Gather 'round while I tell you the story of the stalker (I checked the poll and that's one of the stories that people most wanted to hear).

I was a senior in college and I was taking a course called Southern Women Writers. As always there was a total of about three males in my lit class and two of them were holding hands with each other (which I think is great, except for the fact that it wasn't helping me any). The other guy in the class was extremely well dressed, had a slightly European air about him (I honestly can't tell you why I felt like he was Eastern European but I had that thought immediately when I saw him) and he had one of those really trendy Caesar haircuts to hide the fact that he had a receding hairline. In fact we'll call the stalker Caesar.
Because it was a senior seminar class there were only about eighteen people in the room. We sat in a circle and debated literature, discussed symbolic nuances and all those other things that got lit geeks like me hot. Well, no matter where I sat, Caesar sat directly opposite of me. I thought it was just my imagination (or perhaps ego) but nope...he was always directly across from me. We had to read our term papers aloud to the group. When it was my turn, for the most part people had great comments for me, a few pieces of constructive criticism and then there was Caesar. He left no word/phrase/line from my paper undiscussed. He basically explained why my argument was idiotic, my reading of the paper was stunted and how he KNEW I could provide a much better paper. Ok, here's the deal. I wrote the paper two nights before. It wasn't the best paper but by far it was not a bad paper. However, Caesar called me out...in front of everyone. I blushed and stared at my desk as I gripped the "world's worst paper" with white knuckles. On my way out the door Caesar asked me if I'd give him a ride home. I gave him the finger.
Later that night I was out at the bar (I'm sure it was a Tuesday, God I miss college) and Caesar was there too. I was shocked. I had never seen him out really, maybe once or twice, but I never would've expected to see him at my local hangout at the time that was complete with saw dust on the floor to cover the unsightly vomit splotches (classy huh? at the time cheapness was the primary concern). I was drunk already having 'prepartied' with some of my sorority sisters (my dirty little secret) where we did a power hour--you know where you do a shot of beer a minute. Basically by the end of an hour, a person will have had about a six pack. This is the state of drunkeness that I'm at. Caesar comes right over to me, smiling like he's trying to sell me a car or something and with his slight accent says to me in a question, "You're fiesty? I like. Your paper was not bad, I just wanted to exchange in...dialogue with you and make it better. You can do better. I can help." I tried to be polite at first but then I just wanted to shake the freak, the last thing I was worried about was the caliber of my paper. So I blew him off. He grabbed my arm and pleaded, "The end of the semester is coming. I have ten days before I move to New York City, I want you to join me."
"Get real," I rolled my eyes thinking that this guy was just drunk. I stumbled off to the safety of my sisters. They quite the protective bunch as the hooted and hollered when I made my way around the bar. They saw Caesar grab my arm but they just thought it was some guy I had hooked up with before. Umm no. Fat chance.
I saw Caesar again at an outside party a few days later. Again he approached me and again I told him he was crazy. Later that night I was not doing so well. I had a tendency to go shot for shot with my guy friends who were about a half a foot taller than me and probably a good hundred pounds heavier. As they passed out around the fire and in the house I decided I wanted to go home. My house was about two miles away (if I went straight), with my meandering/stumbling ways I would get there in about three miles or so. I had done the stumble before, I thought about waking one of the boys up to drive me home, or to get one of the ones who were up to drive me but they were all as messed up as me. I decided to make the trek (geez, like I'm going to walk the Sahara or something? I love my melodrama).

As I walked it began to pour. I mean pour. I could hardly see because the storm was so hard. A car pulled up alongside me and opened up the passengerside door. "Get in! You're soaked." It was Caesar. Too drunk/wet/ and wearing the prerequisite "least amount of clothing possible" I got in.
"Do you know where I live?"
"Yeah, yeah...you're in ____ sorority, right?" (this was scary because I didn't proclaim the fact, ever. I didn't wear letters, and I don't think I was stuck up or anything)
"Yeah, can you take me there?"
"Sure, I'll take you home."
The car stops about two miles later, in the opposite direction of my house. I open the door and I don't see my apartment building. He tells me that he wanted to stop really quickly to get me a sweatshirt. I get out of the car. I follow him into his house, never questioning anything.

Caesar says triumphantly, "I knew you'd finally come home with me Melina, now if you'd only join me in New York."

Let's backtrack for a second. You'd think that I'd seen enough made for tv movies to know not to go into his house but I was drunk and I wanted to use his phone to get one of my friends to come pick me up. I was raised in a tiny town where everything was sunshine, happiness and rainbows. Where I went to college was pretty much like that too. Nothing negative ever crossed my mind. I was 21, and invincible. I brushed off his weird comments because my teeth were chattering and my tissue paper outfit was stuck to my body.
I decided that I didn't want to rely on him to get me home so I used his phone and got someone to come get me...except that I had to let Caesar give directions since I had no idea where we were. He made me tea and gave me a sweatshirt. I kept staring out the window waiting for my friend's car. A long time had passed. He told me to relax and sit on the couch (where he was sitting). I perched on the far cushion. He leaned in to kiss me, I quickly said something about a boyfriend and moved back to my place near the window. Caesar went to the bathroom and as soon as I heard the door shut,I bolted out the front door. I started to run down the street in the rain, stripping off his sweatshirt and leaving it in his driveway. I had a feeling he gave my friend wrong directions. After a few minutes, I saw my friend driving towards me. I waved like a maniac and she picked me up. He had given her strange directions. Being young and stupid I was able to shake that night off, but it could've gone a lot different (I know this).
Caesar stopped by my apartment a couple of times within the week before he had to leave, I never buzzed him in. I saw him at the bars, I ducked and went somewhere else or hid within a swarm of my friends. I saw him at the final and he thanked me for returning his sweatshirt and made other statements in front of our classmates that made it sound like I had spent the night at his apartment. Those last few days I was paranoid and scared out of my mind, I expected Caesar everywhere. He never did anything truly malicious or anything that I could point my finger and yell, "Freak." He just scared me. He always stared. He always smiled. And if I walked past him, he'd give me the countdown of days until he was leaving. Believe me, I knew.

The next year, he tried to chat me up at Homecoming. I put my friend/ex football player on bodyguard duty and I felt much more safe for the rest of the weekend. Perhaps I over-reacted? Perhaps not. So please don't comment about how stupid I was, or how lucky I was...I know. I learned that lesson. I can laugh about it now, because I can never really know if it was drunken paranoia or what. Thinking back, he seems more like a bastard who was just trying to scare the hell out of me.