(This is not a polished piece of writing. This is just a recent update ladened with tense confusion and pronoun soup. Apologies. Also don’t mind the dates inserted, I needed to cross-check my memory with texts.)
This was something that has contributed to my inability to function lately, but up until yesterday was an ongoing situation and I hadn’t felt up to explaining it. Now it has come to a fairly permanent conclusion though there will be some aftermath.
The Beginning
A few months ago, a neighbor a few streets over started taking an interest in me. He seemed just a nice older French guy who was lonely and a bit odd. He spoke a bit of English and had spoken to my friends and I a few times. But then he started coming up and talking to me. At first just saying hello, saying hi to my dog (who did not like his bicycle), normal if not questionable stuff neighbors do.
Then he started showing up at my house.
His house is a few tiny French village streets south from my place, and his garden is a few streets north. My street is how you would most easily bike back and forth, with a tiny detour down my driveway. He began by bringing me vegetables from his garden (August 14). I was very confused but said thank you. See, neither of us speak the other’s language very well and when you are a foreigner it is drilled into you that you have to “INTEGRATE” and getting your French neighbors to like you ticks that box. So even though he spoke only slightly more English than I speak French which is not what I would call conversational – he did not listen to (or understand?) most things said to him – I was friendly because I was told to be friendly.
My friends assured me that while, yes, he maybe is being a weird old dude, he was just trying to be nice. And who am I to claim to know which old French people to be nice to? I yield to those with more experience.
At first it was once a week. Then two times the next week. After that there was a story of his internet being down (August 19) and he needed to email something. Okay. I let him in to use my laptop. Then it’s actually I need to use your word processor to make a flier and I need you to help me type it and then I need to send it.
He stayed in my house for 3 hours. I had to text my friends to come help me. It was very, very weird. But he’s old, and I’m supposed to INTEGRATE. My friends agree it was weird.
A time after that (Sept 3) it was “oops I have this bottle of champagne that’s open and I need help drinking it.
Escalation, Escalation, Escalation
Then he starts showing up nearly every day. He peers in my windows to see if I’m home. He shouts to my dog. He shows up at 8:00 in the morning. He shows up one day with storyboards drawn with me in them for something he wants to film. I kept checking with French people, just in case I was missing something culturally. Was this normal? For old dudes to just show up at your house and be like “hey I drew you in a storyboard, come be in a thing I’m filming”? I was told I was correct to be confused. It was weird. He was just eccentric.
At this point, I’m so far down a PTSD spiral I can’t pee from anxiety. I keep explaining I can’t do these things with him, am as dismissive as possible, but it does nothing to dissuade him from pestering me near every day. I find out my (nice) next door neighbor has asked my friends if something is wrong (Sept 11) because this dude is showing up outside my house every day.
My friend comes with me to my next door neighbors, and explain what’s happening. The wife says she thinks he’s a creeper. The husband volunteers to talk to him and tell him to stop showing up at my house at all hours. As soon as we leave my neighbors’ house, here the dude come strolling up towards us. My friend and next door neighbor send me inside and confront him, telling him he needs to stop coming to my house at all hours and that I’m sick (never a lie, in so many ways) and need to be left alone.
This does pretty much nothing. He lurks around and waits for me to leave to take my dog for a walk. He keeps trying to get me to go do things with him. I try desperately just to keep walking. If I weren’t a stalking victim, if this guy understood proper English, AND if I weren’t just a visitor in this country, it would have been easier to deal with. Unfortunately I’m at multiple disadvantages to diffusing culturally confusing but potentially dangerous situations.
Then one day outside speaking with friends, he pops up and ambushes me about why I’m not talking to him. My friend eventually gets between us and again tries to explain he needs to leave me alone. He meanders off after waving.
And then, silence. Whole days of it. I’m still so freaked out I can’t think straight, have completely stopped walking up and down my own street, and am keeping my windows closed despite loving the fresh air. But it seems he may have finally taken the hint.
Then I go to get my mail one day. He has started leaving notes (Sept 21). My mailbox is next to my front door. He is not heeding warnings to stop showing up at my house.
I ignore the notes.
He starts leaving gifts of things like food (Oct 11) with more notes.
I’m scrambling to find a therapist because I am so regressed on any mental healing progress from previous issues that I am contemplating leaving the country.
My friends keep saying things like he’s just a well-meaning guy. He’s just lonely. There’s just a communication issue. Then we find out his dad was in hospital this summer. Then soon after we find out his dad died at the end of August. This becomes the excuse for his behaviour, and no one really takes it seriously.
I continue hiding, avoiding, and generally feel sick all the time. If I hear what sounds like a bicycle on the street, I dive out of my seat like someone threw a grenade. Every time my dog needs to pee, I’m anxious for her to quickly run back into the house. I’m taking multiple flights of stairs to get to the train despite my asthma and leg/spine issues just to avoid walking past his property.
I am not having fun. My birthday is not fun. Halloween is not fun.
The End
Yesterday, my next door neighbor jogs out of the cafe to stop me in the street while I am walking my dog to tell me that the guy has killed himself. Finger-gun to the head to emphasize his broken English. I don’t know if this means he blew his brains out with a gun or that was just the easiest mime to explain suicide. I have nothing really to say except “oh my god” and then head to my friends house a street over to tell them.
The friend is equally surprised, and they tell me how they just spoke with him a few days ago and he “asked how I was” and “if I was still walking my dog” to which they cheerily replied all about me walking my dog because they still considered him non-threatening and are also under a need to INTEGRATE in the village and a dude known for pestering me asking about when and where I’m spending my time outside the house didn’t seem like a red flag because they are not stalking victims. This timing also matches the last note he left.
My reactions so far are “huh.” and “why does this shit follow me around?” and “I hope his cat is okay.”
You have to be really sick to leave your cat.
Luckily I’m not so egotistical as to assume my resistance to a relationship with a man who peers in women’s windows and consistently ignores boundaries spelled out in multiple languages by multiple people is the reason this dude died. He must have really liked his dad (who had to have been like… 90 years old?) and did not have a proper support system. It’s unfortunate that he ended his life, and it’s fortunate that he didn’t hurt anyone else given how unstable he was, especially if he had access to a gun.
I think I’m still stuck in “why does this shit follow me around?” It will take some time for me to undo the hyper-vigilance habits and wait for my brain chemicals to settle. On top of my last post, you can see why I’m struggling. Plus this is a small village, and who knows what the heck new info is going to turn up. As I’m writing this, I’m getting texts confirming the news and I’m sure I’m going to hear more about it.
Death Season continues to Death.
