an older man in a brown coat. He looked to be in his 70s and was a bit shorter than me. He had an unreadable expression on his face and he said something which I barely heard through my headphones, but I thought I heard him say something along the lines of

doggy. I assumed this man was simply out looking for a lost pet. I removed my headphones and said, I haven't seen any dogs, sorry. He then repeated what he said. His voice was high-pitched with a strong accent, and I still couldn't make out what he was saying despite the fact that I was then lacking my headphones,

but the final word became clearer. He was saying, Daddy. I asked him to repeat himself. turning my ear to him and leading in slightly closer to hear him better. It was only then that I noticed a strong petrol smell wafting from him. He breathed in sharply as he spoke again. This time I was able to make out what he was saying. Are you my daddy?

He asked. I didn't know how to react to that. Part of me oddly saw some humor in the scenario. I was a third his age. Yet there he was, asking me if I was his dad. The other part of me felt a mixture of confusion and unease. After a moment of confused silence, I replied, No, I, uh, do you need help finding someone?

I really just wanted to keep walking, but part of me wondered if this man was disoriented or genuinely needed some kind of help. After another sharp inhale, he asked, Where's my daddy? Still feeling uneasy about the whole thing I told him I didn't know and asked him where he had last seen whoever it was he was searching for. He paused for a second and then pointed into the dark wooded area.

I looked over to where he was pointing, but it was far too dark to see anything. I started to think about how to proceed with the situation when I noticed his face turning into a scowl. Then he grumbled something, reached into his pocket, and took out what looked like some wet rolled-up fabric. He looked at it,

grumbled again, and then looked back at me. I was trying to decide if I should call someone or just go. All I knew was that I wasn't equipped to deal with whatever was going on here. I looked down at my phone, getting ready to make a call, and then snap.

I heard a noise like a large twig breaking to my right. It was coming from the wooded area followed by a distinct shishing noise. Every alarm bell and my body was going off. I quickly said, I don't think I can help you.

And I started walking fast towards the town, which turned into a full-on sprint when I heard footsteps emerging from the trees behind me. As I reached the crossing, I glanced back to see a hefty bald man guiding the older guy into the trees while staring at me. The beam of a torch was then piercing out of the wooded area, so I cut through town and ran back home. I checked the news for a couple of days afterwards to see if there was anything about a missing elderly person in my town but came up with nothing. I haven't seen him since or heard anyone mention anything about the creepy old guy.

I'll never know what the deal was with this odd encounter, but there certainly seemed to be something strange going on. I used to be naively helpful to all sorts of strangers. I also often picked the pitchhikers, solo and in groups, and got them where they needed to go. When I was 19, I moved to Huntington, a college town in West Virginia, and I worked at a popular bar.

My shifts would start around 9 p.m. and end at about 2 a.m. I didn't know anyone in that town or even that state, and I had been there on my own for only a month or so. On one of these nights, one of the customers had taken an interest in conversing with me while I was working my shift. Being a good employee, I conversed pleasantly with this customer. he was in his 30s or 40s and had buzzed white hair.

He was with the group of other guys, all of them tattooed with leather jackets. He had been there going back and forth between them at their table and me at the bar, pretty much talking to me non-stop for a good couple of hours. At around 1.30 a.m. he mentioned that he didn't know where his friends had gone. I looked up, oblivious, and saw that the whole bar had virtually cleared out. He was right. Not one of his buddies was in sight. He then said they must have all gotten drunk

and forgotten about him, leaving him there. The man was clearly bummed out and concerned because he then revealed he lived almost an hour away from the bar. He had no way of getting home now. On top of that, it was in the middle of winter, so it was snowing pretty hard. He spent the next few minutes on the phone

calling the friends who were at the bar with him, but nobody was answering. He was clearly screwed. I couldn't leave him in the bar, and I couldn't in good conscience leave the man out in the snow. So, now I had to give this stranger a ride in a place I was unfamiliar with and conditions I had never really driven in before. There wasn't any snow in my home state. Now, I told him not to worry, and I let him know that when I finished cleaning the bar, and was done closing up I could take him home. And I kept my word. When I was done, we got in my car,

and he gave me directions as we went. We were talking casually, like we had been, just a superficial conversation, nothing even hinting at anything sexual or flirty. I'm not a flirty person, so I was feeling positive that there was nothing to misunderstand. Keep in mind, it was two in the morning, and no one knew where I was,

or that I was with this random person. As we were talking, I suddenly felt his hand on the back of my neck. It was such an unpleasant feeling. I remember his fingers swirling in the little hairs at the bottom of my hairline, which were too short to make it into the ponytail. I scrunched my neck as calmly as I could, continuing to face forward, and then I said, I have a knife. He ceased swirling his fingers, but his,

His hand lingered on my skin. So again, I calmly but firmly said, I have a knife. He then removed his hand, and we kept driving. I figured whatever was going on was handled. We got back to our surface-level conversation. And minutes later, I felt his hand fully against the back of my neck and his fingers gently wrapping around its curve.

I squenched my neck again and said, seriously, I have a knife. He removed his hand once more, and then, in a very hurtful tone, he asked, Are you really that scared of me? After that, he kept his hands to himself. It was a long one-hour drive, but I got him home, and I took off. I'm 29 now, and it wasn't until many years later that it occurred to me that the whole thing was probably a setup that he and his friends had planned.

They probably quote-unquote left him stranded so that the chick that he had been talking to all night would have to take him home. I'm sure he thought this would have opened the door for sex, but I wasn't having any of it. I was just trying to be nice and make sure that this guy got home. I've worked in law enforcement for the past 15 years. I've been working in a small city of about five square miles

with the population of 45,000 that had seen better days and worse days. Once upon a time, I was on patrol in the middle of a very quiet night, and I saw a child walking through a part of town that had been undergoing redevelopment. There were a lot of abandoned and condemned buildings in the area, along with some active businesses, and century-old buildings that were being restored. The kid was kind of tall and burly,

but couldn't have been more than 12 years old or so. He was wearing a zip-up hoodie, basketball shorts, and just socks on his feet. so I turned around and caught up to the kid near the corner. He must have been running after I passed him to try and cover the distance. Then I stepped out to talk with him. Another officer then called out and said that he was waved down by a woman who had been driving around looking for her grandson.

I advised him that I was probably with the grandson. The kid then tried to ignore me and walk around, but I stepped into his path and told him that he was going to have to stop pretending I wasn't there. He said he didn't know why he had to talk to me, and I said that a 10-year-old walking in a ghost town business district at 4 a.m. was something police are supposed to check up on. He corrected me and said that he was 11.

Then he backtracked and said that he was actually 16, which he certainly was not. He didn't even know what to tell me his birthday was for him to be 16, and he told me that his name was LeBron Jones. He said that he was on his way to play video games at a friend's house, and when asked what his friend's name was, he cryptically said, he lives over there and nodded in a vague direction. His grandma then pulled up with his little brother in tow.

His grandma called him by his real name, and he tried to tell us that he didn't know her. Then he asked if we could walk him to his dad's house, but he wouldn't tell us where it was. Grandma then got out of the car, brought him shoes, and said that his dad, stepdad, uncle, or whoever shouldn't have to deal with this shit at 4 in the morning and neither should the police.

The kid then put his shoes on and after getting everyone's information, it turned out the story was he was playing video games all night and keeping his brother up. He got yelled at for it and figured he wasn't going to live somewhere where he couldn't play Madden at all hours of the night. The juvenile then returned to his guardian a two-paragraph report later and now the creepy part.

The other officer and I stood around the corner bullshitting for another minute or two before clearing the call when we heard the faintest of noises. One of the locals then stepped out from a recessed doorway about 20 feet from our interaction. He was there the whole time

and almost escaped everyone's notice even when walking away. We called him Eli. Eli had a thousand-yard stare, and he split his nights between couch-surfing with relatives and being out on the streets. We had received frequent calls for him involving indecent exposure, staring at and or following people, standing in traffic and attacking store employees or police officers when confronted for shoplifting. Eli says about one word per week on average, but that night, after stepping out of the shadows, he looked right at the other officer and me and said,

Hi guys, it's really nice out tonight. Eli didn't have any history of messing with kids specifically, but if we hadn't stopped that kid, he would have turned down that side street right into Eli's path. It's rare that two veteran cops get the feeling of their blood running cold, but we did that night. In any case, I'm glad Eli and that kid never met that night. I'm a 29-year-old female.

I'm from a small town in northern Tennessee. It's the kind of town where everyone knows everyone. It's the kind of place where you have to drive at least 30 minutes to an hour to get a job that pays a living wage. When my dad started his new job around nine years ago, he found out that he was working at the same place as a friend that he had known when he was growing up named Barry. Something I should mention before I continue is that I was bullied a lot when I was growing up, so whenever I would get a compliment, I mostly took it as a joke. When I first met Barry, I was 20.

He would compliment me and tell me how pretty I was. I always thanked him for the kind words, but as time went on, the compliments got more intense. He would say that he'd love to be with a woman my size. I always laughed it off, and I never said anything. He would make these remarks at company picnics and holiday parties when I went with my dad for about four years. Then I got a job with the same company, and I worked in the same department as Barry.

Things were okay for about three months while he trained me. He still complimented me daily, and I politely thanked him for the compliments. After my training, I was assigned to the night shift, and only had to see him for the 30 minutes that our shifts would overlap. Then, seven months into the job, my boyfriend and I broke up. Barry was sympathetic about it at first, but he quickly became a different person. His compliments became very focused on my body and not my face.

He would stare at certain parts of me while speaking to me, and he would cock his head to the side while standing behind me if I bent down to pick something up. As a woman in a predominantly male work environment, I was used to being stared at, but this was excessive. When I became single, he started asking me about my sexual history. He also asked about my preferences in the bedroom and if I'd ever consider being with a man of his age, or his size.

He was in his early 50s, which was significantly older than me, and he was about five feet tall. He would become frustrated when I told him no, but no amount of declining him or expressing dissentrist ever stopped him. He only upped the game from there. He then started talking about me and my body to other people at work. He began asking coworkers questions about me, and he tried to get them to ask me the questions that he wanted answers to. He did this numerous times to my best friend, who will call Jay for privacy reasons.

Luckily for me, Jay just so happened to have a massive crush on me, and he'd never do anything, Barry asked him. He always told me everything Barry said or asked. This continued on for about eight months, and then Barry ended up swapping over to the night shift. So I went from having to see him for 30 minutes per day to then having to see him for about eight hours a day. Once we were working together more often,

he started telling me all about his sexual history unprompted, and his questions, comments, and gawking at me only increased. To give you a small example of what he would ask, he once asked that if he won the lottery, would I sleep with him for money? Obviously, I said no. And then he made a real offer of a thousand bucks to have sex with him.

I said no. I told him there was no amount of money in the world that would make me agree to sleep with him. He got mad at that. He then asked for nude pictures, which I also said no to. He even asked Jay to sleep with me and take pictures and videos,

and he said no to that as well. This really stressed me out. It led to me constantly looking over my shoulder to see if he was staring at me, especially if I had to bend over or pick something up. Now, I'm a very petite woman, and all my work clothes at the time were about two sizes too large.

So it was tough to see my body shape. I intentionally did that to try and make him stop staring, but it didn't matter. He still stared at me intently. I stopped talking to him and avoided being in his vicinity at all costs, but he continued. Things finally came to a breaking point one week when my supervisor told me that my department had to come in and work one weekend. It was just going to be me and Barry on our shift. I begged him not to make me come in.

I told him I would call out and take a point. or whatever I had to do to avoid working alone with Barry. I told him how scared I was of him. I told him no man should be alone in our building with a woman, period. My supervisor understood my concerns, and he listened and canceled the overtime. From that point forward, he made sure I was never alone with Barry without a third person around.

I then finally broke down and told HR about everything that had been going on. That turned out to be a waste of time. Barry's hideous behavior continued for six more months, but I missed out on a third of that since I was on medical leave for surgery for two of those months. Then, in November of last year, another coworker on my shift heard me crying and complaining to Jay about everything before going home one night. They complained to HR on my behalf,

and then finally they opened an investigation. They asked me a ton of questions, and my answers filled up two notebook pages front, and back with all of the comments and questions that I had been getting from Barry over the years. They asked Jay a ton of questions as well, and they also interviewed a few other people who worked around us. Then three days later, he was finally let go for harassment. He threatened me the day that they put him on suspension for the investigation, and he was banned from the company property unless he wanted to be arrested. I filed a no-contact order against him, and I haven't heard from him

in over a year. Jay finally told me that Barry had admitted to him at one point shortly before he was let go, that if he ever got me alone, he was going to do ungodly things to me, and then just leave my body somewhere. I'm extremely grateful to my supervisor for not letting that happen to me. Something that does bother me a lot about all of this is that Barry had a daughter. His daughter was just a year younger than me. She had nothing to do with him when I knew him, but I can't help but wonder what kind of abuse that he probably put her through while she was growing up. It's been over a year since all of this came to an end. I'm no longer scared at work, and I'm not on edge or stressed out. I'm also not hiding in baggy-ass clothes anymore. But as long as Barry is

living and breathing in my hometown, I will not live there. And he's made a lot of of enemies in that town because of this. That happens in small towns when your parents know everyone, including the sheriff. Oh, and about Jay, his massive crush paid off. We're now dating. I've never felt safer with anyone in my life. So to bury the pervert, who made my work life hell for three years, let's never meet again. And to the other girl or woman who is being harassed at work, don't be afraid to speak up.

I promise you it's worth it to tell someone. Stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended version of this week's episode to get access to go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You could add free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate plus bonus content you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Be sure to follow my other podcasts like Odd Trails in the Old Time Radiocast at Cryptic County Podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv.tv.

This week, you have heard, my stalker was convinced that he was Gatsby and I was his daisy by just a scrolling, alone in small town nowhere, somewhere on my porch, by the Ward Dog 10, I woke up to a staring man in our hotel

by Pug-a-Lug-14, creepy encounter during a late-night walk, by Warden's Myth. My knife saved me from my foolish mistake by that sin girl. minor stop might have prevented major tragedy by Sleepwalk from Sure Dog and finally Barry by End of Me. 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.

If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. We'll see you next week. Stay safe. A few years ago, my sister and her boyfriend were living with my husband and me.