How to tell a girl you're NOT stalking her?

[»ACP]

Ok, so today I got myself into an awkward situation (at least to me it felt like one), so I want to ask the social interactions experts on DGz, is there a good way to tell a girl that you're absolutely 100% definitely not stalking her?

 

Let me give you some backstory before you people think I'm a creep too. Basically, this is all about me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

So I go to university every day Monday through Thursday. Now rather than park on campus, I actually park way off campus and walk a couple of miles to class every day. You'll see how this is all relevant to the stalking situation in a second. Anyways, I do this for a few reasons. First of all, it saves me money semester by not having to pay to park on campus (yes, I'm quite stingy). Secondly, the supply of parking spaces on campus is way too damn low, so even if you do want to pay to park on campus, you have to drive around for 15+ minutes just to find a spot. Because of this, parking off campus and walking doesn't really take significantly more of your time. My walk takes roughly 20 minutes. And last, it's good exercise.

 

So anyways, I've been doing this for awhile. I always park in the same exact area, in the same exact spot, then cross a busy road to get to the border of campus, then walk to the center of campus to find the math building. I basically park outside some business that doesn't give a shit. I essentially found a way to cheat the system (by avoiding paying for parking) and obviously no one else who goes to my school knows about this or they'd be parking there too (unless they're just that fucking lazy and hate walking).

 

Today started like any other day. I parked in my usual spot, walked to class. I got out of class, then talked to a professor that I was going to be TAing for. After that was over, I left the math building, with the intention of making my usual, long 20 minute trek back to my car.

 

Now here's where things start to get awkward. There's this girl. She doesn't come out of the math building, but it's one of the nearby ones. She's walking in front of me and walking roughly in the same direction as me. But hey, there are lots of people on campus all walking around, so who cares, right? Neither of us even really notice the other at first.

 

We both walk past the library. She's still in front of me. We walk past the parking lot. She's still in front of me. We walk past the information center. She's still in front of me. At this point, we're on a less busy part of campus, 10 minutes have passed, and I'm still "following" her. But hey, at some point, she's got to be going somewhere else, because no one is crazy enough to park all the way off campus like I do, right?

 

Well no, apparently not. Eventually we both cross the street to get off campus. I guess she had the exact same idea as me, and we had parked in the exact same parking lot off campus. She was clearly freaked out, because from her perspective, it looked like I had followed her for 20 minutes to where she had parked off campus. She got to her car before I got to mine and drove off.

 

Now she never said anything to me this whole time and I never said a word to her this whole time. It seemed like anything that I could say would just make the situation only more awkward. She was also listening to music on her headphones, which made me even less inclined to say something to her, since people listening to music usually don't want to be bothered.

 

So in Florida, stalking is more or less defined as "following someone for an extended period of time" which I definitely did. In Florida, we also have a Stand Your Ground law, which says that anytime that you fear for your life, you have the right to shoot them with impunity. In other words, I basically legally gave this girl this right to kill me, which is kind of scary for me. But at the same time, she was probably scared as shit too. She's probably posting on tumblr right now about this being an example of problematic rape culture on college campuses or something. My only saving grace was that this all happened in broad daylight in a decent part of town. If I were a rapist, this would've been a terrible time to try something. So hopefully she realized that too, but most women have to be on their guard at all times, because there legitimately are a lot of shady characters out there; I just happen to not be one of them.

 

So tl;dr: I obviously didn't do anything wrong, but I feel like I did. To an outside observer, it certainly looks like I was attempting to follow this somewhat attractive girl for 20 minutes to where she was parked, in a parking lot where there were basically no other cars than hers and mine. So what am I supposed to do here? I basically got lucky that she didn't have mace in her purse or some shit, because I'm pretty sure at some point she would have considered using it. Getting her attention and saying, "btw I'm not a creeper" seems like exactly the type of thing that a creeper would say. In fact, trying to get within a few feet of her at all to say something is probably taking a big risk. Please post your suggested solutions below.

[thoroughly modern afgncaap 943]

Should have walked past her, thereby asserting dominance and demonstrably not following her.

 

Hindsight is 20/20 unfortunately but there's not really a way to tell someone you're not stalking the without it coming across as if you're totally stalking them

[+rei+]

dont talk to her just walk faster next time 

[buckwheatloaf 205]

i love all the little random info in here like that u come out of the math building in florida.. omg i almost stalked u to ur exact location already

 

was she really feeling followed if she was listening to music? the first thing i'd do if i thought if i was being followed is turn off my music and start having an internal panic attack. so i think you would've noticed something was up. unless she was pretending to act like nothing was up. regardless, if she thought she was being followed she would've turned off her music.

 

[»ACP]

4 minutes ago, buckwheatloaf said:

i love all the little random info in here like that u come out of the math building in florida.. omg i almost stalked u to ur exact location already

 

was she really feeling followed if she was listening to music? the first thing i'd do if i thought if i was being followed is turn off my music and start having an internal panic attack. so i think you would've noticed something was up. unless she was pretending to act like nothing was up. regardless, if she thought she was being followed she would've turned off her music.

 

Well I don't actually know if she was listening to music, because I obviously wasn't close enough to hear what was coming out of her headphones. But yeah, she was wearing a pair of beats headphones and never took them off, so I assumed that that was what she was doing. Maybe at some point she turned off the music but kept the headphones on so that she could pay more attention to her surroundings, idk.

[»ACP]

25 minutes ago, thoroughly modern afgncaap said:

Should have walked past her, thereby asserting dominance and demonstrably not following her.

 

Hindsight is 20/20 unfortunately but there's not really a way to tell someone you're not stalking the without it coming across as if you're totally stalking them

I thought about this, but it poses a theoretical problem in that you have to walk to the person in order to walk past them. What if she sees me quicken my pace and accelerate towards her general direction, and she falsely concludes that I am not trying to go past her but am trying to make a move at her so to speak?

[Ynusgridorh 142]

Does she always park her car there? If yes, write a note and put it on her windshield:

 

"See that Rolls Royce Phantom (or whatever car you have) over there? That's my car. I wasn't following you the other day. Sorry for freaking you out.

P.S. Do you already have plans for this week-end? (not sure about this part)"

[+Gojira]

She probably didn't even notice you

[Me. 59]

I would agree with the suggestions to just walk faster, but mostly because I naturally walk fast and thus completely prevent this type of situation to occur in the first place. From the perspective of someone walking closer to average speed, I guess it would depend on how fast she's walking and how far ahead of you she is. Although if it's a 20 minute walk you could probably just walk slightly faster than her and take 5 minutes to pass without alarming her. Or even just walk slower and let her disappear into the distance. But that's all assuming that the situation was even a problem in the first place, which I'm not sure of. The laws of your country does complicate the whole thing by a lot. If it wasn't for the part where you legally gave her the right to kill you, I see no reason to care.

[The_Be(a)sT 967]

 

7 minutes ago, Ynusgridorh said:

Does she always park her car there? If yes, write a note and put it on her windshield:

 

"See that Rolls Royce Phantom (or whatever car you have) over there? That's my car. I wasn't following you the other day. Sorry for freaking you out.

P.S. Do you already have plans for this week-end? (not sure about this part)"

And in case she doesn't park there, you can always go to the building she went out from, find her office or ask few question, eventually finding her adress. Then send a letter to her home, explaining how you never intended to stalk her and it was all but a misunderstanding. ye, and don't forget to enclose a dinner invitation, preferably with one of your sexy photos.

[Me. 59]

Or fuck it, you made a mistake and might as well start stalking her for reals now.

[The_Be(a)sT 967]

58 minutes ago, ACP said:

In other words, I basically legally gave this girl this right to kill me

Also, lol America. Is this real?

 

[thoroughly modern afgncaap 943]

23 minutes ago, ACP said:

I thought about this, but it poses a theoretical problem in that you have to walk to the person in order to walk past them. What if she sees me quicken my pace and accelerate towards her general direction, and she falsely concludes that I am not trying to go past her but am trying to make a move at her so to speak?

 

Unless she happens to be packing, as soon as you pass her you're not following her anymore, her fears are alleviated and no one was harmed. She probably didn't notice you / give you as much thought as you're thinking she did in the first place. People, as a whole, are pretty inclined to not give too much consideration to strangers. 

 

If she happened to see you attempting to pass her (which is fairly unlikely given you were behind her) you can pretty obviously give her a wide berth, and if you're really worried, just don't look at her. 

[»ACP]

6 minutes ago, The_Be(a)sT said:

Also, lol America. Is this real?

 

Mostly, yes. I mean look at the whole George Zimmerman fiasco. The dude got away with murder, mostly because the way that our laws are in Florida, he technically didn't commit murder. 

[Aaron 2002]

yeah walk past her.  I've had this scenario loads of time where I can just tell I'm walking in the same direction as someone. I either walk faster than them as I find it awkward or I cross the road.  If it was a university setting, I'd honestly have probably just started talking to the person infront of me.

 

Either way its not weird and you shouldn't be worried about it. I'm sure she just thought u were a bit creepy and didn't give a fuck, or didn't notice you and didn't give a fuck. 

 

Definitely don't bring it up with her out of the blue. if you want to flirt with her, make sure you're infront of her next time and turn around and ask are you stalking me? she will hopefully laugh about it if she isn't a bitch or totally creeped out by you. If you don't care about her, then just go about your business like normal. I'm going to assume you do somewhat fancy her though as a normal human being probably wouldn't give a fuck about the story you detailed in the first post unless they were somewhat intrigued by the individual.  

[»ACP]

I think some of you guys are somewhat confused about the details about what happened. I'll try to explain it better:

- I'm not interested in going out with this girl. I've intentionally been out of the dating world for about a year now, because I don't have the time in my life to commit to that sort of thing, but that's a completely different discussion.

- Pretty much every woman in their 20s that I talk to acts like men are trying to rape them all of the time, and you have to have eyes in the back of your head and be trained in 3 forms of martial arts to avoid it. Maybe women have just been grossly misleading me, but they act like all woman are on their guard 100% of the time when it comes to this stuff. So yeah, from what I've been told, it seems unlikely that she just didn't care about being walking behind her.

- There weren't a lot of good opportunities to walk past her and get a good distance away. In particular, there are lots of busy streets with crosswalks that I have to go through, and even if I did get ahead of here, it would only be a couple of minutes before I'm forced to stop and let her catch up.

[»ACP]

25 minutes ago, The_Be(a)sT said:

 

And in case she doesn't park there, you can always go to the building she went out from, find her office or ask few question, eventually finding her adress. Then send a letter to her home, explaining how you never intended to stalk her and it was all but a misunderstanding. ye, and don't forget to enclose a dinner invitation, preferably with one of your sexy photos.

[Me. 59]

15 minutes ago, ACP said:

- Pretty much every woman in their 20s that I talk to acts like men are trying to rape them all of the time, and you have to have eyes in the back of your head and be trained in 3 forms of martial arts to avoid it. Maybe women have just been grossly misleading me, but they act like all woman are on their guard 100% of the time when it comes to this stuff. So yeah, from what I've been told, it seems unlikely that she just didn't care about being walking behind her.

 

Is this serious? I thought it was just a small part of a small website on the internet called tumblr. Like, really? It's really a real thing?

[»ACP]

2 hours ago, Me. said:

 

Is this serious? I thought it was just a small part of a small website on the internet called tumblr. Like, really? It's really a real thing?

Yes, this is a thing. Kind in mind, most of my time interacting with women is spent on campus, and college campuses are very progressive. We have protests, rallies, and seminars all the time about how to stop rape culture and how to get white men to check their privilege on whatnot. Of course there are virtually no rapes that ever happen connected to our university activities, and statistically speaking a 20-something woman who's not in college is far more likely to get raped than one who is in college, but obviously that's completely irrelevant to them.

 

Also, and I'm sure you guys will think I'm making this up (but I swear it's true), the second floor of the math building is for some reason dedicated to gender studies, so unfortunately I'm subjected to this ass-backwards mentality a lot. There are only so many times that you can hear, "All men are rapists," while you're passing through the halls to go to a math class before you start to believe it yourself.

[+rei+]

48 minutes ago, The_Be(a)sT said:

Also, lol America. Is this real?

 

Ask Trayvon Martin.

 

 

Most important thing to remember is denial seems suspicious and to just get on with your life.

Also hey it's florida you could always just get a gun. CZ75 should be cheap, reliable, and solid for your uses defending yourself from girls you aren't stalking

[»ACP]

>Buy a gun to protect yourself from people who have guns that might try to protect themselves from you even though you're not doing anything wrong

 

Guns are expensive, plus you're not allowed to carry on campus anyways (I think Texas is the only state where you can carry on campus).

 

The best option that I could use for self defense that would not violate university policy would be mace or a pocket knife. 

[Me. 59]

7 minutes ago, ACP said:

Yes, this is a thing. Kind in mind, most of my time interacting with women is spent on campus, and college campuses are very progressive. We have protests, rallies, and seminars all the time about how to stop rape culture and how to get white men to check their privilege on whatnot. Of course there are virtually no rapes that ever happen connected to our university activities, and statistically speaking a 20-something women who's not in college is far more likely to get raped than one who is in college, but obviously that's completely irrelevant to them.

 

Also, and I'm sure you guys will think I'm making this up (but I swear it's true), the second floor of the math building is for some reason dedicated to gender studies, so unfortunately I'm subjected to this ass-backwards mentality a lot. There are only so many times that you can hear, "All men are rapists," while you're passing through the halls to go to a math class before you start to believe it yourself.

 

I do not believe "progressive" is the correct term here. We also have nothing of this at universities where I live, which I find interesting simply for the fact that I doubt the average college student will differ significantly in intelligence so there's something people over there are falling for that we aren't over here.

[Grimey 8112]

16 minutes ago, rei said:

Ask Trayvon Martin.

 

 

Most important thing to remember is denial seems suspicious and to just get on with your life.

Also hey it's florida you could always just get a gun. CZ75 should be cheap, reliable, and solid for your uses defending yourself from girls you aren't stalking

 

LMAO IM ACTUALLY CRYING 

 

This thread is fucking gold 

[»ACP]

4 minutes ago, Me. said:

 

I do not believe "progressive" is the correct term here. We also have nothing of this at universities where I live, which I find interesting simply for the fact that I doubt the average college student will differ significantly in intelligence so there's something people over there are falling for that we aren't over here.

Well, whatever you want to call it, colleges in general are super left-wing/feminist. Also, the vast majority of Americans are huge morons, and universities are no exception. Keep in mind, I'm a tutor for math classes, and I'm still teaching people my age how to add fractions.

 

Keep in mind, there was recently a huge uproar from university students around the country when the University of Chicago announced that they would not require their professors to have triggers warnings or safe spaces, and that they would not bar conservative speakers from going to their university (google it if you want to read more about this).

 

Basically, everyone in America is either a crazy racist like Trump or a crazy feminist like what I've described. Young people are just most likely to be the latter.

 

[+rei+]

this thread reminded me i want a gun.

 

Can't decide between a 22LR, 30-30, or 308

The bigger they get the more expensive they are but i dont need a new gun when moving from the range to the field